No big deal really, but this QH was diagnosed with severe navicular and lame to boot. Not very surprising looking at the steep fetlock indicating the low angled coffin joint.

Thankfully even without the luxury of rads shoers can help out a horse like this


Ronald Aalders

Is that one of those banana shoes I have read about on here?

Great work Ron !!

Looking at those fetlocks those joint disorders don't come alone.

British Matt wrote:
Yes Sir, they sure are.


Ronald Aalders

david a hall wrote:
Well, what I thought of illustrating here us that on a broken back DIPJ the PIPJ straightens and vica versa. If you lift the heels and bring back breakover you reduce DDFT pull allowing the SDFT to regain some ground, reducing strain on the navicular bone as well.

A banana comes in very handy in such cases because of the "self adjusting palmar angle" feature. In cases like this its very hard, if not impossible, to guestimate the amount of wedge needed. Rads might help but will not reveal muscle strength/tightness that has its own unique effect on the acceptance (or resistance) of the digit to changes made. We need some play here, to allow the horse to work its way around where -for lack of information- we as shoers might have messed up. The banana does just that.


Ronald Aalders

Really nice work, Ron. The important question is, "how did the horse respond?"

Rick Burten in gray

Really nice work, Ron. The important question is, "how did the horse respond?"

Dollars to donuts, he walked off a helluva lot better'n he walked up.

Tom Stovall, CJF wrote:

True, in this case the previous shoeing was easy to beat.

I go see a guy that is a human podiatrist every odd year. I think it helps me. Thing is he is always surprised at the changes we make when "normalizing" a horse. In humans the changes made way, way more subtle, more step by step like.

He asked me why we do that and frankly I could not really answer him. Other than that we work with horses and the problems we face are not subtle in anyway. Also in this case the horse walked off a lot better immediately, where you'd expect it to have to adjust a couple of days.


Ronald Aalders

Ron , are all of your bananas that you apply are they open heel shoes or do you use bars of anykind? Thanks!

Beautiful work Ron. The first time I saw a horse walk off after a similar transformation of it's feet (not my own work, but that of my mentor) I had such a lump in my throat. The horse had not had any reason to smile in years and it's releif was so obviously a surprise to itself it hardly knew what to do.
Like you, he thought it was no big deal as he gets far more challenging work daily, but I think the horse would disagree. Thanks for sharing.

Gary Hill wrote:
Unlike some, also not unexperienced in the application of banana shoes , I use wedged bar shoes for my bananas. When working with steel keg shoes, I use a (full) wedge pad, preferably with frog support. What I want to be sure of is caudal support, especially when working with banana shoes. The banana offers ease of break over, but that comes at a price, it rolls backward just as easily. In therapeutic cases this is no big deal but when you use bananas on performance horses like I do (I guess not too many do) you need that insurance

A wedge is not needed to comply with the "banana protocol", but you will rarely see a banana from my hand without a wedge. (I have tried it on clubs that do not improve fast enough, didn't seem to help) A bar further enhances the support effect the wedge offers.


Ronald Aalders

Rachael Kane wrote:
Tears limit your view Rachel.



Ronald Aalders

Not a very tough farrier, am I!?

Ron, looks great. The horse seems to be standing in correct pastern axis. Can you tell me your process of selecting which size wedge you use?