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A good farrier should be mindful of the horse’s needs and the owner’s expectations, and therefore, I continuously work to provide any kind of high quality work from successful barefoot to high fidelity performance and advanced therapeutics.
I really started focusing on therapeutic applications above and beyond the standard bar shoes and wedge pads in around 2005 when I decided I wanted to be able to efficiently apply any device prescribed for the benefit of my client’s horses. To do that, I needed to identify the tools, procedures, inventory and skills to build these specialized horseshoes as well as the protocols that indicate their use.
I call this the Silver Bullet Project as sort of a tongue in cheek nod to the farrier industry term commonly given to this class of top level mostly aluminum applications including Sigafoos glue ons, roller motion mechanics, wedged palmar support, rail shoes, etc. A name was needed because the inventory and preparation needed to be able to whip out these incredibly time consuming and precision dependent shoes requires a whole new level of organization to maintain the expensive inventory and advanced (as in ahead of time) work needed.
As important as anything in the overall strategy for success through soundness is full documentation of the cases. I keep full records (including written, pictures and video) of changes in mechanics and soundness and any other important information. This is where the real lessons are learned.
Hand made horseshoes are often used for advanced cases because it allows for complete control, and because there are often no suitable pre-manufactured horseshoes available. There is a steep and time consuming learning curve, but a skillfully forged shoe can be made for any need. Compromises are not necessary because components can be adjusted exactly as needed and at any time. Inventory is greatly reduced from dozens of different types multiplied by many different sizes of horseshoes to a few bars of steel and aluminum and some fine forging tools. Investment changes from money into hundreds of generic keg shoes to time and consideration toward the specific performance or therapeutic application.
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Easy Walker shoes
Using these shoes is something new for me. They are supposed to reduce concussion more than steel and flex with the hoof. The owner is a former “barefoot” person and her horse wouldn’t stay sound. She tried various hoof boots; tired of that, wanted to try these.
Shoeing the eventer hind.
Using Kerckhaert sx8 hinds, this horse is all set up to work on the roads with those drive in studs or on the grass using the drilled and tapped holes to place caulks. I know it seems that I have trailers on all my hinds if you look around at this site, but I swear [...]
Using equicast for simple soundness
The few horses I have that just won’t hold a shoe when they get sore have been casted with excellent success.
These horses have been through the therapeutic wringer, so to speak. It is typical for previous farriers (and myself) to have thrown up our hands after a long row of veterinary prescribed glue [...]
Grand Prix dressage quarter crack
This horse was competing at Grand Prix level at the time it was presented at the Paxton Farm Cincinnati CDI*** This is a typical ‘lateral lander’ as I call it, which means the horse tends to land on the lateral side of it’s hoof and then compresses the medial side, causing a quarter crack. Upper [...]
A mess
I have no idea what this horse did, but we got it cleaned up.
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Kentucky Horseshoeing school Therapeutic Module 2. George Platt, DVM
You may want to read the introduction article here.
George Platt, DVM with the late farrier, Bernie Chapman, re-pioneered the use of the heart bar.
This module largely covers the use of palmar support and in the case of laminitis, the contributing occasional use of dorsal resections to affect hoof health [...]
Kentucky Horseshoeing School Therapeutic Module 1. Rood and Riddle.
You may want to read the introduction article here.
Dr. Scott Morrison of Rood and Riddle and staff.
Presentation: Heel pain. Club feet, laminitis (and their similarities). Low (compressed) heels. Quarter cracks. Keratoma. Infections. Foal and mature limb deviations.
Some of the notes are:
Heel pain:
High heels:
Poor [...]
Therapeutic modules at Kentucky Horseshoeing School
This week I will bring to you a clinic series I participated in back in July 2007.
Thank you Mitch Taylor and the Kentucky Horseshoeing School staff for the best therapeutic hoof care clinic I have participated in. This is exactly what I wanted out of a clinic at that time. Actually, I haven’t seen [...]
Lateral support
Studies show that properly applied lateral support can greatly reduce the need for hock injections.
Casting hooves
Casting hooves can be a great idea in certain situations. This horse is unable to hold shoes. I would almost say he seems allergic to them. The previous farrier tried all the tricks to keep them on, then I tried a few before we just pulled the shoes and kept him barefoot. The problem with [...]
Aluminum wedge shoe with palmar support
This is an aluminum wedge shoe with an aluminum plate welded in and an additional plastic wedge applied. This is done in conjunction with the veterinarian’s radiographs to determine precise angles and break-over position. This horse competes to the I-2 level in dressage, but has had some soundness problems and is now (knock on wood) [...]
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