It’s Not the Footing, It’s the Foot
by Marci Lambert, Equine Hoof and Health Specialist)

(Published in The Horse's Hoof , Issue 34-Spring 2009, pages 18-19, reprinted with permission)

What does that mean? What about the foot? What about the footing?

Our lives have turned into obsessions… proper fitting tack, proper riding & training styles, proper diet, & now the FOOTING. There seems to be some controversy about footing & FEET. Is there a proper foot or proper footing for horses? The race tracks have put in synthetic surfaces, which provide softer cushioning for race horses. Dressage arenas are mostly made of synthetic materials. What happened to the good, old-fashioned sand/dirt surfaces? What happens if you want to ride on the trail? Or maybe you won’t, if the surface is not just right?

“My horse pulled a tendon” or “my horse got hurt in your bad arena surface.” These words are heard all too often in my (farrier) world. BTW, I do also answer to, or refer myself as, a farrier, even though I do not apply nail-on metal shoes. The others that do, I refer to as “Traditional Farriers” (due to the fact that nailing metal to the body of a horse is a “tradition” that started in the Middle Ages). I have also applied plastic flexible shoes with glue in the past.

Is this going to be one of those bare foot vs. shod foot articles? I hope not, I am only hoping to help people, for the sake of their horses, to understand the simple mechanics of the hoof. That the foot is so important, and that all the gimmicks, footing, shoes, no shoes, boots, no boots are to no avail, unless we understand the job the foot is supposed to do, and understand what the foot is supposed to look like.

Let’s look at some MYTH & TRUTHS:

1) A horse’s hoof angle should match the shoulder... MYTH

The hoof needs the proper parameters in order to function correctly. Physics and science are involved. The foot is the foundation of the horse. The shoulder angle WILL be correct if the feet are correct. Function follows form. What shoulder angle IS correct? According to WHOM? The foundation of the horse should dictate the parameters of the structure above, not the other way around.

2) A horse’s conformation should include his feet... TRUTH

This one is kinda self-explanatory. Aren’t the feet part of the conformation? Ever notice all the stallion “standing at stud” ads that never show the feet? Or the ever-favorite conformation clinic, comparing conformation shots of horses— they never show the feet, either. Why? I think it is because they don’t know the feet very well, and rather than be wrong, they simply omit them.

3) A horse needs soft footing in order to perform with a rider... MYTH

The magnificent horse’s body is designed and built for hard ground, and is an all-terrain vehicle that should be able to travel on all surfaces comfortably. WHAT?

The skeleton is the leaf-spring framework. The tendons and ligaments are the leavers and pulleys system. The hoof capsule is the liquid-filled shock absorber. The hind end is the engine, the front limbs are for direction. When the horse is forced to travel in deep, soft footing with long feet/toes, there will be injuries. The race tracks that have the new softer, deeper footing report “less” catastrophic injuries. This means less horses breaking off legs, and more with ruptured tendons and ligaments. Yikes? Soft footing doesn’t work for horses, unless they have proper parameters with short toes. I think it may be like running with clown shoes on in deep sand. Not very energy efficient, and that adds stresses to the rest of the body.

4) All hooved animals have a “pad” to land on for cushion and support... TRUTH

The frog/bulb or the pad of the hoof (digital cushion) develops from fatty tissue at birth to fibrous cartilage as the horse matures, and as more weight (of the growing horse) is put on that pad. It hardens, gets thicker, bigger, and toughens up over time. This only happens IF the horse is not confined to a small area or in soft footing. Soft footing allows the foot to atrophy. “Use it or lose it” is very true, in the case of the equine foot. Proper bone density suffers too, with no movement at this critical time.

The bulb/pad/frog should be the major part of the bottom of the foot. Optimal would be: 2/3 frog pad to land on, 1/3 hard horn/toe for impulsion.

At the age of 2 or 3, when we want to ride or start “breaking” the horse (literally), no one notices that a significant part of his foot is missing (the pad or the back of the foot/frog and bulb area), because there is so little understanding of the foot. The horse appears to have issues with his feet now that he is in work, and the metal shoe is applied. We are adding a hard metal thing to the outer edge/wall of the foot. This makes no sense if we first would look at the foot, and determine whether or not the outer rim of the hoof capsule needed to be protected with metal. The shoe appears to make the horse “go sound,” and not another thought is put into the feet, until he starts to show issues in the future. 

