I am including a case studies section to help the general public as well as all my trimming students that either come to me for the Horse Owners trim training sessions, or the Professional training program. I hope these cases will be of help to anyone dealing with hoof capsule deformities, they are based on fine tuning the hoof balance to achieve optimal hoof mechanism.

* Please note, this is not intended to replace proper hands on and theoretical training! If you are an amateur, get some hands on help, proper trimming takes a lot of practice and training.

Conformation Issues - Toeing In

Duckie QH Gelding

Duckie is a QH gelding which started in my care in 2006. He is a pleasure horse and is ridden steadily all over the countryside, he negotiates a fair and diverse amount of terrain on a regular basis. I don't think Duckie ever had soundness issues and I am not sure if he had ever been shod prior to my working on him. When I came to see him, I noted that he did have some conformation issues in the front end which caused his hooves to "toe in".

In this first frontal shot of him you can see what I mean by looking at his legs all the way down to his hooves. This shot was taken in May 2006 after having only one or two trims from me, this was taken prior to his trim that day.

Duckie May 2006

Duckie's knees are set slightly inwards and his canon bones twist inwards as well. Also his pasterns are not straight from the fetlock joints into the hoof capsule.

Have a look at Duckie's front feet the day of his first trim prior to the trim of course. You can see how his pasterns don't come out of this fetlocks straight, they point outwards and his hooves point inwards.

Duckie March 2006

Duckie had pretty high heels and some contraction as seen in the heel bulbs in the photo on the left. On the left the shot was taken prior to Duckie's first trim in March 2006 and the photo on the right was taken after his trim in September 2006. Both shots are of his left front hoof. As a result of trimming his heels to a proper height and bringing them back towards the heel bulbs, his heels have de-contracted quite a bit between March and September. I never take much sole off this horse as he is usually ridden on all kinds of terrain barefoot and without boots. Click on photo for larger view.

I basically spent two years trimming and balancing Duckie's hooves to the live sole plane and "tweaking" my bevel in his inner toe area every 5 weeks. For the first year or so, when I would come back to Duckie, his feet would be somewhat turned in again and I would fix the balance issues yet again. It wasn't until early this year that he stopped doing that, he remained pretty straight even if we were late for the trim by a week or so. I thought this was pretty interesting since Duckie is not a young horse that we can "mould" easily. I apologize for the sporadic photos but here are photos of before and after his trim in August 2008.

Here are photos of Duckie's left front and right front hoof before and after the trim. While Duckie still has conformational issues, his hooves remain pretty balanced, not perfect but good. When I come back to trim him, he is always a bit flared on the outsides of all hooves and his walls are a bit longer in the inner toe area. This is basically something we live with as practitioners, these slight imbalances are a result of the way this horse moves, he doesn't wear the outer wall nor the inner toe wall as much as other parts of the hoof, but the horse is sound and has no issues due to the slight conformational flaws. He also displays good locomotion and heel first landing as you can see before the trim that his heel to toe wear is very even. Click on photos for larger view.

I am waiting on a recent full frontal photo of Duckie's legs and hooves to compare to the one from 2006, I will post it when I have a chance!