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This horse had had a limited career due to two major tendon injuries each of which required at least a year off. He had collapsed heels on both front feet but the near side which had the tendon injuries was the lowest of the two. Consequently, as a 7yo he had only had 18 starts. After having his heels rebuilt to reestablish a straight hoof pastern axis he went on to have another 22 starts, winning a Saturday metropolitan race as well as winning one of the feature races at the North Qld racing carnival.
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This filly suffered an injury to her hoof as a weanling resulting in a portion of her hoof missing. As a consequence her hoof would crack and bleed. Initially I laced the crack up with surgical wire while it grew out. As the missing portion of her hoof will never regenerate, she requires therapeutic shoeing for the rest of her career. She has gone on to win two races thus far from only five starts.
This filly injured herself in her stable overnight. Nobody knows what she cut her hoof on, but they discovered her early in the morning covered in blood. She has sliced the bulb of her hoof off. She already had bar shoes on at the time as she had arrived at the stables with a history of going down on her bumpers, hence the egg bar hinds which had alleviated the problem. I initially made her a heart bar with a step down so the injured area of the hoof didn't bear any weight. Now that she is two months from the original injury, we now have a standard heart bar on. Surprisingly, she been sound through the recovery phase and while initially having a week off, she has remained in work and recently won a barrier trial. I'll update her progress as time goes on. Update: This filly won her second start back after this injury. A good result and a good effort by her trainer to keep her fit and moving forward despite this injury.
This retired racehorse was miserable from being barefoot, he had a very bruised thin sole plus some White Line Disease on the lateral side of his hoof which wasn't painful for him but made attaching a shoe on that side difficult. As it has grown out though, he is much happier, and nailing isn't a problem now. Whilst being barefoot is always best if it can be achieved, some horses just need the help a shoe provides. Trimming alone using any technique or methodology was never going to make him comfortable.
Another race mare with a hoof injury. This time the injury is due to a conformational defect called an offset hoof capsule. If you look at the pastern it is not directly over the middle of the hoof, it is over the medial aspect, and this causes an undue amount of weight centered over the medial heel. This caused the medial bulb to become shunted up and consequently she ended up with a very sore crushed heel that became infected. We needed to stabilise the hoof capsule while getting the medial bulb to drop back down to a better position. We achieve this by "floating" the heel which you can see from the photos doesn't stay floated for very long. Within 48 hours it had dropped down to be in contact with the shoe. She remained doing all her track work in bar shoes and over time the heel regrew, and the bulb relaxed back down to be more in line with the corresponding heel.
Racehorse with Advanced White Line Disease
There has always been debated about what to call this condition. It has been called Whie Line Disease, Seedy Toe and various other things. The best definition I think comes from Dr Simon Curtis FWCF, which is Kerolytic Diseae of the Zona Alba. No matter how technical you like to get, we know what we are dealing with. This mare had quite a severe case of this condition and I resected it, and it went out for a spell. Unfortunately, it was in very wet conditions and didn't get the aftercare that was required for complete eradication of the condition. As there was quite a bit of capsule missing, I initially applied an aluminium bar shoe to stablise the hoof and resected back to solid connection at the margins of the cavity. As it grew down, I was able to transition her into an open heeled shoe. I'm pleased to say she has remained sound and has won two races during this campaign.
There has always been debated about what to call this condition. It has been called Whie Line Disease, Seedy Toe and various other things. The best definition I think comes from Dr Simon Curtis FWCF, which is Kerolytic Diseae of the Zona Alba. No matter how technical you like to get, we know what we are dealing with. This mare had quite a severe case of this condition and I resected it, and it went out for a spell. Unfortunately, it was in very wet conditions and didn't get the aftercare that was required for complete eradication of the condition. As there was quite a bit of capsule missing, I initially applied an aluminium bar shoe to stablise the hoof and resected back to solid connection at the margins of the cavity. As it grew down, I was able to transition her into an open heeled shoe. I'm pleased to say she has remained sound and has won two races during this campaign.
This mare had a large dorsal wall crack. I thought it would be quite straight forward to rectify. I Shod her with a wide webbed heart bar. This seemed to initially improve the hoof, but it continued to crack and each shoeing It didn't seem to be making great improvement. I then opted for an Equicast which is similar to a cast that you would use on a human fracture. This adds extra strength to the wall and stabilised it enough that we could break the cycle and get some great growth without the crack. It has now almost completely grown out and she is happy and sound.
HThis gelding must've had a major injury to his hoof previous to his current owner purchasing him. The resulting defect requires that he be kept shod. It's not possible to keep him sound barefoot. He has proved difficult to keep a shoe on for the entire length of a shoeing cycle due to the hoof with the defect growing weak, disorganised horn. He has been shod thus far with a composite patch to stablise the crack. While he is sound this way, the crack hasn't resolved. He has proved to be a little difficult to shoe as arthritis in his knees makes it difficult for him to keep his knee bent for any length of time. When I initially got to him farriers had struggled to keep a shoe on him because of the poor-quality horn on the affected side. My first shoeing was a glue on as nailing was going to be nearly impossible. Next, I wired the crack together and this worked well but it was about around this time that he wouldn't stand for any length of time and that made the drilling of holes through the horn very risky. I have now opted for a hoof cast. This has the dual effect of stablising the hoof capsule and hopefully the crack as well as giving something firm to nail to. Casting is valuable skill to acquire. If you're interested in seeing how this procedure is done, I would suggest you look for videos on YouTube by Derek Poupard. He gives a very detailed explanation of the process and its advantages.
