Toe first in front

These were taken today. After the pictures, I backed up her toes and rounded them off.

Left foot

The bars are too long, which can make a horse sore and not want to land on the heel. However, the horse is probably landing toe first because the breakover is so far forward of where it's supposed to be. The line you made in front of the bars is approx. Where the coffin bone ends. That's just behind the center of the foot, so the foot will be just a little longer from there to where the sole ends than it is from that point to the back of the foot. As you can see, that means your toes are around an inch too far forward of where the foot is supposed to end.

A good clue when looking at a sole is that feet are supposed to be almost completely round, not oval.

Glad you mapped those feet. You can clearly see just how much more toe there is that way. Agree that the bars needed tending too and I hope you were able to get the toe back enough to balance out the front half to the back half of the foot.

Thanks. I mapped because looks can be decieving. Yes thanks for reminding me to cut the excess bar off. Yes the balance is waaay off. I'm surprised she's not tripping. I did rasp the toes back after the pics. But I can only go so far. But PRior to these pics, I have lowered the medials substancially , not so much on the LF.

What I really thought was interesting was that the front shots really show the history of what's been done over the past 8-12 months.

This is such a game. But I will keep working on it and keep the ML balance based on the xrays, and bring those toes back.


Feel free to mark up those pics. This is probably a good education for many-including me!

Well, nothing to add on the mapping although it doesn't look like she is wearing her toe from the solar shot. My mare did wear her toe. It took me a while to figure out that is b/c she is in deep sand...so I felt stupid. Anyway, I enlisted the help of DD and DH and filmed her foot fall as sheh walked over flat hard ground - and I did it over and over to make sure I got good footage. I used a pretty good camera, and then slowed it way, way down w editing software. It gave me "in color" reassurance she did not land toe first, but if she had of, the video effort would have given me a baseline and something to "study". Just a thought.

I went today and took that LF bar down. I rode and she gaited just fine, head nod and everything. She's still a bit toe first, but not like the other day It's not just the toes that I'm rasping down, it's the whole foot is too long. Like duck feet.

Does can you hear her over reachin, or does it sound like her gait misses? --what I mean by that is it feels like she's missed a step.

I noticed when I let my walkers feet get too long I can hear her over reachin-- she's not sickle hocked, and has a straight back-- aint uphill or down-- but when her toes are too long I can definitely tell by her strides.

You probably don't want my two cents about your horses feet, but her heels are pretty long, and that could be one of the reasons she's unbalanced-- like having on high-heel boots/stilettos makes you walk toe first.
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He's the problem!

I want your 2 cents! Yes, she does forge before she's due. And as for listening to her gait, what brought it to my attention was that her hinds were making a clop, but her fronts sounded kinda muffled. I'm always listening!
You're right about her heels, and toes.

It's interesting how much you can feel . One other thing I've noticed over the years is when her front toes get too long, she can't gait as fast. I do really think she wants normal toes in the front, and so far I've taken almost 1/2 an inch .

She did pretty well today. Flat walk on a longish rein, I can feel the nod in my reins (duh) .