Today,this horse has negative palmar angle. It's very lame.No sensibility or pain in the bars zone.The vet and me suspect the pain source are the distal articulation and navicular-deep tendón zone.

Straightbar Banana shoe.Medial heels are floated. The horse get a good alineation of bones.It is sound (in the gait,hard floor) inmediatelly. In the trot (soft floor),it makes better about 50%.

Pics and rads before and after shoeing.

Front left

Rigth front

This is the rad of the right front.Sorry.

Gabino,
Nice work on the trim...it alone will probably improve the situation. As evidenced by this picture, the focal points of pressure applied to the foot by this shoe are on the heel and toe. In firm footing as shown in the picture, the weight of the horse will then be borne on the heels and toe instead of the entire hoof wall. In addition, the angle of the shoe is closer to perpendicular with the hoof tubules of the heel than would be if you nailed on a flat shoe. As such, the vector force of this shoe push the heel forward more so than a flat shoe. Why did you decide to go with this approach versus a flat shoe with wedge/wedge shoe/rocker shoe, etc.? I think you have done the horse a service with the trim. Would like your thoughts on the shoe choice if you are so inclined. Thanks!

Mr. Scruggs, it would help me to understand your vector discussion better if you put up a vector diagram. i.e. Show where you think anterior and posterior GRF points (UP) are distributed along the support base to oppose the weight force (DOWN) through the COA (presumably with moments acting on the center of weight bearing of P3).

tbloomer wrote:
Here you go. The shoe may or may not benefit the musculoskeletal system. My question is aimed at a hoof horn/underlying soft tissue structural integrity standpoint. Again, I think overall, the horse's immediate condition has been improved. I ask Mr. Gabino to give consideration to the hoof, particularly the heel region. Realizing there is no such thing as the perfect shoe job, just wondering his thoughts on my question. Were the foot surface of that shoe flat and the ground surface contoured as pictured above, I would support its application.

AhHaaa!

Thanks.

scruggs1 wrote:If I ever find a perfect horse, I'll give it a perfect shoe job.

scruggs1 wrote:
I'm sorry John. I dont' know English enough for explain correctly.Perhaps Ron Aalders wants to explain, one time more,about the banana shoe.

I fix the banana shoe hot on the hoof.In this way,all shoe charge weigth.The plastic pad is flexible,then it don't change the weigth distribution.You can see a bit of wide space beetwen the plastic pad and the hoof because I floated these heel (it was sheared).

Why banana versus flat shoe or rocker shoe?

The rocker shoe is more expensive(aluminium) and less easy to make than banana (steel).In other way,the rocker shoe forces to horse supporting in the rocker point,from you decide put the rocker bell.You can be wrong,but the horse is wrong never about his comfort.The banana shoe allows the horse to choose the point more comfortable.

The flat shoe and wedges are not fonctional shoeing in the most of the horses with problems of missalignment of the pastern axis.In the most of the cases,the trimming are not sufficent for get a decent alignment of bones.The wedges raise the heel,but it increase the weigth in the heels.It is contraproducent for thoses horses suffering pain in the posterior zone of the hoof.

Why banana? I'm not fanatic of banana or another protocol shoeing or horse shoe.With horses sounds,I'm using flat shoe.The most of the horses I'm shoeing are horses with problems.Then,I use much banana.

I believe that the realignment of the pastern axis is a fundamental thing for the solution of the hoof problem.If you don't get this realignment,all shoes,pads,silicon,etc,are a patch,one superficial solution.

One day,thanks to Ronald Aalders and this forum,I find a methode of shoeing easy,fast,cheap and very effective for get that realignment. From this moment,I use the banana shoe in almost the problems that his first problem is the missalignment of the pastern axis,like NPA,founder,some bursa navicular pain,and some quarter cracks,like I show here.

tbloomer wrote:
No problem. I am as subject to being completely wrong as the next person...this is just the way I view the effects of this particular shoe. I'm sure others see it differently and that's OK too.

tbloomer wrote:
If you do find one, it won't likely need the services of any of us here.

Gabino wrote:
No problem. Thanks for the reply.

Gabino wrote:
I encourage you to look at the heel wear on the pad of those shoes when you remove them at the end of the shoeing cycle. Also encourage you to take lateral pictures of the heels of these feet over several shoeing cycles with this particular shoe. I do applaud your efforts in 'getting out of the box' with problem cases. Good Luck!

scruggs1 wrote:
Interesting line if thought but in my opinion not relevant.

