On this page you will be able to see how I handle doing a first time trim ( Setup Trim ) on a horse that is already barefoot.
As we move through this page you will find text boxes explaining important parts of the hoof, pathology, healthy areas or why I chose to trim the hoof in a particular way.
This page should be considered a General Guidelines page to trimming the foot and correcting imbalance , while improving/maintaining soundness.
This page IS NOT intended to take the place of Hands On training with me or any other hoof trimmer.
I am simply showing you how I trim this horse at this particular time. Future trims can and will vary slightly depending upon what the hooves show me in the future.
Left Front, Pre-Trim
Long Forward protracting toe, with flare starting just below the coronet band.
Flare accentuated in the lower 1.5" of the hoof.
Long, Underrun heel .
Left Rear , Pre-Trim
The pictures below will show you the trimmed foot, Again with the Left front and Left rear.
With removing as much excess toe length as I did, it changed his pastern angles and he was going to be muscle and tendon sore no matter what else I did.
NOTICE, I did Not trim the sole except for light bar trimming. The sole was hard and clean with nothing to be removed.
I did trim the frog a bit to remove the pockets that can lead to infections. Some may have not trimmed the frog at all. I chose to do so because the owner was not present to be instructed about how to treat this situation.
5/8 inch excess toe wall length.
The heel length was about 1/2 to 5/8 inch.
Again on the hind feet the excess toe wall length was about 5/8 inch.
Excess heel length about 1/2 to 5/8 inch
Left Front text.
This horse was left with 1/8 inch of wall beyond the sole. This was really a nice foot waiting to be helped. Not many trims are as easy as this one !!!
Left Rear
Below you will view pictures of the trimmings. I will show the wall removed from the Left Front. The amount of excess wall removed from the rear was about the same.
