Please help with problems after farrier change - w/photos

[Madeira1]

I've seen some great advice on this forum from a lot of experts and am hoping to get some help. This might get long, but I'll try to simplify and go in chronological order. Horse is an 11 yo TB mare, an eventer until recently.

Mare has history of occasional front foot lameness diganosed as chronic corns, which would abscess and cause lameness, mostly in LF.

May 2004: farrier of two years appears to misinterpret a vet's instructions and takes off heel but almost no toe (uh, I think the vet meant to take off some toe as well). Horse goes really badly, is stumbling constantly, but b/c of my vacation and a hind end issue is not ridden much during this shoeing cycle.

July 5 2004: nuclear scan (for hind end issue) shows ligament tear in LH fetlock, but both front feet show up hot (all over not in one spot) and horse is lame 2/5 in both front feet during lameness workup. Shoes pulled and extensive xrays done (top vet clinic), slight winging on tips of navicular bones but nothing abnormal for horse of that age, but b/c of shoeing the coffin bone is flat on one foot and has a reverse angle (lower in the rear). Horse put on stall rest due to ligament injury, and put on isox. I decide to change farriers.

Aug/Sept/Oct/Nov: Met with vet and new farrier at the same time in early Aug. They discuss case and vet says "just balance the feet and let's start with that". Vet suggests NB shoes. After shoeing I've never seen her toes so short. During three different vet exams in this period, horse is determined to be 100% sound in front (two top vets). Taken off isox, horse remains sound. The third shoeing the farrier uses regular shoes modified to act like NB. Horse feels great. This farrier is not NB trained but I believe that he uses similar principles to balance the foot. She used to be flat footed but during this time I noticed a lot of dead sole coming off (like in chunks) and her feet appeared to get more concave.

Dec: I move to Jacksonville FL, and have to use a new farrier. I explain history of horse, instruct farrier not to change anything. Horse is shod at 5 week intervals btw. The fifth day after the shoeing by the new farrier, I notice problems starting again. Frequent stumbling in the front, varying lameness in what appears to be both front feet. Some days she feels quite good, some days she's maybe 1.5/5 lame, so nothing like she was quicked or a hot nail. Seems to be landing on her toe from what I can see walking on concrete. Workload hasn't changed.

So I guess I have a few questions. I guess an MRI would be the best option but I'm not going to do that right now, at least until I'm sure the hind end injury will heal. I've already tried to find a NB trained farrier (through Hope for Soundness website), and the closest one is a two hour haul for me. I have the FL farrier coming back this week and will show him pictures of the horse's feet from when the other farrier shod her. If things don't improve I'll get another vet out. I could take some more xrays to see the angles, but the other farrier didn't need xrays to get the balance right. Obviously I've spent a lot of money on this horse already this year.

On the surface her feet look good to me, he still kept her toes quite short, but maybe not short enough. I am just not an expert at this.

I have some photos, and am wondering if anyone has some insight into how I can communicate to the FL farrier about what is different between his work and the way she was shod before.

I am a little worried though that if he didn't get the balance right from the beginning, that maybe he won't ever get it quite right. I don't want to start with wedges and all that when I know she can be sound with the right balance. I did a lot of research and this farrier has a very good reputation. So perhaps it will just take a bit of trial and error?? Not a comforting thought. I need to keep up her program for the hind end injury and this can't be helping.

Here is a link to the photos. The Aug trim is the first trim after I changed farriers, you can see the mess that her feet were in. Then the 10_04 pictures are after the third shoeing, and the 12_04 shows the work of the new farrier in FL. Unfortunately the angles aren't that great on the older shots but it's all I have.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sadavids2002/album?.dir=7639&.src=ph

Any advice/opinions welcome! Thank you!

[Phil Armitage]

Just my opionion, niether of the earlier shoeing jobs are great, even the NB shoeing is very poor. The toe is dubbed and the heels are not trimmed properly and the shoes are not fitted properly. How long after the shoeing did you take those pictures? Sometimes the photos do not not do the shoeing any justice, however I do not like the shoeing job in either case, nailing is poor, heel fit is poor, shape of hoof capsule is poor and the hack job on one of the feet in the toe with the NB shoes is awfull. The best looking work so far is the work done on 12/04. The foot is trimmed good looks balanced, nice frog, heel angle looks good and toe length looks good, nailing is good and shape of overall hoof capsule is good. Hard to say what else needs to be addressed without beeing there to see this horse up close look at other things like movement and poke around the feet, feel them and take a closer look. What size is your horse, judging from the photo, looks like a big horse on small feet, pasturns look long and front limbs are very straight looks like he could be prone to injury just from the way he is built, it might help to add frog support like Equipak to help absorb cuncussion, this might prevent sorness in the heels. You would have to try it to see if it work or not, however it may have the opposite affect and put pressure into sore areas in the sole. Usually Equipak works very well, but it all depends on what is going on inside the feet, sole thickness, conditon or the coffin bone.

