This is for a horse that has been diagnosed with navicular syndrome. I like to think of navicular syndrome as similar to carpal tunnel syndrome in humans. Its not cool.
I’m not going to go into detail here about the pathology or the mechanical options farriers have here other than to say that this is a nebulous subject. My experience with this problem is that it is not static. In other words, the problem and the solution seems to change in waves. Sometimes I think that any change can make a horse happier for a time. I think this follows the way I believe this disease works.
In this case, there is a fairly long history of varying attempts.
What you see here is our current attempt as a collaboration of a veterinarian (with special consultants), the owner, a trainer and the farrier (me).
We are doing the typical strategy of raising the angle, using frog support and bringing break over back (rocker toe). The straight bar is to balance the algebra a bit. It allows us to bring the support back since we are bringing the breakover back.
Using these pads is fairly easy, but it is a bit fussy trying to get it to cooperate with the rocker toe. I had to whack it around a bit more than I liked to get it exactly the way I wanted it. It really does need to be exact in an application like this because as well as this does work, it can be very dangerous if applied incorrectly. This is a job for some well educated guessing, but no room for error in application.
I’m so thankful that we have such useful products and technology these days. I certainly remember when our only option was a completely hand forged and fabricated shoe. Hell, even that shoe in the link is a modern feat that I could really ramble on about.
PS
I have years of content… I’ve been spending the last few days going through just a tiny bit of it and organizing it so I can start editing. I’m so lucky to have such awesome cameras and computers running the best software available. I have a lot to say about all that, and so I will, as the process continues.
As of tonight, I feel like I can really get into finally starting to edit it and make something of it. Editing this post from the video I have is already a couple of hours worth of work and the video needs tons more, but I think I’m on to an interesting editing process that might actually work for me.
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