The whole hoof capsule including frog pad, sole and wall is supposed to flex and absorb shock. If the foot is not allowed to do its job, damage occurs inside the hoof, where no one sees or knows (due to the fact that our education is so limited for the hoof), and then all of a sudden the hoof can no longer continue with metal around the rim, and the horse starts showing signs of lameness on and off.

Laminitis is diagnosed, different “corrective” or “orthopedic” shoes, pads, etc., are added, and the horse continues for the rest of his life in “handy-capped” shoes. THE HORSE IS NOT GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED TO LAMINITIS and FOUNDER with the God-given perfect foot he was born with. Environment dictates the foot. Which means the hooves adapt to their environment, i.e. if the ground is wet and soft with mud, the foot will become larger and spread out (hoof capsule /horn absorbs water like a sponge and becomes larger). If the ground is dry and hard, the foot will become more compact and upright (hoof capsule looses water and shrinks). So with the changing of the seasons and weather, we also have the ever-adapting, ever-changing hooves. But whatever state the hoof is in, there remains the one constant... the pad to land on. No pad, no cushy; no cushy, lame horse.

5) If the horse cannot go without a shoe, there is something wrong with the foot... TRUTH

I hear it all the time… “my horse can’t go without shoes,” “oh, that barefoot thing works on some horses, but not on mine.” If everyone asks the simple question “WHY?” in response to those types of statements, you will find out A LOT. Their answer is usually, “he’s sore without shoes”—ask why? Wait for reply, “He has thin soles,” ask why does he have thin soles? “My farrier said he can’t go without shoes”—ask why? Wait for reply. Ask why? Wait for replies… keep going for as long as you can! It can be very informative, and it shows me how much mystery surrounds the functioning hoof.

By the way, the answers are always the same. If the foot was healthy, it could go without metal nailed to it. Why is it not healthy? it’s not so much that the horse has thin soles; it is more like the bottom part of his Nike is missing—the supportive padding. The “connection” of hoof wall to bone, in turn, becomes so poor that the skeleton is “sinking down” onto the sole that is not supposed to do all the work by itself. The foot also needs the padding (frog pad).

I meet lots of Dressage people, and I tell them “I get a kick out of you guys the most”…The horse lives in fluff, walks across the fluffy path to get to the fluffy arena, and you put metal on the foot? Why, they say, the shoe protects the foot. From what? Fluff? I think the race horse people could be in this category, too. Same scenario.

Here in Southern California, a good part of the year the ground is hard and dry. So, in turn, are the hooves. I have “chipped my nippers” in an attempt to cut the wall, so I get the feeling the hooves don’t really need to be protected from their environment. WOW!

6) The hoof wall is the most important part of the hoof... MYTH

The hoof wall is “cosmetic only.” Get outta here? It is the protective outer shell for the inner workings of the foot. In the eyes of a “traditional farrier,” the wall IS the most important thing. That is only because it is needed for the NAILS to hold the shoe on. In most cases, the wall is left far too long. In order to have something to nail to, you must leave the wall long enough. By the time the hoof is ready to be re-shod, in a typical 8 week period, the wall has been allowed to get VERY OVER-GROWN and separation of hoof wall from bone is well into its advanced state. (Skeleton sinking down, due to poor hoof wallbone connection) The pad with the digital cushion inside, between the frog/pad and bones, is the most important part of the foot. See # 4. Like our Nike shoes. Cushy not hard.

7) Our farrier and vet are educated in the function and anatomy of the distal limb... MYTH

It is rare for a vet or farrier to see a healthy foot. In other words, if we are only ever looking at, or studying, “pathological” (de-formed) hooves, with their crazy parameters and bone alignments, then what do we have to go on? We get to see all different angles, bone positions, thin non-existing soles/frog/pad, contracted and collapsed quarters, etc. There is nothing to base “correct” on. (Usually, these feet are covered with metal and pads, so you can’t even see the bottoms—the most important part to look at). If they did see a healthy hoof, they wouldn’t know it. Not until you look at the wild horse, and see that no matter what part of the world they live in, they all carry the same similarities and parameters: big, healthy pad and sole that touches the ground, with short toes.
 

