|
Shoeing Notes,
For most nicely gaited Icelandics, this would likely be the
trimming and shoeing prescription:
- Finish trimming the hoof leaving a good heel on both front
and back feet.
- Leave a longer toe with more hoof on the front, trim for a
shorter toe, steeper angle on the rear.
For years now I have kept notes on each horse with each shoeing as I adjust
for their trimming and weight against how the horses actually
go when they are ridden.
In working with farriers, what I have found is that directions
that are as plain, short and direct as is possible become the
most useful directions for them.
One trick is to be sure to catch the farrier before he starts
trimming the hooves...
In one breath I like to tell them:
-Leave a good heel on both front and back feet. Leave a long toe
on the front feet. Trim for a shorter toe on the rear feet.
Then I reassure them by telling them to, just trim lightly.
Let them think about this. Fuss about other stuff later.
In trimming and preparing the feet, generally, it is best if
they finish the trimming leaving a good heel, of about 3/4 an
inch or so of horn showing on the heel.
If the horse happens to break off toe-hoof when a shoe comes
off or the horse is barefoot with broken hoof wall, do not let
your farrier try to catch up the angles on the feet by cutting
down the heels.
If you are dealing with bad wall material, just trim the feet
lightly and wait for more toe to grow out to achieve an angle
that you may want. Do not try to catch-up the degree angles at
the expense of cutting down the structure of the heels. If you
ride hard on cut down heels then you can get in to tendon problems
or lame sore feet like you see with hunter-jumpers and some show
Quarter horse people. It takes forever to grow out more heel once
they are removed.
The practical problem here in America is that some farriers can
get in and directly whack off the heel structure of the hoof horn,
leaving horses running on what would be the equivalent of their
wrists; running as if back on their wrists instead of setting
the horse to step through the wall structure of their hooves!
This type of trimming can be found in some hunter-jumper areas
and some parts of American Quarter horse farrier work.
The real problem with this style of trimming in gaited horses
is that it really leaves the horse at a disadvantage in gaited
movement, let alone opening any horse to foot soring in their
frogs, soles and heels. The wall structure of the hoof is there
for a reason. It is there also in wild horses...It is certainly
there in the mountain horses of Iceland who spend much of their
time and life on volcanic rock pasture ground. They have got great
hoof structure with heels protecting their feet as they stride.
We have seen this happen where nicely gaited horses have lost
their talent completely from bad shoeing. So this is why we include
these thoughts about trimming here. There is a wild fad now which
urges the whacking off of heels. It is bad practise generally
and bad for tolt if you want to preserve it.
Setting the shoes....
Generally on the front: about 50 or 51 degrees on the front feet
is common and works well. Set a heavier shoe up front. Setting
the shoe more forward instead of holding it back from the front
can help too. This keeps more of the mass of the shoe and hoof
wall forward as opposed to when the shoe is held back needing
to then dress the hoof by rounding the hoof wall back to the steel
of the front of the shoe. This is a small point but helps in some
cases.
The hind: about 53 or 54 degrees on the rear feet. Set a lighter
shoe on the rear feet.
This general trim job and setting of shoes will generally help
to break up stride and clarify tolt. This helps with the nature
of the movement.
Even where the nature of a horse is as a real nice gaited horse,
if the nature of tolt degenerates it will be towards two-beatedness,
depending on the aspects of tension in their movement and also
how they are being asked to move.
Trimming and shoeing can help clarify the foot fall, if the horses
are ridden well otherwise. Shoeing will not cure things by itself.
However, if it is not carefully attended to, where trimming and
shoeing is poorly done then gait distribution can disappear from
a horse that is otherwise nicely gaited.
These notes on shoeing are just some nuance things to attend
to that will help them go better for you. In the extreme, trimming
and shoeing are not going to change either an Icelandic horse
or any other horse that is not gaited by nature into a gaiting
tolter. There certainly are three-gaited Icelandics out there
and this shoeing is not going to save them from their natural
lack of gait talent!
Weighted shoeing...
In playing with weight differential between front and back feet,
using saddle lites on the back feet and standard shoes up front
acheives about a 40 percent weight differential that can help
to clarify the four-beated nature of tolt. These are shoes that
most any farrier would carry. Of course there are the real nice
shoes from Iceland to use for the same purpose.
These are general things to do with nice 5-gaited horses whether
you ride pace or not or whether the horse even shows much pace
at all.
In principle, these general things about trimming and shoeing
could all be reversed in truly 4-gaited horses.
4-Gaited horses, in the sense that they have just enough lateral
tension in their movement to be tolters at all but so little tension
to be without pace in their nature. These kind of 4-gaited horses
tend to be the hardest horses for people to ride and keep in tolt
because the nature of these horses tends be against having enough
lateral tension in their movement to carry themselves easily in
tolt for any length of time with out having to really be holding
them in tolt and constantly shaping them back into tolt. They
typically fall down into trot the moment you stop attending to
riding them in tolt. They require more from the rider in their
nature to tolt at all.
Reversing the trimming and shoeing guidelines of a nice balanced
5-gaited horse tends to help a a true 4 gaited horse stay under
itself and tolt. These type of 4-gaited horses are not to be confused
with horses that are 5-gaited in nature where pace is not ridden,
shown or evaluated as 5-gaited. Many if not most 5-gaited horses
are only shown, used and evaluated as 4-gaited. The so-called
natural tolters tend to be these types of 5-gaited horses. These
are different horses from the so-called poorly gaited hard to
tolt 4-gaited horses that have little natural lateral pace tendency.
Of course, in the old country, the these hopeless 3-gaited and
poor 4-gaited horses would have been lunch! Here in America, they
tend to get kept as pets and bred on further. If these kind of
4-gaited mares subsequently are bred to nice 5-gaited stallions,
the nature of the stallion can come through overcoming the nature
of a poorly gaited mare and produce an okay gaited offspring.
That is to be seen and judged. Such is the challenge and crap-shoot
of breeding for gaited movement.
So there, that is probably more than you wanted to hear about
shoeing your horses. It is really pretty simple and there is room
for error, short of cutting their feet off entirely!
In trimming hooves, one can look at the foot, the hoof and the
sole of the foot together and they will tell you where to trim.
It is pretty obvious and works out with some practical rules of
thumb. Every horse is a little different. I find the remarkable
thing here is that the soles of the feet seem to reveal where
to trim them for the nature of the gaited movement in the horse
and correctly for the bone conformation of the body and legs.
It all works out if you go back to the beginning description:
leave a good heel, do not carve down much into the sole, and then
trim using the sole as a guide. The angles seem to work out to
be exactly what is needed for the horse.
Lastly, there are some very specific rules for shoeing of competition
horses under the FIPO rules. What I have written here is generally
in line with the guidelines under FIPO but you should refer to
the guidelines directly along with your farrier when you are getting
ready to go to a sanctioned competition event.
-Doug Hamilton
|
