I can see the advantages of reduceing the leverage in the toe and that the bannana shoe eases breakover pretty far back. What is the advantage of the palmer aspect of the hoof also haveing a roller motion?

Everything has reprocustions, what are the negatives useing a bananna shoe? It can't be all good, nothing in this buisness is.

If the hoof is trimmed to a bannana shape is there a risk of cuncussion into the coffin bone wings?

The key in a banana shoe, Phil, is the self adjusting palmar/plantar angle part. The pivot located at the center of articulation allows the horse to decide on what the palmar angle of it's feet should be. Without rolling the heels up too, you just created a shoe with a rolled toe.

The draw backs? Fitting them on short feet is tricky unless you glue, or buy banana's with a flat foot side. Another thing is that fitting them needs experience even if 'how to' is explained thoroughly (as I plan to do at the Online Conference ) you need experience to really get 'good' at it.

Shaping a shoe banana wise is cheap, makes you very flexible and can be used in a lot of cases. Obviously when fitting a banana shoe to a foot, don't take away so much heel the horse gets sore. But that goes for all kinds of shoes. If you worry about the foot rolling backward putting too much pressure on the heels, you should try and visualise the banana when it hits the ground. The rolled heels reduce impact, while the roll allows easy breakover reducing strain in a foot. Compare this to a regular shoe. Like with a heel first lander the heels hit the ground, the foot slaps flat and the DDFT has to work hard to get the foot to tip over at the toe again. In such cases the heels have to handle way more strain than with a banana shoe! The more breakover is brought back, like with a square toe, the better it gets. But save for the banana there is no shoe I know of that can bring breakover back as far as the center of articulation, without making the foot tip forward.

Obviously in all this the position of the belly of the roll is vital. When the belly is too much forward, you miss the ease of breakover and you may well have made matters worse. When the roll is too far too the back, a horse will not be able to self adjust the palmar angle because the foot will roll forward by itself.


Ronald Aalders

Sounds great, are you useing banana shoe for lameness issues only or do you also use them for competative horses?

Seems to me this is an easy concept to apply if you can succefully locate the center of the foot.

What about the theory of frog pressure being part of maintaining proper alignment of the bones and aid in absorbtion of cuncussion. Seems like the banana shoe would interfere with this basic principle.

Hi Phil,

One of the reasons I agreed to Baron Tayler's request to do this presentation on banana shoes at the Farrier & Hoofcare Online Conference is that I would like to show the benefits of the banana for performance horses too.

Sure I started out with the banana in the****utic cases, like anybody else. But when those cases got better and went back competing they were still on banana's and did good. So I started using the banana on performance horses too, in those cases I thought it would do good.

It's not too difficult for experienced shoers to locate the spot where the roll needs to be Phil. You'll need a good working knowledge of foot anatomy and how to relate inner structures to what you see when holding the foot. In fact the kind of knowledge you'd use when shoeing any horse.

X rays do take out the guessing part that's true. And I bet you'd agree that before and after rads would help in big time in out day to day shoeing, regardless of the protocol used. But alas, it's not often we have such luxury.

The nice thing about the banana Phil is that you can use virtually any shoe you want here. The banana (or Rock 'n Roll as some call it, ) relates to the shape of the shoe not the type of shoe. So if a horse needs sole support, extra wedges, or whatever, go ahead and use it.


Ronald Aalders

Ronald thank you takeing the time to share your thoughts. Pretty exciteing time we are invovled with these days. New information, high tech equipment and data, all good stuff for sure. I attended a clinic years ago that focused on new ideas on breakover, banana shoes, NB shoes, Reddins shoe. A question was asked by one of the Vets and I have yet to hear an answer to this day. Can there be too much breakover? I think this is a great question.

As with anything we do, nothing is free. There is a cost or should I say a reprocution for every action. What are your thoughts on this?

Phil Armitage wrote:

In my humble opinion Phil, the vet asking that question should have asked what the advantage is of delayed breakover. Let's define 'delayed breakover' as any lever between the center of articulation and the tipping point of the hoofcapsule. With this definition even an ideal foot has a delayed breakover.

What is the advantage here? Who ever your creator may be Phil, the Lord or Darwin, there must be a reason for this. Just like there is a reason for this mechanically unsound decision the create an angle at the pastern. No engineer would come up with such a construction on anything support beam! He'd make one straight down, like an elephant's leg. That's strong!

So what is the reason for this angle? The reason has to do with locomotion. This angle here (and others!) in the skeleton of a horse allows a horse to use a kind of elastic effect it's muscles have to offer. This greatly improves the efficiency of locomotion. The lever in a horses foot we all know and discuss so often plays some kind of role here.

Our nowadays horses are a long way off the horses God and/or Darwin came up with. So is the work they are supposed to do. Sure we managed to have them adapt but it's not prefect. And the flaws we see everyday. Respiratory problems in horses (just think about that one, on an animal that could almost beat a cheetah where athletic performance -heart and lungs- is concerned!) navicular syndrom, LT-LH problems and what have you.

For a lot of those problems we found a cure, we learned how to fix those problems we bred in ourselves. As horse shoers we specialize in locomotion
and our job is to implement ideas by researchers. Well it should be. Being the specialists we are we come up with a lot of stuff ourselves, simply because our job is highly specialized. Just poll the amount of vets that would note the start of a mild club on a 2 y/o. You'd be surprised how little vets are able to do that. For us it's routine.

But before I drift of too far (I have a tendency to do that ) I think that what a horse's foot can hold up to, and what we make it do, are not matched anymore. So we are looking for ways to find cures for problems. Some do that by blaming shoes for everything and found that if a foot is corrected each and every time it tends to get out of line, they can reach satisfactorily results. They fail to see the real problem. And they also fail to accept that a horse's foot is a very plastic structure. As soon as a 'corrected' foot is put back to work, it will head south again. This is probably the reason you don't see too many (if any) performance horses on a barefoot schedule (and I DON'T the weekend show horses).

Smarter people came up with ways to get to the spot where most problems strike, delayed breakover. That obviously includes Mr. Ovnicek, but others too. (My mentor for one, who never ever heard of Mr. Ovnicek)

Redden brushed up the banana concept, that has been around for ages guys. It's not new, not at all. People following my posts may remember that pic of a wooden shoe I wore out. Anybody can see the banana effect the wear and tear created. Anatomically different, sure! Meant to be funny? Obviously! But I do hope that through posts like those, people start thinking about the concept a bit more.

Not as a cure all, there is no such thing, but as a valuable tool that combines flexibility with efficiency. No need to worry about pay back when using the banana. It's a very effective way to reduce breakover forces that account for A LOT of problems in horses under our modern breeding-, training and performance schedules.

(My God how am I to squeeze all this and more, in a two hour talk? )



Ronald Aalders

Ronald Aalders wrote: With aplomb!

Thanks again Ronald. Seeing breakover as a reduction of leverage makes sense. The advantages of minimizeing this leverage in the toe to reduce strain on the DDFT, skelatal and muscular structurse also makes sense.

The thinking that more is better does not make sense and to think it increases efficiancey does not make sense. Part of the efficiency in locomotion is also traction. Reduction of leverage and ground surface reduces traction and the reduction of traction reduces efficiancey in locomotion. Which the horse pays the price.

Another price the horse pays is in our attempts to reduce strain on the DDFT and navicular region we are loading other tendons and ligiments and other tissue in the horses foot and leg.

Didnt feel like makeing my response long, we finaly have sun outside after days of rain, so I am going to get out there and soak up the sun.

Don't get burned Phil!


Ronald Aalders

Do you use a banana with a flat foot surface if you need to use wedges?