Satori Center

Curiously, or maybe not so curiously, when there is a long toe, there is often an underslung heel with it.   

I know this because after staying with the same farrier for fifteen years, all my horses had this problem.

The theory is that as the toe becomes long, it leverages further and further away from the pedal bone, stretching the lamina, distorting the hoof wall, and pulling the heels forward with it.  (the article from which I got this photo has a pretty good description of this)  

This results in a lot of pain for the horse.

After 'divorcing' my farrier of fifteen years, the next guys in line were given the task of remedying his handiwork.  After I went through a few other folks and saw no improvement I figured I couldn't do any worse and struck out on my own.  (Yes, that was terrifying!)  

One fellow felt that the answer was to rasp away the heel.  It didn't work.  I have puzzled over this for a while.  And I'm kind of still puzzling over it, but I think maybe I've figured it out.

What I do know is that while that didn't work, what did work was to continue to push back the long toe as it grew out and to change the angle ever so slightly.  In other words, leave the heel alone.   

photo credit

Rasping off the long toe makes immediate sense, as this ends the pain pushing into the coronet band and the disfigurement of the hoof wall -- so whether it's a question of doing some with the heel or doing something with the angle, getting rid of the toe is an immediate winner. 

(the original photos come from the start of what looks like it would've been an excellent article about various hoof types including the long toe/underslung heel at http://www.hoovesandhorses.com/8HoofTypes.html )

The idea behind taking off more heel was that the heel had become malformed and it was painful to walk on that way.  By removing the malformed growth, space was left for the heel to grow in.  

Of course, the million dollar question is, why doesn't that work?

My guess is that the horse's musculature wants to maintain the shape of the leg and the same angle in the pasterns and this pushes the weight even more onto the heels, creating an even greater misalignment.  Part of this may be due to the 'desire,' if you will, for the horse's system to do whatever it can to land heel first.  In a way this pulls the toe away from the bone even more so because there is even more toe to travel up and over.  There's more to trip over, if you will.   And, yes, I did see more straining on the back sides of the horses' legs when this was implemented.

ie hoped for	v. what really happens

But if you change the angle of the entire sole, this takes the weight off of the heel, restores the angles of the bones somewhat, because the musculature of the leg wants to maintain the shape of the leg, and allows the hoof wall to experience the correct feedback from the ground.  

My experience is that eventually there is enough heel and you can start to trim out the underslung aspects.  

Eventually the hoof capsule returns back to where it belongs.

ie changing the front	compared to the ideal

What is perplexing is that on the outside, it seems like this is 'the same difference.'  All I can say is that how it pans out, it is not 'the same difference.'  One approach works, and the other doesn't.