I went to a clinic in Massachusetts a while back and listened to a vet and her farrier try to explain about the benifits of the banana shoe.

There were a lot of farriers in attendence and opinions were as varied as the colors in an M & M package.

Ron I often see you mention you use it.

Could you expand on the why's and what for's. The situations where you decide it is benificial and how you apply it ?

Is it a commonly used shoe in your country ?

Have you used it for a long time and why or how did you come about to use this type of shoe ?

Ron;
Thanks for your e-mail. Will look forward to reading your responce.
Can't remember how many times I have written something only to goof up and delete or cancel it.

Hi Bruce,

No it's not a common shoe at all here in Europe, let alone here in Holland. I have been using the banana shoe a lot for the last 5 years or so. I tried it out on a lot of horses with a lot of problems. All problems that I could relate to DDFT pull somehow got a banana slapped on. It taught me a lot. By the way it was through this board I finally decided to use it. Brian Robertson took time enough to explain how he used the banana shoe and how it worked for him.

The interesting part is that my mentor has been using his version of the banana shoe for decades. His version is one that rolls the toe from about the third nail hole up and from the heels where the crease stops. Leaving a tiny flat part. He got his ass kicked big time by Dutch vets that in those days where so smart they did not need to criticize themselves. Thank God Dutch vets nowadays are not so smart anymore Anyway he kept on using it because he saw the huge advantages to this type of shoeing. But since he did not want to get me -a shoer starting out- into trouble, he never really explained the concept. He just kept on saying bring back the shoe, ease breakover. You can not overdo that! In the end I kind of had an idea to what he was doing but never got to ask him. I just kept the concept in my head and in fact it was Brian's 'push' that made me jump in. I spend time reading all I had not read before of the publications by Dr. Redden and in the end contacted him and asked some questions I had that were not answered sofar. Questions that Redden was kind enough to answer.

The concept itself, that is how I see it: (And there is way more to be said!)

Also thanks to guys like Gene Ovnicek, we know that the rules Archimedes laid out a very very long time ago, apply to the equine foot too. Reducing breakover reduces forces needed to get heels off the ground. Simply put this means less wear and tear on structures in the foot, the navicular region and lamillae for starters.

The key word here is less, not brought back to a minimum!

The protocol Gene Ovnicek worked out, putting P3 in a normal/natural (personally I prefer 'normal' to 'natural') position within the hoofcapsule, trimming to maintain hoofwall integrity and easing breakover to reduce forces that would inevitably undo all work done in the first place, is great. But I've always felt we could do even better for those horses that need more.

What I like to call the banana shoe (because it decribes the type of shoe, rather than the effect; following the tracks other shoers made for centuries) Redden calls a Rock 'n Roll shoe (because that name decribes what the shoe does). The banana shoe allows a horse to self adjust it's palmar angle. By doing so a horse takes advantage of mechanics offered to self create an highly effective healing situation for his foot, not just temporarily but 24/7! Sure ease of breakover with a square toe eases breakover to, but compared to what? Compared to a long toed foot or a shoe that has a breakover further forward. A banana allows breakover a the one spot where the coffin bone rotates, the distal end of P2. This is as effective as it gets, not compared to other shoes or feet, but compared to actual anatomical structures within the equine digit itself! (Now aint that a flashy sentence for a Dutch boy, huh )

With a banana we combine the effect of wedges and ease of breakover. The horse can rock forward, but also rock back a little. Sure we can raise a horses heel by using wedges, but by doing so we also apply a lot of pressure on those heels. When using banana's on a low heeled horse you will find that you need less wedge than you'd expect to get the same raised heeled effect. This is because the ease of breakover kicks in here. Creating what Redden calls an air wedge.

But there are other advantages. One of them is that when landing the heels hit the ground in a more normal position then with a stack of wedges applied to them. An other is one I don't think Redden ever mentioned and that's that the banana reduces the friction the ground has on the shoe, on the foot and thus on P3. Reducing the work load of the lamillae. Further the self-adjusting-palmar/plantar-angle effect (hey, don't blame me I did not think of that line) of the banana shoe implies the foot can rock forward and backward. That effect in my view provides a kind of a massaging effect to related ligaments and tendons, but also to blood vessels in the foot. This greatly improves perfusion. (That means blood flow, I looked it up!)

And for us shoers, there is another advantage. You're not stuck to any specific kind of shoe. You can make a banana out of any kind of shoe that you can shape on an anvil. You can forge the roll into the shoe, you can also use a template to get the roll into the shoe, heck you can even banana roll an aluminum wedged shoe by lightly tapping its branches (ground side down ) over the hardy hole.

