Posted by Patty Stiller on January 23, 2003 at 12:28:43:
In Reply to: Uniforme Sole Thickness posted by RMervin on January 19, 2003 at 17:04:34:
: Ive been studying with Mike Savoldi at Cal Poly Pomona for the last few years learning his method of triming and shoing, which he terms as "Uniform Sole Thickness" It has helped me with all kinds of pathologies including laminitis, quarter cracks, founder, club footed tendancies, you name it. I wouldnt call it a cure all. It dosent seem to have any flaws. Its basicly looking at the hoof to make sure that the cofin bone joint and other joints are all horizontaly planed. I havent found any horses that couldnt be helped by implenenting the Uniform Sole Thickness trim. It works on mules and horses. Working with Mike involved a lot of physiology and anatomy to understand what I was looking at. I recently worked with a stallion that 12 weeks ago became mysteriously lame it wasnt cool at the time. He couldnt hardly walk. After the shoeing he was sound and back in the reining pen. I though it might have been an absess. It turns out after this last shoeing that he was lamanitic and went through quite an ordeal, stayed sound and no rotation, the vet says it was the trim, we just put wide web shoes on no pads or support. I feel prety good about it.
I know about Mike's hard work, and it is nice that it supports the concept of 'trimming to the live sole plane' that is so common sense and which other folks have been promoting for many years.
If you think about it,where does a bare foot always
chip/wear down to all around the foot, effectively balancing the foot specific to it's own conformation and to load the entire sole? It wears to the sole. Even bare feet in in soft ground where the wall gets a bit long, that excess wall sinks into the soft ground so the foot is still effectively balanced and loaded to the sole plane.
Gee what a concept....
Then the question comes up, why on earth do some farriers still think they need to use use hoof guages, try to eyeball the foot sighting down the leg or from the side,leave the heels untrimmed and/or trim through the sole at the toe to "stand the hoof up more" etc when the foot is the greatest blueprint there is, and is so easy to read? I dunno.
And tell Mike how happy I am he has done that sole plane research as it is an important piece of work for those besides him who have been (for many years) promoting the importance of using the sole plane. Maybe if the naysayers of natural principles won't listen to the other researchers,they might at least listen to Mike.
The horses will benefit no matter who it comes from.
Patty