01/03/2026
What an incredible read this morning! Holistic Equine always has some of the best posts to check out 😄 as horse owners it is our job to seek higher standards, quality of care, and higher knowledge for ourselves to better care for our partners!
🙌 Don’t adopt someone else’s belief as your own and prevent you from seeking a solution for your horses hoof and welfare! 🙌
This post is about taking guesswork and subjective opinion out of hoof care and leaning on objective scientific based evidence - for a welfare focused proactive approach requires knowledge of ALL interventions.
This photo highlights evidence of unhealthy physiological welfare parameters associated with the hoof of the horse. Although the radiograph isnt annotated here, it is in the educational video recording available in our website blog. However, I have included the ideal breakover and potential trim plane annotation on the radiograph, in a distorted hoof, as taught to me by Daisy Bicking at the International School of Integrative Hoof Care.
How does Daisy know this? Because she too is dedicated to welfare and has an excellent track record in successfully rehabbing even the most complex hoof rehab cases. How? By learning on objective evidence, from a database of more than 750,000 radiographs taken over years of practice, and by learning from others in her field.
I have heard a couple of times lately from students of hoof care that shoes crush the heels or dont truly return function in horses with pathology and this is both factually incorrect and disappointing to hear. Learning this from peers and mentors and adopting their belief system in ones mind as fact then stops or inhibits the believer from questioning this and learning otherwise.
I too was taught this my first mentor, and regret this deeply. For I persuaded my clients for 10 years or so to avoid shoes for the same reasons. But since then, I cracked open my mind and decided to learn from anyone who could evidence their work and demonstrate improved welfare in the horses they worked with. This was the turning point in my career!
LONG TOES in horses cause havoc with their entire system. Despite what anyone says, the scientific evidence on this is irrefutable.
In a long toe, under run, short heel, there will be a longer toe proportion than heel when measured from the point of balance - a mathematical point approximately 25% down the coronet band representing equilibrium of force around the coffin joint, meaning equal force in the tendons and ligaments in the digit - which is important for healthy load on the hoof, for even growth and wear, as well as healthy posture and biomechanics.
So altering the breakover - the point at which the hoof last touches the ground in the toe - and the base support requires a reductive trim, and if necessary an additive intervention, depending on the hoof and horse and what is best in each unique situation. Experience and knowledge will help one determine which is the best intervention.
Radiographs are not used enough in my opinion in the UK. They are typically used once a horse is lame - too late in my opinion. I strongly feel ALL hoof care providers should be requesting these in horses with less than ideal morphology in order to identify sole depth, vertical suspension and position of the inner foot relative to the capsule, phalangeal/bony column alignment and to assist with more accurate trimming.
One of the biggest mistakes is not taking enough toe length AND height in trimming in the front of the hoof, and OVER trimming the back of the hoof, in an effort to somehow make things right by “stimulating the caudal hoof”. This is a mistake and traps horses in perpetual cycles of poor hoof and poor posture, and eventually leading to permanent changes to bone and the circulatory system of the hoof, and maybe also orthopaedic issues in the limb and body of the horse.
The second mistake I see is taking way too much time to rehab, or try to rehab horses, for often a successful rehab is declared as such, when in fact the horse has adopted to different biomechanics and is still at risk of lameness later in time in many cases I am called out to.
If a correctly applied hoof care plan takes 2-3 months versus 2-3 years and may not work, why put the horse through unnecessary pain and why take the risk? Just do it right in the first instance, and if like me, you’re in the UK - learn about shoeing to correct this, and advocate for this, and work as a team with a welfare focused farrier, and do the right thing by the horse - IF you are truly focused on welfare…
Resources and background science in the comments.
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