Just some thoughts, not trying to alarm you, just putting some thoughts out there, hard to tell with being there.

You can cut and paste your post to a new thread on the Farriers helping horse owners. Baron might delete this and you will loose all the replys that goes with it.

[Madeira1]

An update, and to address Phil's reply on the other thread (which I mistakenly put in the farrier section).

All photos taken 5-7 days after shoeing. I agree that the 12/04 trim looks good (to me, anyway), but she went downhill really fast since then. She was really comfortable with the previous shoeings. She's still on small paddock rest and workload had not changed when she suddenly started stumbling, jabbing toes, and being slightly on/off in front. All of this started 5 days after this Dec. shoeing.

The new FL farrier came back out yesterday. He watched her go and agreed that she is really jabbing her toes into the ground in the front. He thought that it could be a hind end problem causing her to load her front, but he flexed her behind and there was no real reaction (horse also had hocks injected in November and to me she feels really good in the hind end). He hoof tested her really hard in the heel area and got no reaction.

It's been three weeks since she was shod now. He took the shoes off (to check for sole pressure) and also reset them after trimming just a bit and tried to move the breakover slightly more back.

Anyway I'll see how she does, but she was still slightly lame after he reset her. She also does this weird hopping step in front, she kind of throws her head up and hops, this happens pretty frequently, like she's trying to get the weight off her front end. Hard to describe.

If I don't see any change, I'll get a vet out for a full workup, but it still seems awfully coincidental that this happened right after switching farriers, and given the fact that she is confined and not working much (30-40 min rides that include 10 mins trotting/day), I can't figure out anything else that has changed. And she has that history of heel pain, but he couldn't find any sign of discomfort from corns or anything with the hoof testers. But something like that would fit in with the toe jabbing thing.

And Phil, she is 15.3h. Actually her feet used to be a lot bigger before I switched farriers in August. Her feet were big and plattery with flares. He just took all that off and I was pretty amazed at how small they looked! But it obviously made her really comfortable.

Thank you for any of you who have read this far! :)

[C. Salmon]

I looked at all the pics you posted #1 the shoe is set back too much, #5 iif I'm not mistaken you can see the toe of her hoof the is out past the shoe so her foot does not have any room to grow, #11 the foot has a dish that has not been taken out and the toe looks like it is dubbed off, #12 the she isn't on the foot, #16 shoe looks set back to far and the toe is dubbed off and #24 also looks dubbed off. It looks to me like her feet need to grow out, in your posting you stated her feet were a lot larger and now are so much smaller. I guess I like to put myself in the horses place, if I cut my toe nails too short it would hurt and if I had a pair of shoes on that were too tight it would hurt and then if I had to carry something around which added more weight on my already sore feet it would just hurt that much more.

With the toe being dubbed off the problem with that is often times the foot just never recovers from that, while the foot grows the hoof always looks dubbed off.

Personally I would be doing something else and I would get a second opinion.
C. Salmon

[Madeira1]

Thank you C. Salmon. I will say that the farrier who shod my horse from Aug-Nov works with one of the top vets on the east coast, and that vet was extremely pleased with how the shoeing helped my horse. My horse felt better than she has in a long time. It was only in Dec. that things suddenly changed, intermittent mild lameness, hopping in front, stabbing toes, about 5 days after being shod.

So I am trying to understand what is different between the feet at this time and in Dec. I actually think both of these farriers are excellent and highly respected in their areas. I'm not trying to get folks to criticize their work from the photos, I know it's hard to tell everything that is going on from them. I just thought they might lend some insight as to what has changed btwn Nov and Dec.

But I think with this horse it may be a matter of some subtle tweaking, she might just have to have her balance exactly right to be comfortable. Is that possible? Honestly the two farriers' work looks very similar to me, esp now that the new farrier has set the shoe just slightly more back.

Could a close nail cause intermittent lameness, not getting worse, for 2-3 weeks? I don't think he's trimmed the sole too short, she wasn't reacting to hoof testers anywhere. The hopping is really weird, like that hop where their front end comes up as they strike off into the canter, only she just keeps hopping and not cantering. :( I've never felt her do that in the five years I've had her.