You could even banana shape a 1 1/4" x 1/2" draft shoe!

Like every other shoe you can also mess up the application of the banana shoe. If I only try and imagine what other great shoeing ideas had to endure just because some goofball messed up the correct application completely! "Hey, that ****** (heart bar/NB/egg bar/and what have you) shoe don't work. I slapped one on a horse and it went lame instantly!" It's amazing those guys kept it up and kept explaining why and how the shoe worked. So when you misapply a banana shoe, chances are the banana won't work for you. And yes, like any other misapplied shoe it may well worsen the situation in stead of helping it.

Applying and using a banana is not more difficult then say a heart bar shoe. But if you miss out on the theory and anatomy behind it you may mess up big time.


Ronald Aalders

Ron,
Great write up! I enjoyed reading it.

Could you go over your method of prepping the foot and makeing/applying the shoe? When you get time of course.

Thanks,
Josh
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One of the biggest advantages I see with the banana shoe is the amount of sole growth that it will enable...... I suspect this is directly related to the circulation which has been compromised until the alignment is improved

try it you might like the results

Derin

Great read Ron.
Is there an advantage to having a curved foot surface as opposed to a flat foot surface with a banana shaped ground surface?
Will clog shoes like the Stewart clog give similar results as the banana shoe if the ground side is modified a little to give it a full rock and roll?
Pictures from EDSS website.

Hey Ron
I was just asking about banana shaped shoes with a flat foot surfaces because it seems like pretty difficult hoof preparation to get the hoof surface to match the shoe. I'm very interested on trying it out. Do you have any suggestions on hoof preparation or is it just eye hand coordination?

Hi Frisco,

Obviously the banana's with a level foot surface are the ones that are easiest to apply. Given the fact that the banana is not the easiest shoe to use, that's an pro over the banana we shape ourselves.

The draw back is that there is some extra height in such a shoe too. The banana roll will have to come out of the material itself. I shoe a lot of western performance horses, sofar the majority of my practise. Reiners and cutters really don't need the extra height. You don't want the extra lever putting even more strain on those collateral ligaments. But even in the****utic cases I don't see any reason for that added height. Frankly sofar it's not clear to me what about this clog/wooden shoe concept is superior to other possibilities we have. But I'd like to hear why I'm wrong!

I don't think shaping a shoe banana wise and shoeing a foot with such a shoe is really difficult. Shape the shoe either on your anvil face, your hardy hole or with a template and rasp the foot using the shaped banana as a guide line. Nailing and glueing like all other kinds of shoes. Because you'll shape the foot banana wise, you'll need foot to work with! In other cases you'll need to glue or you'll need a banana with a flat foot surface.

I can see that the clog/wooden shoe allows added breakover. The wooden clog may also be very cheap. I just can't see why you would use a clog/wooden shoe while there are so many alternatives. The banana for one, and I'm convinced it's the most effective shoe by far. But what about the shoe I posted here?


Ronald Aalders

Ron,
I applied my set of these a few weeks back to horse witrh a tendon issue. It seemed to work pretty well. The only problem was that the horse had cast the previous farriers shoe and the hoof was very short, so there was not a lot of room to work with. You run into this problem at all?

Also my main concern is do you leave to longest part of the hoof in the middle, or more towards the heel?

Josh
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SlowShoe wrote:
Ronald Aalders

Thats an angry looking shoe you posted Ron. Do you put those on for illegal backroom horse fights?
Being Dutch I am suprised you don't use clogs on horses especialy the wooden ones.
Thanks for the tips on fitting the banana, I guess I should practice at home before doing it in public in front of the vet and my clients so I can at least look like I know what I am doing.

Tha banana is one very rewarding shoe, I can promise anyone that. You need to really understand the mechanics behind it, and experiment how the banana is applied. But that's all. Small price to pay for such a great tool!


Ronald Aalders

Ronald Aalders wrote:

If we follow the French researcher Denoix a banana would be a good idea on SDFT/suspensory trouble. Sofar I have not used a banana on those problems. I have always been pretty succesfull with added caudal support here.

If on the other hand for some reason a horse would have a low palmar angle ánd suspensory problems, I'm pretty sure I would use the banana. The reason is the only with a banana you can get to a high palmar angle without having to use a lot of wedges.

Like I said there is a lot more about the banana I would like to explain. Baron Tayler, the site manager here has offered me to do so at the Online Farrier & Hoofcare Conference in November.

This gives me a chance to explain how I use the banana shoe and what it has done for me and how it can work for you too.

Now I need to get a hold of a lot of pics..................



Ronald Aalders

Ron; Great pictures and super explanation. I also would like to hear more.
Thanks very much for taking the time to answer my question