ARTICLES

 HOOF DISTORTION THAT CAN CAUSE PAIN

Over the last thousand years we seem to have lost the ability to care for our horses hooves.
 Healthy, well-developed hooves reflect in the overall health of the horse.
 Xenophon, in the 4th century B.C. wrote detailed instructions on how to care for the natural hoof. This knowledge now needs to be re-learnt in order to help our horses be the best that they can be.
 Most of us have no idea that the hoof when cared for in a certain way, becomes so strong and durable that it is capable of the greatest of equine feats.
 History has recorded some of these feats performed by horses with natural, unshod hooves.
 Alexander the Great conquered Europe with an army of unshod horses.
 Ancient Hittite Chariot horses trained for six months covering distances of 7600 kilometer’s without needing to be shod.
 Turkmen raiders rode horses that were capable of carrying loot and prisoners 1000 kilometer’s in 5 days through the desert, barefoot.
 These are only a few examples of the awesome capabilities of the Natural Hoof.
 

Unfortunately things changed for the horse with the advent of the Medieval Era. Horses where taken from the field and stabled in the castles and forts. Limiting the horses movement in this way as well as having to stand on urine soaked bedding caused rapid deterioration of the horses hooves.
 Attaching a metal rim to the now brittle unhealthy hoof became necessary.
 Of course only the wealthy could afford to shoe their horses and so shoeing became a status symbol.
 This mentality lingers on in our subconscious today.
 The horse is generally no longer a tool for war, farming or transport but has become a companion, more for pleasure than toil and as such most of us want to care for our equine friend as best we can.
 
 It is obvious from history that reducing a horse’s movement causes deterioration in the hooves.
 Horses are creatures of movement. Wild horses cover great distances daily in search of food. With this movement their feet get a certain amount of wear that keeps each hoof balanced and healthy.

With well-balanced, healthy hooves the horse’s entire health benefits. Part of the reason for this is because the hooves are the base of the horse. If the base is unbalanced, the horse has to compensate throughout the rest of his body. Muscle, tendons, ligaments come under strain. The horse can also develop joint adaptations. All these changes can be so minor that most of us are unaware of them, but add a saddle and the weight of a rider, with their own possible imbalances and the horse has a very difficult time moving correctly. Little wonder so many horses have back, shoulder and hindquarter pain.
 Most of this pain can be addressed by simply balancing the hooves.
 
 When a horse is unshod and Naturally Trimmed the hoof is in direct contact with the ground.
 Each hoof is getting a continual amount of wear. If the rate of growth is more than the amount of wear, the hooves get trimmed. This way the hoof spends most of its time in a balanced state.
 It is due to this balance that the horse is able to stand and move without unnecessary strain to the rest of its body. As a ‘transitioning’ horse regains its natural balance, muscles and joints can re-adapt to a healthier alignment.

 Hoof pain

A horse with hoof pain cannot move at its full potential.
 Even standing can be uncomfortable; this is when muscles and tendons, ligaments, joints and cartilage’s begin to get traumatised.

So you want your horse to have pain free hooves, what do you need to do?

First start with a physiologically correct trim.
 Decades of study by experts in hoof anatomy and function have culminated in the realization that the way a wild horse wears its feet with continual movement develops healthy hooves that are rarely seen in the domestic horse.
 This is not genetics but the environment that has developed the health of the wild horses hooves.
 Most domestic horses have their movement limited by their environment and don’t get the kind of daily mileage that a wild horse gets in its search for food.
 Fortunately the majority of horses in this country live in a paddock and are not as severely restricted as the stabled and yarded horses in Europe and America.
 Even so, the combination of the small size of most paddocks and the fact that in most areas the ground is very soft with no hard abrasive, hoof-wearing surface, causes the hooves on our horses to grow more than they wear.
 By trimming a domestic horses hooves to mimic the way they would wear naturally in the wild a domestic horse can be given balance at hoof level, freedom from pain due to excess hoof horn and regain full hoof function and mechanism that has a profound positive effect on the horses physical, emotional and even social well-being.
 
 Key factors that have come to light with this research is that a horse with a low heeled (not under slung) short toed hoof has a coffin bone that is sitting snugly inside the hoof capsule at the correct angle to the ground, enabling the bones above the coffin bone to be in the best alignment.
 No part of the horses system is under unnatural stress and the horse can move with grace and power as nature intended.

So what can cause hoof pain?

 When the heels get too high or under slung (a high heel that has been crushed under the horse by the horses weight) it causes changes to the internal structures of the hoof. Sensitive tissue is crushed and blood supply can be constricted, bones, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, corium’s, nerves and blood vessels are damaged.
 
