Posted by Rick Burten on April 17, 2003 at 08:04:31:
In Reply to: Need quarter crack advice posted by Diane Luckey on April 17, 2003 at 01:06:02:
: Hello, my 5yr old APHA show horse has a quarter crack on the left front inside near the heel. It was treated and laced back in September 02' and was sound until an abcess this January. The treatment was repeated and I started him on Super Biozen suppliment. He has not been ridden since January and we are now exercising him lightly again and he has periods of slight lameness. It comes and goes but my veteranarian recently x-rayed the hoof and found it to be unlevel and it appears that it has been unlevel for a long time and is now correcting the problem through x-raying the hoof right before shoeing to take the exact amount off and x-rayed again right after to assure levelness. Could the lameness be caused by the corrective shoeing? Now I'm told that this will be a chronic problem. Is this found to be true even if the crack grows out and the hoof if level? Advice is greatly appreciated. I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing for my horse. Thank you.
The lameness is caused by the horse being out of balance, the wall cracking and the sensitive tissue being compromised. Once correct balance is restored and the hoof stabilizes, the lameness should be a thing of the past. If this is a bleeding quarter crack and it is laced and/or patched and a drain is not first installed, there is a better than even chance that it will get infected and the problem then is exacerbated. Once the crack has completely healed and grown out , a process that can take a year or more depending on how quickly the hoof is stabilized , the problem should not return unless the conditions which caused it in the first place happen again. Please understand that there are several reasons a crack may happen. Injury to the coronary band resulting in permanent scarring, a conformation that causes the horse to be unable to land flat, regardless of what trimming/shoeing protocol is attempted, and hoof imbalance caused by incorrect farrier work are the three main causes of quarter cracks, with incorrect trimming being the most common cause.
While lacing is a very effective techinque for stabilizing an existing crack, it does not address the underlying cause(s). Once they have been addressed, again, the problem should not recur. I prefer a heart bar shoe or a straight or egg bar shoe (depending), with a rim pad attached with that portion of the pad that would be under the crack and back to the heel, removed, and the foot filled ground level with Equi-Pak. I also, depending on the circumstances, combine the heart bar shoe with the Equi-Pak. I mechanically open the crack using a dremel tool and rarely patch or lace them. The horse is put on layup (hand walking in straight lines) until there is at least 3/8 inch of new , uncracked hoof grown down from the coronary band. Again, there are other approaches, equally as effective, but this is the one that works the best for me.
Rick