Watched a guy transform a club foot in about 40 minutes last Wednesday

I was shadowing an older farrier up near Lancaster, Pennsylvania and he showed me how he trims a horse with a club foot. He took off maybe a quarter inch from the toe and shaped the heel differently, and the difference in the horse's stance was wild. Has anyone else tried the rolled toe shoe on a club foot instead of a wedge?

4 comments

4 Comments

smith.parker1mo ago

Hang on, I think you might be mixing up two different things there. A rolled toe shoe and a wedge shoe do different jobs, and the choice between them depends on what exactly is going on with the foot. A rolled toe just makes the breakover easier on a club foot by letting the toe roll forward sooner instead of slapping the ground. A wedge, on the other hand, actually lifts the heel to change the overall angle of the hoof and leg. Most farriers I've seen will use a wedge if the horse's heel is underrun, not so much for a true club foot where the heel is already high and tight. You want to lower that heel on a club foot, not lift it higher, so a wedge would actually make things worse.

mark_ward1mo ago

Damn, you just made me realize I had that backwards too.

hugos461mo ago

Oh man, you nailed it. Same thing happened with my old gelding, had a club foot on the front and the first farrier put a wedge on thinking it'd help the angle. Within two weeks the horse was footsore and landing even harder on the toe. Switched to a farrier who actually understood club feet, got a rolled toe shoe and lowered the heel gradually, and yeah it was night and day. The horse started moving out way better and the hoof started to relax after a few cycles. @the_paul's story sounds exactly like what I went through, it's wild how many farriers still get that backwards. A club foot is basically a high heel situation, you want to bring that heel down over time not jack it up even higher. Rolled toe for breakover, lower heel trim to let the hoof stretch out, that's the combo that actually works in my experience.

the_paul1mo ago

You make a good point, @smith.parker. A few years back I had a horse with a mild club foot and the farrier tried a wedge at first, thinking it would even things out. It actually made the horse land harder on the toe and seemed to increase the discomfort over a few weeks. We switched to a rolled toe and a lower heel trim, and that made a real difference. The breakover got smoother and the horse started moving much more freely within a couple of trim cycles. It really taught me that one shoe type doesn't fit all, even when two cases look similar on paper.