High/Low Hooves: a Whole-Horse issue 11-10-13 Pete Ramey
Horseback Magazine
It is fairly common for horses to have
mismatched pairs of front feet. When the lower-angled foot seems
to be the "problem foot," most people call the horse a high/low or
refer to that foot as having under-run heel or long
toe/low heel syndrome. Others
will say the horse "can't grow heel," when in fact an excess of
heel length is typically being grown - it is just growing
forward, instead of down toward the ground.
When, instead, the more upright foot appears to be the "problem
foot," people tend to call it a "club foot." While routine,
competent trimming is important to horses with mismatched
hooves, it is important to also understand that if the solution
was simply trimming the feet to match each other, these
conditions would not exist. Like most issues, the first step to
helping the horse is to understand "why" this is happening.
The hooves are constantly adapting to
the way they impact the ground. If a horse repeatedly carries a
limb farther forward than normal, the foot will tend to develop
the long toe/low heel form.
If the horse repeatedly carries the limb farther back than
normal, the upright club foot form will
persist. So when you see mismatched feet, it is important to
figure out why the
horse is moving in an imbalanced way. If you can identify and
fix the true problem, the feet will adapt toward better balance
as well. On the other hand, if you treat it as a hoof problem
only, you will find yourself "spinning your wheels" because you
are addressing a symptom instead of the true cause.
Injuries
The first step is to have a lameness
exam done by a competent veterinarian. Often these horses are
simply compensating for pain from a current injury and/or
dealing with a lack of mobility from an old injury. If this is
the case, find out if the pain can be relieved or the injury
healed. If so, the feet will tend to become more balanced as the
horse becomes able to move in a more balanced way. If pain or
reduced flexion from the injury is permanent, so should be the
mismatched feet - in fact this hoof imbalance may be very
important to the horse's ability to get around - an
important adaptation designed to
help balance an imbalanced situation. That said, it is often
beneficial to warm up and stretch areas of past injury. If you
can increase and maintain mobility, you will find that the feet
readily become more balanced. The most common example is simply
offering forward stretches to the limbs of club feet.
Professional Sports Massage Therapy is very important to success with most high/low horses. These folks tend to be very good at finding areas of stiffness or reduced mobility and setting up daily treatment programs for the horse owner to do. This can rival the very best farrier and veterinary care for most of these horses.
Training
Injuries aside, normal horses tend to use the different sides of
their bodies in different ways, just as we are right- or
left-handed. For instance, when horses canter they tend to
naturally favor one lead over the other. When they graze, they
tend to favor placing one foot forward more often than the
other. These tendencies can have dramatic effects on the hoof
form.
For example, think of the way the
front feet hit the ground during a left lead canter: the left
foot reaches farther forward, completes its cycle and then
leaves the ground just as it reaches a vertical position. The
right foot braces the horse's weight by staying more underneath and
the entire cycle of each step occurs farther back (relative to
the horse's body). So you might visualize what would happen if
all a horse did, everywhere he went, was a left lead canter in a
straight line; he would develop a low left and high
right front feet. This would also affect the musculature of the
horse - he would be strong, but have less flexion on the right
and perhaps be weaker, but more flexible on the left. Mentally
and physically he would resist the right lead and bending to the
right.
This is where balanced training and sports massage are at their most valuable. An imbalanced adult horse can only be corrected if all the pieces come together. Although the farrier work is an important part of this process, it is only one of many parts. Achieving balanced movement is the key - this means good training of both sides of the horse. The farrier work should be designed to get the hoof problems "out of the way" of balanced movement.
Same horse: The high right foot, 13-month duration. A "heel rocker" was used to help lengthen stride. Making gradual increases to stride length (trimming, stretching, training) eventually forged a more normal foot. Meanwhile, the trainer and owner were exercising the right leads, focusing riding/training on the stiff right side of the horse. As her strength became balanced, so did the feet. Note that the feet/limbs still do not exactly match - trying to force them to completely match would negatively affect movement and reverse the progress. [Each trim/shoeing is available on DVD in That's My Horse #2 available from http://www.hoofrehabstore.com/thats-my-horse-2/ ] Note: A significant distal descent (sinker) reversal also occurred on both front hooves - this accounts for the shortening of the overall hoof length, even though the soles were thicker at the end of this 13-month period. Photo reprinted from the book Care and Rehabilitation of the Equine Foot.
Rider and Saddle
Kerry Ridgway, DVM, a veteran equine biomechanics expert came to
ride with me and look over the horses in my care. I took him to
a horse that had recently started trying to develop an upright
front-right foot. He briefly evaluated the horse for injury,
found a sore area high on the horse's right side and then asked
to see the horse's saddle. The owner brought out a $3,000
English saddle she had just bought a few months earlier. Dr.
Ridgway flipped the saddle upside-down, sighted down it from
end-to-end, and said, "Here's the problem. Your saddle is built
crooked." Sure-enough, once he had pointed it out, it was easy
to see - the saddle was built with a left bend in its shape. Of
course the horse owner was in tears, but in the end, the saddle
company replaced the saddle with a straight one and the hooves
quickly became balanced again.
Imbalanced riders can imbalance the horse as well. These factors
have dramatic effects if most of the horse's exercise occurs
under saddle.
Foals
Once a horse reaches two-years-old
with a club foot or high/low conformation, it is very likely
that it will remain, to some degree, for the rest of the horse's
life no matter what you do. By then, the joint surfaces, bone
shapes, muscles, tendon and ligament lengths have become more set
in their ways. Don't get me wrong,
balance can be improved in
adult horses - but it can be truly fixed or
prevented in foals! Routine and competent trimming of foal
hooves is critical, but too-often overlooked or procrastinated.
It is common to hear that this
or that bloodline of horses has
clubby feet or high/low syndrome. But in my experience, foals
often show these tendencies but they are generally easy to keep
in check if you start early enough. In other words they try to
be imbalanced, but I don't let them.
Usually, if it is started within 2-3 months of birth, routine
hoof trimming alone can keep foals from developing mismatched
limbs provided that they are turned out - not stalled. In more
severe or persistent cases, I sometimes also recommend moderate
amounts of ground work, in circles, focusing on strengthening
the weak lead (caution: this can be important, but also
over-done).
Trimming
If you try too hard to trim the feet to match each other, you
will probably make the situation worse. Very often, people with
good intentions trim too much sole from the toe of low foot
(trying to make it match the more upright foot). This causes the
horse to avoid sensitivity at the toe and overwork the heels;
they carry the limb more "out front." This makes the original
problem worse over time. It is equally common for people to trim
the heels of the high foot too low in an attempt to match the
opposing low-heeled foot. This often causes sensitivity at the
heels of the high foot, shortens stride length, and makes the
foot adapt into an even more upright form over time.
Instead, everything you do to the feet
should be geared at balancing the movement. Good
form will follow good function. On
the low side, preserve sole thickness and keep the breakover
back as far as possible (without overexposing the corium to
bruising
http://www.hoofrehab.com/Breakover.html). This helps
the horse keep the foot on the ground longer (farther back
relative to the body) and helps grow out any toe flaring or
capsule rotation. On the high side, rocker the heels to enable
the horse to extend the foot farther forward, while being very
careful not to cause sensitivity at the heels (as this would
shorten stride, forcing the horse to carry that limb even
farther behind
http://www.hoofrehab.com/HeelHeight.html).
Other than that, treat each hoof as an individual, and don't try to force them to match. Just try to grow out wall flares and encourage thick soles and frogs. Work the feet into balance subtly, nudging them in the right direction at each trim. If the rest of the training program is encouraging balanced development, the hooves will become more balanced over time as well.