The idea behind the banana is not like the drawing seems to suggest to provide pressure on the toe and heels as such. True in cases where a full fit of the quarters on the shoe is not possible the weight will be borne by toe and heel, but I fail to see why this has the effect you suggest. If the trim lowers the heels enough for the COA to be as close to the middle of the ground contact of the foot, the "bending in" effect does not occur. Why would it, or maybe better, why would it be more as compared with a regular shoeing job?

I think that a banana offers even less of that "bending in" effect you suggest because the strain of the landing is less, well, I think it must be. (No budget for measurements.....) Because of that "air wedge" as Redden calls it.


Ronald Aalders

p.s. I tried to post pics but the system tells me I already posted it. I'm sorry I'd like to again post the same picture because it clarifies what I'm trying to say a lot more than directing you guys to that pic..... Perhaps overdoing the attempt to save on server space?

scruggs1 wrote:We have to make compromises and trade-offs with stuff like this. So it's a judgment call about how much we can "rob Peter to pay Paul."

I don't view negative ventral angles as a "foot problem," per se, but more a symptom of muscle/skeleton abnormal weight bearing compensation issues. When/if the vets sort out the stuff that's wrong in the hairy part, the horny part gets a lot easier to manage. - IMO, IME, YMMV, and GIGO.

Ronald Aalders wrote:Actually it would be less because there is more bearing surface on a curve than there is on a straight line assuming they have the same end points.

Ronald Aalders wrote:
I guess that depends on your perspective. Hoof horn integrity and pressure on the heels is highly relevant to me...as I am sure it is to you. Working with lameness sometimes has a way of changing the priorities...and as Tom just stated above, sometimes we rob Peter to pay Paul.

Ronald Aalders wrote:
I realize that may not be the idea behind the shoe. I am sure the purpose of the shoe has more relevance with the musculoskeletal system, HPA, tendon tension, etc. Again, if the foot surface of the shoe were flat, this would be a non-issue.

Ronald Aalders wrote:
The effect at the toe and heel, although diminished when there is full wall contact, is still present. Imagine stuffing a sponge down into a funnel. The ends of the sponge get pushed toward the center of the funnel as the center prolapses down to try to find contact. Even if you cut the sponge to fit the contour of the funnel, as it is pressed into the funnel, the ends are pushed toward the center.

Ronald Aalders wrote:
In soft footing, the effect would be diminished as more of the solar surface of the foot accepts load (unless a rigid pad was placed between the shoe and foot). However, the location of the COA is irrelevant to my point...and the effect does indeed occur. If the shoe itself accepts any portion of the weight bearing of that limb, the angle that the heel tubules come into the shoe is lower (than it would be if the foot surface of the shoe was flat), the vector into those tubules also changes (vs. flat foot surface). The lower the angle formed between the heel and the shoe, the more the forces come into those tubules closer to perpendicular...as such, the vector is more "forward" than "up".

Ronald Aalders wrote:
As long as weight is being borne on the shoe, regardless of the exact point of the shoe that is in contact with the ground, the shoe itself will disperse that weight across the bearing surface. If that bearing surface includes heel horn, the direction of force will be more forward on those tubules in the heel than a flat shoe.

Ronald Aalders wrote:
In the absence of subjective measurement, I will stick with the laws of vector addition. However, it would be nice to have Pat nail one up with a force plate sandwiched in there to show the effect.

tbloomer wrote:
This only applies to the cut surface of the individual tubules...and would be like saying that holding a 2x4 up with your hand is easier if you saw the end on an angle because there is more surface area there. With the same end point and beginning point, we have neither decreased nor increased the total number of tubules accepting load...the curve only redistributes the direction in which those tubules receive that load. The weight of the horse does not change so there is no way possible (still assuming standing on hard surface for discussion purposes) to reduce the force on the capsule itself unless the other limbs somehow accept more load. It is the direction of the force into the capsule (specifically the heel region) that I am concerned with.

Do I think it is going to make a huge impact on all feet? No.
Do I think there are some with weak/thin horn that this will make a detrimental impact on? Yes.
Do I think there are times when the immediate concern is far greater elsewhere in the equation...so much that the effect of the shoe on the horn is diminished in importance? Yes.
Do I think the shoe would be much better for the hoof capsule itself if the ground surface were flat? Yes.