Hello and Help!

[Alleycat]

Brand new to the boards and need advice. I am a barrel racer and friends good horse I am sorry to say hyperextended her suspensories on both back legs (at different times) She was injured the first time and we went through a years worth of treatment and recovery to bring her back and after three months of moderate competition the other suspensory went. She had cryrosurgery about six months ago. We are just looking to be sure she is being shod correctly. She was told by another party she had too much toe and not enough heel which prevented her horse from breaking over soon enough which contributed to her injury. This horse is a daughter of On The Money Red, was a very hard worker and hard turner. My friend has another daughter of OTMR who works just as hard, but is just getting started in her barrel racing career. Our goal is to prevent this from happening to her. Can anyone give us some advice or rules of thumb to go by in shoeing her and the injured horse?

[caballus]

I would suggest that you go here: http://www.hopeforsoundness.com and read some of Gene's information. I think it will help you to understand breakover and general hoof balance which is crucial to the well-being of the hooves.

--caballus

[Phil Armitage]

Hi Allycat, it has been my experience that when a horse suffers from an injury like that they will compensate and place more weight on the opposite or diagnol limb. This causes a lot of deformaty in the hoof capsule that is bearing more weight and the hoof capsule that is not bearing weight. These deformaty in the hoof can be very misleading to the untrained eye and give people the impression that there Farrier is not trimming correctly. It will take a long time to get those feet to look normal again and it is possible that the feet may never look normal again. Blown suspensorys is an injury that is very difficult to recover from. I recommend that your friend takes what others say with a grain of salt and to communicate with her/his farrier.

[Dave Purves]

Phil makes a good point, but we need pictures. Without pictures we can hardly even start to guess as to what is going on. the biggest problem with suspensory problems is getting the owner to understand that the horse has to be brought back up to speed slowly. And every time the horse is worked it should be properly wrapped or have some type of SMB boots. Sports Medicine Boots or boots with that same type of design are the only things that actually help support the SL. Try and take some pictures and post them of how the foot is shod. Take some from the side at hoof level, from the bottom and from the front. This would help alot.

Dave Purves CF