Page 128 - February 2017

After a horse has
been stalled for a period of time, their feet may be out of balance. Rebalancing the hoof for a healthy bare foot may take 6-8 months of smoothing and rounding of the hoof in the right direction since you want to take very little off at a time.
and toughen the feet, they could get by longer without shoes,” he says.
Moisture is a big issue with horses’ feet, especially when they are continually alternat- ing between wet and dry conditions. Dewy pastures in the morning and dry conditions the rest of the day can keep feet alternately wet and dry, much like bathing a horse. “Water is a big detriment, especially the continual baths these horses get when considering how much mois- ture these feet have to overcome. This is why
a lot of feet start falling apart. The feet absorb moisture like a sponge and become soft and then they dry out and get harder. The constant changes result in cracking.” The outer layer of the hoof wall becomes brittle and cracked like chapped hands after they are continually in and out of water.
“When the wall starts to crack, there goes the support. The inner structures of the foot keep moving, but if the wall can’t be resilient and move along with it and can’t handle it, things start to fall apart. So, we put shoes on that cracking foot and slam nails into that weakened wall and get worse problems! It’s a vicious cycle,” says Norman.
“Today, a good 2 year old can make a mil- lion dollars, so everyone is in a hurry to get these young horses racing. They might do fine for a little while, but the rapid pace of training and racing often leads to breakdowns. Some of them just fly apart. You can prepare a horse mentally at a young age for racing and have him run his fastest, but his body may not be able to handle it,” he says.
For hoof strength, Steve Norman feels the important thing is to try and maintain the horses feet by leaving the horse barefoot as long as possible while starting a racing career and
trying to keep that bare foot at proper balance. “Sometimes you have to smooth it up as often as every two weeks to keep that foot the way you want it. It will slowly start distorting, espe- cially the more feed you put into these horses and the faster you run them in training as they get more fit. The foot will start to distort once it starts growing more hoof, so a trimming
Moisture is a big issue with horse’s feet, especially when they are continually alternating between wet and dry conditions.
every two to three weeks might be more benefi- cial than waiting four to six weeks.”
It’s not what you take off that’s important, it’s what you don’t take off. You are simply trying to shape it or keep its shape rather than actually trim it. When you trim a foot that doesn’t need it, that horse will get sore. You’ve taken off too much, and it might just be one swipe too much with the rasp.” You walk
a fine line on keeping the foot strong and healthy and barefoot.
“Often, all it takes is regular foot han- dling and picking out the feet. It’s amazingly simple to keep these feet taken care of, but
it doesn’t always happen. Many broodmares have mud and debris packed into the foot
to the point they are lame. I’ve had people call me and tell me to come take care of an abscess, and when we drive out to the farm and look at that mare and pick all those hard balls out of the foot (that put so much pres- sure on the sole), the horse walks off sound! It’s like a person having a rock in their shoe, but they won’t take it out. It’s frustrating how many people don’t clean out their horses feet! To maintain the integrity of the feet, you have to monitor and maintain them.”
Steve Norman shoes for one client who takes young horses to Florida in the spring
and starts to ride them in the fall and break them. “Then he brings them to Kentucky in late March to really start winding them up to run in April in their first 2-year-old race. Some of these horses have never been trimmed the whole winter, but their feet have plenty of dead material just like a wild horse. These horses just wear that extra hoof off or maybe break some of the dead toe off and are still sound. There’s such a callous on that foot that they don’t get tender,” says Norman.
“This client usually has 20 to 30 of these young horses come in like that. The only unfortunate thing is that the trainer wants to put shoes on them here because they are get- ting close to racing, but it takes about three shoeings to get that foot where it belongs
just because it’s become so distorted with untrimmed dead hoof material. If someone had simply trimmed them once a month they would have a lot better foot! They’d have
the proper shape, and they already have the toughness from going barefoot.”
The reason some horses haven’t been trimmed is because the horse may not have had their feet handled. “Those trainers break them to ride, but they don’t break them to stand or have someone pick up a foot. A lot of times, we have to tranquilize those horses to trim them. They are fit, ready to run and have already been out of the starting gate a few times, yet we have to tranquilize them to handle their feet.”
us on
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EQUINE HEALTH