Short Shoeing

In the last few years the horseshoeing industry has seen a practice that has alarmed some of our older shoers and horse owners. I am referring to the practice of short shoeing.

Short shoeing is moving the shoe back, sometimes as far as 1/2 inch. Then rasping the toe back under to the shoe, or nubbing the toe down to the shoe, or just letting the toe hang over. Dr. Doug Butler’s book “The Principles of Horseshoeing II” has a picture on page 185, and about 4 paragraphs, describing this technique, his remarks are in the negative.

From my own experience I see horses coming in like this from all over.

I only live about 7 miles from Expo Square, and receive calls when horses are being unloaded. I will set up and work several shows a year.

A few months ago I was working on a jumper with aluminum shoes, the toes of the front shoes had been drastically squared and rolled; after trimming, the lamanae in both front feet were seedy and black in the front quarters. It looked like the walls were flexing at that point, probably from landing on the quarters. The toes were intact and healthy.

At a penning show I was asked to shoe 3 horses from the same owner. All three horses had the front shoes moved back and the hoof walls rasped completely through.

A few weeks ago I was called to work on a horse where the shoes had been set back and several nails had been driven through the sole. This horse will be difficult to work on in the future as there were several hot nails. This is an expensive horse and all horses I have worked on at this barn have been pleasant and well behaved. About all we could do was pull the shoes and let the vet take over.

Enough of these stories, I’m depressing myself. In school we were taught to shape the foot, then shape the shoe to the foot. By doing this, all nail holes would be in the correct position. Also we were taught about the horny wall and elastic structures working together to dissipate concussion, and bear weight evenly on the correctly shod foot.

Each and every time I encounter this situation, the owner (trainer) tells me it was done to assist break over. Without saying anything, you know you have won them over when their next words are “man that looks good;” then they come back in a couple of hours to show you their ribbons.

I have kept these thoughts to myself (except for the occasional “oh, this was done on purpose?”) until Monday night. I was watching Horseshoe’n Time and the topic of the show was… you guessed it… short shoeing.

The folks at The National Equine and Hoof Research Foundation used their Center and equipment to investigate this procedure. Their findings were pretty conclusive and also favored a well prepared foot and sound basic work just like we were all taught and tested for.

If you have Dish Network and have horses, I would recommend Horseshoe’n Time. It is on Sunday mornings from 7:00 to 8:00 am Okie time, and on Monday evenings 6:00 to 6:30 channel 9411 or website: www.horseshoentime.tv