 “Oh, but domestic horses are different than wild horses; it’s like comparing apples to oranges.” HOW are they different? I keep asking for that answer. If you are going to make a statement like that, there should be some scientific findings to back that up. I have yet to see any. Maybe there is one way our domestic horses are different; they seem weak and compromised, unlike the wild horses.

Our DNA tells us that our body needs 2 hands with 5 fingers on each hand. Equine DNA tells him that he needs a pad to go along with the hoof capsule. Huh? There is strong evidence that the whole structure and mechanics of the horse fails, due to the fact that the skeleton needs to be supported from the bottom, too. That is a powerful statement. We have all heard the famous words “no hoof, no horse.” Maybe it should be “no pad, no hoof, no horse”—if there is no pad, then there is no support for the bones that descend downward at every step. Ouch! Why do you think there are so many joint supplements on the market today? The joints are being asked to take up the slack for the lack of cushioning on the bottom of the foot. It’s kinda like running your car on the pavement on its rims—not good! If you add the flexible tire that absorbs some of the shock, then the life of your rims will last longer. The rims would wear out in time, would they not? (I don’t think I have ever seen worn out rims for a car, due to the fact that we use tires.) How would the shocks hold up in your car if there was no tire, just rims? They would not do their job for very long either. Huh?

Yeah, I know it’s not a car, but the idea of the mechanics seems the same. Maybe Mr. Ford had a horse. Actually, there may be another difference between our domestic horses compared to the wilds—ours start showing signs of lameness at early ages (3-8 yrs), and the wilds don’t have any, no matter what age.

8) As of 2001, 80% of the world’s domestic horses are lame or crippled... TRUTH

According to the American Farriers Association (AFA) in 2001, 80% of the world’s population of domestic horses are crippled or lame! WHAT? The title of the article was called “most of your income will come from...orthopedic shoeing.” Not “HOW COME all these horses are crippled or lame?” Only education was given on how to have the horse in “palliative care” (means to keep comfortable till death) until he dies.

9) We don’t know our horses are in pain because they can’t tell us... TRUTH and MYTH.

Have you ever been around when a dog gets hit by a car, or stepped on, or kicked by a horse? We automatically know something is wrong, because of all the yelping and crying. What if our horse hurt himself, or for that matter, got kicked by another horse? There is no yelping and crying. Is he really hurt, even though he is not crying? There may not be the verbal signs of pain, but there are the visual ones. It’s all in the eyes and the wrinkled nose, and of course, limping. We seem to be much less concerned if there is no crying. Is this why no one is concerned if the feet hurt—there is no crying? We are now starting to understand body language of horses; maybe we should be taking a better look at the comfortable horse, instead of the one in pain, to have as a guide or example?

10) That’s just what his feet look like. That’s the way they grow... MYTH

The hooves grow according to how they are trimmed, or not trimmed. If there is no metal on the foot, the hooves can wear themselves on abrasive ground. Any sort of overgrowth would be taken care of by the horse himself, if he had enough access to freedom of movement (and also if the foot was not terribly overgrown). When we see our unshod horses with chipped edges, we should not have fear, we should be smart enough to see the hoof trying to maintain or trim itself. The horse, in turn, would also produce/grow the correct amount of hoof as to not wear too much hoof off. Excessive hoof wear is also a myth (some horses do have excessive wear, but that is usually if the hoof is not functioning properly, or has an imbalance that should be corrected).

In my humble opinion, the only true “natural barefoot trimmer” is the horse himself. Because we want to keep him in our backyards and therefore take away his natural ability to maintain his own feet, it is our duty as caretakers to provide him with the natural, healthy foot he needs to thrive.

About the author: Marci Lambert is an Equine Hoof and Health Specialist and member of the Equine Justice Advisory Board and has been practicing in Southern California since 2002. She is deeply committed to advancing "natural" hoof care and preventive maintenance. She can be reached at memewest63@hotmail.com.

Photos courtesy Catherine Chandler
www.TheHorsesHoof.com ISSUE 34 – SPRING 2009