 Pain begins.
 
 Bars that are overgrown and excessively weight bearing can push back up inside the hoof capsule again crushing and damaging sensitive tissue. This is a cause of Navicular Syndrome.
 
 Hoof wall that is allowed to get too long begins to split and can pull and tear at the laminae causing pain at each stride. Long toe wall will drag the heels under the horse causing the under slung heels that are so common in New Zealand.
 
 A frog that is left to grow too tall can be one reason for an unshod horse being sore on gravel.
 The rear portion of a healthy frog will be the same level as the heel buttresses in a healthily low-heeled hoof and it will taper to sole level at the apex of the frog.
 At the other end of the scale frogs that are getting eaten away by Fungus or Thrush can become sensitive and cause a horse to be uncomfortable.
 

Contraction

 When the rear part of the hoof distorts and becomes contracted the hoof cannot function the way nature designed it to.
 With the squeezing together of the heels the toe generally starts to elongate and instead of a round shape like you see in a healthy front hoof, the horse has an oval egg shaped hoof.
 The distance between the apex/point of the frog and the toe wall gets longer, causing the point of breakover to be lengthened.
 The horse now has to use extra lift to get the limbs lifted up over the long stretched toe as well heel pain from the contracted heels squashing sensitive internal structures with each stride.
 Little wonder the horse begins to lose its movement.
 
 The hoof does have a remarkable ability not only distort when unnatural pressures are placed on it, but also to remodel back to a healthier configuration with gradual, careful trimming, time and the all important, movement.

Before the lameness shows

 In the early stages of hoof pain the horse is not noticeably lame.
 Horses are extremely generous and forgiving creatures that will endure surprising levels of discomfort in order to submit to their 2-legged leaders without complaint.
 For damage and pain to manifest in lameness the cause of the damage has probably been present for a long time.
 Compensations will have been made throughout the body first.
 A horse with hoof pain has probably had back, shoulder or hindquarter pain from standing and moving in a less than optimum way.
 Consider a 600 kg horse. If the forelegs share approximately 60% of the horses body weight and the hind legs 40%, as is generally believed. This would mean that each front hoof supports 180 kg of weight with the hind feet carrying 120 kg each. Keep in mind that this is when the horse is standing still.
 As soon as the horse begins to move not all of the feet are on the ground at the same time. In some paces there is only one hoof on the ground at any one time. The amount of force going through a horses hoof multiplies. The greater the acceleration, the higher the forces. At the gallop each hoof may have to withstand forces equaling 1000 kg of weight.
 These calculations are without the weight of the rider.
 
 It makes sense then that the health and balance of each individual hoof needs to be very exact for the horse to function at its best without causing damage to itself.
 
 When damage goes undetected and the integrity of the hoof continues to be compromised there can come a time when some horses will say ‘enough is enough’ and the previously vice free horse will start to buck or get nappy, bite, kick, rear, not want to go forward, begin refusing to jump, not want to be caught, or even become ‘lazy’
 Then of course there is the horse that is just a bit off, or bridal lame. Works well most of the time but has moments of inconsistency, that classic dressage word, irregular.
 
 Most of the time with all of these scenarios you have a horse that has an excess of hoof horn in one or more areas that is causing pain, damage and/or hoof distortion.
 If left the horse will only get worse and continue on the downward spiral of lameness to an early retirement or an early death.
 

Hoof dressings.

 Most Natural Hoof Care advocates promote water, as the only hoof dressing that is necessary to develop a healthy hoof.
 The different types of hoof horn all have varying levels of moisture content. Because constant evaporation is taking place all the time moisture needs to be replaced.
 Usually something that only needs to be considered in the height of summer here.
 One study on hoof cracks had a group of 10 riders and their horse’s trying to determine the effects of water and hoof dressings on hoof horn quality.
 Divided into two groups, 5 of the horses had hoof dressings applied regularly to their hooves. The other 5 horses had their hooves cleaned and at least once daily were led through a water-mud area.
 At the end of summer the water-mud only horses had twice the hoof growth than those that had the hoof dressing applied. In addition, the water-mud group had no hoof cracks.
 Studies of horses in different climates have shown that shod horses living in wet climates have generally less degree of damage occurring within the hoof than shod horses in dry climates.
 
 As knowledge of the equine hoof becomes more commonplace and every horse owners is able to recognise hoof distortion and the damaging effects this has on the horse we will begin to see competition horses staying at their individual peak for longer, less crippling ‘disease’ in our equine companions, a return to health and often soundness in chronically lame horses and maybe even the elusive increase in track times in Racehorses.