Healthy Hind Hoof
  Parts of the Hoof | This is a good example of my normal healthy foot trim. As you can see, I trim the bars, heels and tip of the frog. I trim the caulky sole next to the tip of the frog to the dirtline which is between the ends of the bars to the tip of the frog. That is the point at which you would measure concavity. This is a draft cross with no contraction issues. As you can see, the hinds are asymetrical with the inside wall being a bit straighter. I rasp the walls just a few mms higher than the sole. I almost never trim any toe callous. So in years and years of trimming, most of my horses never ever get the toe callous trimmed. I trim very little sole at all and the only places you see what looks like trimmed sole is where I trimmed the bars off the sole. The sole in the heel/bar triangle is sometimes trimmed only slightly to lower the heels.
In the lateral view, you can see the hairline looks very straight with no "dip" in the toe. I trimmed a nice scoop into the lateral and medial walls to help with good mechanism. This hoof has both black and white horn. |
  | This horse has fairly healthy hooves. Nice and round; a little overgrown with the bars, but he's just about to get his trim..Compare this hoof to the one below. They are the same foot! This one is a photo of the left front when the horse was only a yearling. The one below shows the same foot at 5 1/2 years old. It is a draft cross which typically have big round feet . The owner has been doing her own trimming for most of his life with occassional help from me an another SHP.
But it's interesting to see this horse's same foot from the age of a yearling, (when the palmar processes have not fully formed), to a 5 year old when the palmar processes are fully formed. Healthy black horn appears bluish. Note the toe where there is damaged horn from a crack, which is a 'dead' looking black. This hoof has some problems with toe cracks as a result of anterior/posterior contraction caused by the owner trimming the toe and leaving the bars and heels a bit higher. High heels and bars tip the toe forward. This photo is after my trim to correct that imbalance. You can see that what was trimmed was the heel and bars. |
Paso FinoAlthough this foot is somewhat contracted, It has a good laminar connection, concavity and hard horn. The sole is smooth and elastic the frog doesn't seem to have any abscessing or disease.
Right front when seen from the side (lateral view) shows nice healthy horn with tubules aligned in the direction of force.   This excellent photo was also sent to me by Claudia Garner. It really shows good concavity and healthy wall attachment. Measure Concavity
From the edges of the hoof wall straight across the tip of the frog, you should have about a 1/8 to 1/4 inch in a front hoof and slightly more in the hinds. Contracted feet usually have excessive concavity caused by deformation of the coffin bone from shoes. The unatural forced vaulting of the sole against the solar surface of the coffin bone causes the solar corium to be pinched. If this occurs from a young age, the sole corium will become seriously stunted and never produce a quality thick sole.
|    This is a great example of a healthy hoof trimmed by a fellow trimmer, Claudia Garner. |
