Ray_Knightley;192776 wrote:
I was not shooting against any land....Belgium has (little Know)about the best Intact Horse Industy in Europe...
Thats the sort of burn that some of the guys I used to work for would do...Must Note they would keep the shoes on about 5 months .

The 3 clips could have been because of all the flares on those hooves ..I would think...

I used to shoe with two clips on that size Horse One Toe and One Lateral ,but not too far back ....they where used for pulling trees out of forest areas with steep hill ground ...big studs etc aswell..

Mike,
From the summary of the study: "The hoof dampened the vibrations transmitted to the first phalanx. Shoeing decreased the viscous dampening and increased the median power frequency and the maximal amplitude of the vibrations transmitted to the first phalanx."

The pressure dropped during the stance phase, indicating expansion of the hoof. The expansion of the hoof was not produced by frog or sole weight bearing because this would have increased the intra-digital cushion pressure. The pressure theory of hoof function must presumably therefore be rejected. Shoeing the horses augmented the intra-digital cushion pressure drop and probably impaired the movements of the hoof wall.

Clint,
One article stated "Two horses were trotted by hand over a force plate. Recordings of 3-D kinematics of the distal forelimb were carried out by use of a 240 Hz video system. Tri-axial accelerometer data were collected from a bone-mounted accelerometer on the midlateral side of the third metacarpal bone (McIII) and from another accelerometer attached to the lateral side of the hoof."

Another article(abstract dated 1994) stated in part: "The dampening of hoof impact was investigated by measuring the accelerations transmitted through structures of the hoof in horses trotting freely on an asphalt tarmac. .........The pressure inside the digital cushion of the foreleg was recorded."

The Abstract does not say how the measurements were undertaken.

The last article/abstract does not mention at all how the results were obtained. In aggregate, the studies used words such as "proposed", "probably, "potentially", "implicated", "estimated", "presumably"........

One study involved only two horses.....

Rick

Clint Burrell;192800 wrote:
The good news is that since these studies are from across the pond, we might not have been forced to pay for them.

They should get someone involved who knows something about this stuff.

They did:

Jeff Thomason, PhD
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Ontario Veterinary College

"They":
Equine hoof function investigated by pressure transducers inside the hoof and accelerometers mounted on the first phalanx.
Dyhre-Poulsen P, Korsgaard: Dept of Medical Physiology, The Panum Institute University of Copehagen
Smedegaard HH: Dept of Clinical Studies, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University Denmark
Roed J: Department of Industrial Acoustics, Institute of Manufacturing Engineerng Technical University of Denmark

Point is, one could probably find any study that supports or refutes ones viewpoints. It never hurts to pick apart or question the protocols of how any studies are conducted, or the conclusions that are drawn; it's called critical thinking.

Mike,
I don't think your analogy of someone whacking a tree trunk with and without a hammer head compared to a horse's hoof shod vs barefoot and impact shock is entirely valid. What's missing is the function of the hoof-energy dissipated before it reaches the muscluoskeletal system through reversible deformation of the unshod hoof, and no resonant frequencies from the shoe itself.

A critical thinker could start by acknowledging the difference between a study done on asphalt to a study done on a groomed race track.

Thomason went back and measured the GRF of the track itself.

Perhaps one should account for the acoustic damping signature of coupled and uncoupled materials of dissimilar density.

The vibration analysis part of this is all well understood stuff but it appears that those doing the these studies are trying to re-invent it.

Ham and eggs stuff though density isn't the only relevant attribute. Other material properties as well as geometry and the nature of the coupling will have a great effect.

Mike, this stuff is well understood by those who have studied vibration, shock, acoustics, and propagation of such in various materials.

I'm surprised that nobody has dismissed Thomason's work on the basis that he has no tenure as a farrier, only wants to show everybody how smart he is, and lacks the ability to communicate in the "real world."

Exactly.

It doesn't have anything to do with his tenure. The results stand up to scrutiny or they don't.

on the basis that he has no tenure as a farrier, only wants to show everybody how smart he is