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The Hoof as Mediator
Part I
An imaginary starting place

If there are no alignment issues in the horse - no bones out of place, no muscles knotted up and pulling legs into the wrong movements, then theoretically, there would be a perfect hoof at the bottom of the horse's leg. 

Conceptually, you have a stack of things which contact the ground in such a way that the forces are equally distributed.

I'm going to use a cylinder to represent the leg.  Sections on the cylinder represent the different bones in the leg.  (I'm going to use the front leg because it's somewhat straighter.)   So here's the hoof capsule, short pastern, long pastern, and cannon bone stacked up like discs in a cylinder.  The circles are the joints.  Ideally, everywhere the circles connect with each other, there is even pressure or contact.  All around the bottom circle, which represents the hoof making contact with the ground, there is even pressure/contact.  From the front it's a stack of discs evenly contacting each other.  The force up from the ground is even all the way around the cylinder.  The force down from the horse is even all the way around the cylinder.

 

What if the hoof is angled different from the rest of the joints?

Bearing in mind this is theoretical, what would happen if the farrier (accidentally, of course) trimmed a little too much off of one side? Or conversely left a little too much. 

For example, let's say the inside of the toe of the horse's left fore-foot is 'shorter' than the outside of the toe.  Looking at the stacks from the front of the horse, you would have some thing initially like this:

The darker area in the left picture indicates more contact force with the ground.  You can think of the horse as pushing into the ground more or the ground pushing into the horse more.  On the right side is the leg 'suspended from above' before it makes contact with the ground.  The low and high areas on the right show that the hoof is high/short on one side and not making contact with the ground and low/long on the other side and that side is closer to the ground.

When the foot lands, the outside heel hits first, and the contact travels across the foot (and up the leg) diagonally until the horse's inside toe makes contact.

If you just look at in terms of sections that are stacked, you can see that the entire column is going to be affected because the support that is needed on the inside toe of the right fore foot is not there.  Everything above it in the column is 'hanging in space' and is unsupported.  When the horse goes to put its weight down, the ground will not be there for it on the inside at the same time as it is on the outside.  The outside heel of the hoof will connect with the ground first.  Everything in front of that will start to wobble sideways until it falls onto the inside toe.

The horse will do what it can to compensate by changing it's way of going; however, there is still this imbalance because the bottom 'disc' is the wrong shape and cannot provide equal support as long as it's the wrong shape.  

So what happens when something hits the ground harder by itself without the support of the rest of the foot?  I'm thinking it smooshes together.  It compresses.   And what about the stuff that's flailing around out in space?  

It has been my observation that what will happen will be that the side that hits first will compress and the side that's left dangling will 'stretch' to fill in the space.  This happens in the foot and in the leg.  The hoof 'rings' start to slant and in the leg there will be concussion problems where the foot hits first and sprain type problems where there is no support.  But the basic point is, this isn't so good.

On one side you have bones running into each other and on the other side you have tendons and muscles trying to hold things together on their own.  As muscles are overworked, they will develop knots.  As tendons are overworked, they will lose elasticity.  The small imbalance that started at the bottom of the foot will travel up the column of the leg, unbalancing all the joints in that leg and, eventually, even the horse as that leg can no longer function as well as the others.

What I have seen is that the column and the elements of the column shift in order to compensate.  With my horse, the leg swung inward, toeing in - I imagine because that's the most stable configuration, but then the bones start trading places inside and outside of the plumb line.  The knee turned outward.

I found that she wanted to stand on the compressed area, too.  Maybe because it felt the most reliable?  

How does this get better?

If the hoof could magically grow back in in like half an hour, then I imagine there wouldn't be big problems with this (unless the horse immediately ran out and started bucking up a storm.)  Unfortunately, hooves take a while to grow back in.  

Let's say this is only 'off' by 1/8 of an inch and hooves grow about 1/4 of an inch a month.  Theoretically, in two weeks the hoof would have re-grown.  But,  has it caught up with the other side?   Keep in mind, the other side has been growing, too!  

If the horse is barefoot and travels over 'rough terrain' that can serve as an Emory board, the longer bits will have been wearing off because they're contacting the ground more so than the shorter, floating bits.  So the short side is growing unopposed 'as fast as it can' and the long side is growing as well but getting worn down.  Will they meet in the middle -- the short side growing down to the ground and the long side getting rasped off to the same level, by the end of two weeks?  I can't really say.  There is the possibility at some point that they will.  During that time, however, the horse's body has made adaptations to the unevenness.

The muscles have compensated.  Tendons have compensated.  The way the horse's moves is now different.

What about the horse that is in shoes?  There is no way for the long side of the hoof to 'rasp down.'  Although it will lengthen more slowly and be more compressed.  What then?  Their only option is to start moving differently to prevent damaging wear and tear.

What if the hoof is a teeter totter?

When my horses started having problems, I 'hit the books.'  I came across this curious disease:  "Right-handed disease."  You may be thinking, "but horses don't have hands"  Which is true.  Farriers do.

Apparently, this was easier to find on the internet back then!  Here's what I was able to find now:

Heather Smith:
Right-handed farriers tend to leave the outside of the toe and inside of the heel on the right front foot a little long. The foot becomes unbalanced over time ... It is so common it is nicknamed right front foot disease or right-handed shoer's disease.

So if a farrier does this, then what?  You have two vertical lines of compression -- outside toe and inside heel, and two lines lacking support -- inside toe and outside heel.  The foot is essentially a teeter totter and the leg is... rather unstable.  

When the foot lands, it breaks diagonally rather than forward, and also not smoothly.  This alters the horses way of going, which alters the way the muscles and the hoof grow.

What about chips and nicks and stuff?

I am inclined to think small things like that matter but aren't as damaging as the hoof being unleveled - either as a plane that is no longer parallel to the rest of the joints in the leg or as a teeter totter.  The unleveled hoof, especially if it's kept that way over time, is fairly devastating. 

You try it

Find a shoe with a wedge - like a wedge shoe or a running shoe.  Rather than slip your hand into it, hold it so that the heel is to the outside.  On all fours, 'walk' forward and notice how you instinctively toe in and roll out.  Now try it holding the heel to the inside.  On all fours, 'walk' forward and notice how it's almost impossible!

For the next part, you need something that rocks but along an edge.  I used the bottom of the kids' play toy where they stack the rings.  Play with this putting the 'flat' area diagonally under your hand and notice how this interferes with your ability to 'walk' on all fours. 

The net 

If by accident the horse's feet are not trimmed level, there are columns of compression and columns of suspension ...  too much 'support' and no support.  While this starts in the foot, it travels up the leg into the horse.  

The only way the horse can correct this is to modify it's patterns of movement while the hoof grows.  

The hoof growth may or may not happen quick enough to mitigate changes in movement.  

 

 

 

My next theoretical: 

What if the leg, due to muscle injury, no longer travels directly under the horse?

 

 

Copyright © 05/04/15 Lynn S. Larson
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