the difference between a hoof that works and one that does get by on soft ground

I wanted to post this picture as an example of the difference between a hoof, that is cut to specific parameters as given, for example, by the ABC trimming manual, and a foot that is managed by the horse's need. The ABC trimming manual mandates all horses heels to be backed up to the "baseline", which corresponds to the widest part of the frog and also most of the time to the position where the periople skin curls up (indicated by the red arrows in the picture below). I have previously written a blog post about the heel height.
I have trimmed my horses heels back to that landmark when I first started out trimming my horse's feet, in 2011. When the heel is so low, the toe needs to be brought back also very substantially, which meant in my case that I needed to remove a lot of toe, basically removing pretty much all toe wall and some sole in the toe.
As a result of this trim, my horses were basically unable to master hard terrain. They were fine as long as they stayed on their sand paddocks and pastures, but they were very uncomfortable on any sort of hard ground.

Long story very short, on the right part of the picture below, you can see my geldings front left hoof as he presents it today compared to the "ABC" trimmed hoof in 2011. It is pretty obvious that today he has a much more massive heel (it is roughly at the height that Cheryl Henderson thinks should belong to a draft horse) and much more massive bar, supporting that heel. Also, he is no longer walking on his sole but has some wall support all throughout his foot.

The difference in function between those feet is like night and day. He can now master any terrain without any hoof protection once again, something he was also able to do before I started the ABC trim, but never during the time of the ABC trim.

When I started trimming myself according to the ABC trim, I was always told that bar had migrated over my horses sole and circled around the frog. This caused me to shorten bars and "dig out" supposed bar material for months without end, only to find the foot growing back the exact same way as I found it before.

My horses live on a sand dune. The (mostly wet) sand compresses in their solar concavity and in the area right under the coffin bone, the pressure on sole is largest so that the texture of that sole changes slightly. It basically becomes much harder sole right underneath the coffin bone, than further out, where no coffin bone is pressing on the sole anymore. This is the one and only reason, why, on my horses in their environment, the sole around the frog looks slightly different from anywhere else. There never was any bar "smeared" or "pooled" or "migrated" anywhere else than where the bar was supposed to be, at the back of the foot. This whole concept was so wrong and caused me and my horses so much sorrow, that I hope with this post maybe someone will be deterred from that notion of bar pooling, migrating or smearing and find other ways to understand the hoof than following blindly such misinformation.

one size does not fit all

I have decided that for the next couple of post, I will review the book "ABC Hoofprint Trim" by Cheryl Henderson, and in particular, detail my experiences with the trim. This endevour will be divided in 3 parts:

1) heel height
2) 30 degree angle gauge
3) treatment of bars


This will be post 1, on heel height.

UPDATE: there is a more recent post on heel height, where I show how my gelding's hoof differs between the time I trimmed him according to ABC and now, where I trim according to my accumulated 3.5 years  of studying hooves:

http://mollyshoofjourney.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-difference-between-hoof-that-works.html


I bough the book in August of 2011, after I had already applied the ABC trim for 6 months, based on mark-ups and personal advice from the author of the book, members of the ABC yahoo group, and through hoofmechanics.

The ABC method was appealing for me, as it seems easy to apply, following a "manual". I am a molecular biologist, I am used to follow manuals, in the most precise way, in a laboratory. This is my daily business at work, and so I thought it was perfectly suited for me to apply to my horses hooves.

I applied that trim (I should say I started as a total beginner) for almost 1 1/2 years, on both my horses. On Molly, this trim worked reasonably well (see exception of 30 degree hairline and treatment of bars in one of my future posts), but on Gus, it did not. Over the course of 1 1/2 years Gus' feet, which initially could master any terrain and had never taken a single lame step while he was in my possession, became fragile, and he became more and more reluctant to travel over concrete or termac road. So I knew something was not right for him, as I knew from before that he did not have these problems.

Trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I read an enormous amount of books on hoof care. I think pretty much every single book out there on barefoot trimming. One day, I'll post my library of books.

To make a long story short, I finally figured out that my problems were caused by enforcing a heel height of 1 1/8th inch for Gus hooves, as the Hoofprint manual demanded for every horse. Gus is a 155 cm quarter horse, though quite big boned, with big feet and big head, the regular QH halters are rather tight on his head :-)!). It really was only after I had seen wild mustangs with my own eyes (and seeing all the variations they had in their feet!), discussing on many online forums and personally with many important people in the barefoot world, and also after having come across Maureen's HGM trim, that I realized that not all horses can tolerate such a heel height. Some can, no doubt, but some can't. And if one enforces something on a hoof that it is not meant for, it becomes weaker and weaker as time goes on. And this is what happened to me and Gus. The most important point here is, that this did not happen instantly, but took time, over many months. A slow decrease in performance, and this is also why it was so hard for me to understand what was going on. Because each individual trim did not cause so much problems but overall, his hooves just went downhill, and became more and more sensitive. In order to accommodate a low heel on Gus, and a short toe, I needed to remove significant amounts of hoof and sole along the way, and in the long run, this was rather detrimental.

The picture below shows Gus' hoof as of today, next to a Utah mustang hoof. The red line points towards the "baseline", which is the position where according to the ABC manual, the heels need to be backed to. It is quite obvious that neither the mustang, nor Gus do currently have heels down to that "baseline". I should say that Gus, with a heel height such as on this picture, is totally comfortable on any surface, be it concrete, gravel or sand. He is just like he used to be when I first got him.

If I hold the ABC heel gauge to his current hooves, it becomes clear just how much hoof (AND functional sole) I would need to remove in order for him to conform to the hoof print trim for a "horse". The horse size heel height is supposed to be 1 1/8th inch. It is, most of the time, roughly at the position where the periople skin curls up. Interestingly, that landmark seems to be at exactly at 1 1/8th inch, even on Gus (see right side of picture). However, his heels are actually high beyond that point, currently to "draft" size, or 1 1/2 inch. There is no wall above sole level that I could take off and Gus is comfortable, which he has not been with a 1 1/8th inch heel. I think 1 1/2 inch will be roughly the heel height that suits him. I am now seeing the first indications that maybe some sole will start to exfoliate and the medial heel has a small crack.

While I don't have an x ray for this exact foot, the one from May, where he already had a "draft heel" suggest that even with this draft heel height his coffin bone is barely ground parallel. Most likely, the 1 1/8th inch "horse" heel height brought him into a negative angle, and that's why he was so uncomfortable on hard ground.

So, I guess, the conclusion of this part of the series of post is that one size does definitely not fit all horses. It takes a bit more knowledge of hooves to trim a foot than applying a set of measurements.