How Long Does It Take?

QUESTION: 

Hello Dr. Teskey,

I will be coming to your hoof care seminar next weekend. I am writing because my friend, is at her wits end with the horse she had de-shod a month ago today. He is a 13 year old Hanoverian 3rd Level Dressage gelding. The guy doing her barefoot trimming is a Jamie Jackson trained trimmer who I believe you attended a clinic with a month or so ago. Anyway this horse is still lame under saddle at a walk on hard ground or at a trot on softer ground. This is with Boa boots on the front feet. She has faithfully followed the 24/7 turnout with other horses, grass hay fed on the ground regimen suggested to her by the trimmer. She had our vet x-ray the front feet and he found extensive sidebone on both sides of both front feet but nothing else detrimental. The horse tests sore in the left heel with hoof testers and has contracted heels and old wall cracks that are in the process of growing out. I know shoes can mask a lot of problems but this horse showed no signs of lameness before the shoes were pulled. Is it normal for him to still be so sore after a month of being barefoot? Would you have any suggestions of anything else we can try? She has been under intense pressure from her dressage peers that she is ruining the horse etc. We would sure appreciate any help that you can offer us.

Thank You Very Much,

Wayne

DR. TOM'S ANSWER:

Hi Wayne,

It sounds as though this horse has some severe deformity of it's feet, whether due to shoeing or trimming or improper lifestyle...cracks and heel contraction and sidebone are severe problems. We know that steel shoes will not bring healing to horses like this, rather they are in the shape they are in BECAUSE of the shoeing. And how long has that taken for this horse to have such problems? He's only 13 years old...very young in my book...not even what I would consider middle aged. So if it's taken ten years for his feet to reach this state of "disrepair", how long will it take for them to heal if we give him the time and the proper trimming, turnout, nutrition, lifestyle...? One can only answer this after observing what changes happen in the first three to four months...then extrapolate from there how long it might take. Some veterinarians will say that sidebone is not a problem...that's simply ignorant to say that...it is a severe and insulting problem to the horse's feet. It will get better, but since bone is one of the last things to change, it will take years for it to resorb and "de-ossify"--and it can do this given enough time. I wouldn't expect the horse to be sore for that long, however. It's no mystery why people will go back to shoes in cases like this...they want to ride, but the problem is that this horse is unsound on his own feet, and masking the problems inside by shoeing do nothing to help honestly heal the situation...they'll only become worse and more extensive. It's a sad fact that horses like this are often times permanently damaged...sure, healing can occur to a degree where I'm sure he could go back to work, but it's likely he'll not ever achieve a level of performance that he would have been capable of had his feet never suffered such insults these past years...that's just common sense and just the facts. That's why I tell people they should get a young horse and NEVER shoe it and always take care of its feet with proper trimming and THEN see what you've got...there's no comparison and these horses are truly awesome on their OWN feet.

I would say that one month is not enough time to even begin to say what this horse's healing potential is. You mentioned the horse was "sound" in shoes, but this, you should be beginning to see, is simply a ruse. What horse is sound if they can not walk on their own feet on soft ground? Shoes are amazingly efficient at altering a horse's perception of the environment...the nerves themselves are totally altered and desensitized...it's such a vicious cycle and an insidious process that it appears like "nothing is going wrong", when in fact the horse's structure is being slowly destroyed from all angles.

I encourage both of you to do a lot of reading, learn as much as you can and see for yourself whether this stuff makes "common sense". The truth speaks for itself...I am selling nothing tangible. I simply point out how the horse and its feet are put together and how they work...it's not a mystery and it's fairly simple to understand and AMAZING how horses are put together.

Your friend's peers only see a horse that is lame. They say she is hurting her horse...the horse has ALL READY been hurt, perhaps permanently, by shoeing...that is the only fact that her peers should be made aware of at this point. We can't heal something using the same appliances and mindset that caused the disease in the first place...all common sense. Have her tell this to her peers.

I look forward to meeting you,

Dr. Tom T.