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"[He was] so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages ... So ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on." Benjamin Franklin
Go to any of the many horse shows held weekly all over the country and you'll see a wide variety of hooves.
High heels, low heels, barefoot, shod, short toe, long toe, hair lines that cut a plane and those that arch and everything in between.
Within the Strasser Protocol there is a model that is considered healthy. These parameters define a healthy foot as one that has
hoof mechanism, that is, when the horse weights his hoof the walls are able to move in a proscribed manner and the sole is able to draw flat.
This allows for maximum blood circulation and allows the coffin bone to descend without pinching the solar corium. Also, the hairline forms
a plane at a 30 degree angle to the ground and on the front hooves the dorsal wall makes a 45 degree angle to the ground.
Heel height is at 3 cm. These angles and heel height contribute to hoof mechanism and blood flow and allow for the best weight
displacement across the hoof contributing to a wide variety of factors. This is not a complete description but a sketch of the high points.
Below are some pictures and diagrams of the hoof.
“Nothing in this world is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
Victor Hugo
Go to any of the many horse shows held weekly all over the country and you'll see a
wide variety of hooves. High heels, low heels, barefoot, shod, short toe, long toe, hair
lines that cut a plane and those that arch and everything in between. Within the
Strasser Protocol there is a model that is considered healthy. These parameters
define a healthy foot as one that has hoof mechanism, that is, when the horse
weights his hoof the walls are able to move in a proscribed manner and the sole is
able to draw flat. This allows for maximum blood circulation and allows the coffin
bone to descend without pinching the solar corium. Also, the hairline forms a plane
at a 30 degree angle to the ground and on the front hooves the dorsal wall makes a
45 degree angle to the ground. Heel height is at 3 cm. These angles and heel height
contribute to hoof mechanism and blood flow and allow for the best weight
displacement across the hoof contributing to a wide variety of factors. This is
not a complete description but a sketch of the high points. Below are some
pictures and diagrams of the hoof.
Diagram of the two Weight Bearing States
Here are the two positions of the foot. Weightbearing when the sole draws towards flat
and the wall moves outward allowing the corium to fill with blood. Then the hoof is
lifted out of its weightbearing phase and constricts to its narrowest state and the blood
is expressed.
Anything that interferes with this, like a shoe or an improper trim, impedes blood flow.
A horse's heart is only .5% of his body weight and he depends on these four auxiliary
pumps to keep his blood flow optimum.
Deformation of the Hoof Capsule
Note that the dorsal wall at the coronet band moves in and down. That all movement
is from the center of the dorsal wall all the way around and not just from the end of
the quarters back. Also note that unlike many descriptions in texts the points of the
bars remain fixed while the bar itself, along with the buttress of the heel moves outward.
Also note the movement down in the quarters that allows the top of the coronet band
to move downward. When this is locked down either by a pasture trim that leaves
the wall flat in this area or by a shoe, there is bruising in the hoof wall.
Animation courtesy of Peter Speckmaier
Uncontracted Hoof
or
How To Tell If Your Horse's Hooves are Contracted.
Here we have an excellent example of an uncontracted hoof. Draw an imaginary line
from the apex of the frog out past the outside of the heel bulb. If the buttress of the
hoof, i.e., that point where the wall turns back in on the foot and becomes the bar, lies
inside that line, then your horse is contracted If the buttress lies outside that imaginary
line, as shown in the photo at the left, then your horse is not contracted.
Hoof Mechanism
If you look closely you can see the arteries open and close as the hoof expands and
contracts. Note that the coffin bone descends with the solar floor and the walls move
outward on weightbearing. One can easily see how leaving the bars long or at wall
height would pinch all the tissue between the bar and the navicular bone thus making
a horse very heel sore with a tendency to toe walk.
Animation courtesy of Peter Speckmaier
Why doesn't a Shod Horse Feel the Damage?
Cutting off the blood supply to the foot during certain phases of the cycle of movement is
normal, and part of the pumping mechanism. However, many of the hoof problems
encountered by the domestic horse are hidden from the owner's (and the horse's)
notice by an artificially induced chronic lack of circulation (high heels, shoes) which
impedes oxygen uptake and therefore nerve transmission leading to a lack of sensation,
allowing internal damage to reach vast proportions and lead to severe
metabolic consequences.
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