Badly cracked hooves! What can I do?

When we got Magic and Tanner, their front hooves were in pretty shoddy condition.... between the two of them, they had six cracks, five of which went all the way to the hairline, and their hooves looked like they hadn't been trimmed in years.
Since I've gotten them (a little over a year ago), I've kept them barefoot and well trimmed, and their farrier (Matt) even filed across the worst of the cracks to keep it getting worse and recommended a good hoof conditioner for her. Recently, Matt suggested that I put front shoes on Magic with little clips that help hold the hoof together a little more, and I agreed that that sounded like a good idea, because she kept chipping off her toes on one hoof (the one with two cracks down the front), so Magic is now shod. Tanner's hooves have actually grown out pretty nicely, and she just has one crack left that isn't causing her any trouble.
Now, just today, I had a speed show with Magic, and towards the end of the show, I noticed that the worst of the cracks on her hooves had actually spread, and I'm pretty sure there's a new crack in her other hoof, right in the middle (and well away from the horseshoe nails), that I actually picked a tiny stone out of!
Matt is coming back out tomorrow if he can find time to check her hooves and decide if we should pull the shoes or not, and I'm going to ask his opinion on if there's anything else I can be doing to help her hooves heal up, but I'd like some second opinions.
Any comments, anyone?

Lots of none turpintine related hoof conditioner and hoof supliments in the feed...on top of that I would keep them well trimmed and keep a rasp handy so you can keep them looking nice between trims...

Past that Im not sure what else you could do...my horse and all my friends horses are barefoot so I don't know anything about special shoes and what-not.

You might try keeping easy boots on his cracked hooves to keep dirt and pebbles and such out of the cracks...and if you take him barefoot again to keep him from chipping off his toe.

Go back to barefoot and keep the wall strongly beveled and short and the crack out of ground contact. Have your farrier study our Barefoothorse trimmers site. Shoes are not the answer, correct trimming is. Boot for riding.

Matt actually does do some barefoot trimming for a few people, and like I said, we kept Magic barefoot for a year, and Tanner hasn't had any shoes at all. But that wasn't working out -- Magic was splitting her hooves and snapping off chunks of hoof in the pasture, not while riding (I mostly ride her in a sandy arena), and keeping boots on her in the pasture is just not an option. When she was barefoot, Matt was out here every month or more.
I'm not a strong believer in barefoot trimming, but I don't throw shoes on all of my horses either (in fact, as of right now, Magic and 2-Pak are the only two with shoes on; Ruby used to wear shoes, but has been barefoot for two years.). I'm a strong believer in trying several things and seeing what works best.

The conditioner I'm using is Absorbine Hooflex (I use it on all the horses pretty regularly) and I give her and Tanner Silver Lining’s #12 Feet and Bone Support supplements.

What are you feeding them? I would examine their diet as a long term solution. I'm not a fan of paint on hoof dressings.. We apply an oily brush to a poop and junk covered foot and then stick it back in the jar for bacteria to grow exponentially? I would use MTG or a squirt bottle on their feet daily or every other day to be effective. I also like calm coat..it smells better and has tea tree oil instead of sulfur like MTG.

Right now, all the horses are on pasture, plus the above mentioned supplements for Tanner and Magic, mixed in with a performance horse feed. Katy -- a friend of mine who's job is to go out and assess people's feeding program and then suggest ways to make it better -- was planned to come out this week, but because of a sudden family matter she had, we'll have to reschedule.
I have a pretty similar view on the paint on applications... but I still use them. I just wash/scrub the horses' hooves first, and I wash the applicator brush after each horse (I saved a few brushes from old cans of the stuff, and hijacked some from friends, then alternate them.)
I've never heard of using MTG on hooves, though. It would certainly be less work. And I've never even heard of calm coat.

All I can say is if you look at the pics on that website you will realize they cannot snap chunks off in a pasture trimmed correctly.

Squirt bottles are much easier than paint-ons especially if you do the soles. If you look at the ingredients of hoof dressings and MTG or CalmCoat they are basically the same except MTG has sulfur to act as a antimicrobial and CalmCoat has Tea Tree oil as the antimicrobial but it comes in a spray bottle that I put in a squeeze bottle because I use it on their manes and tails too.

One of Magic's hooves was cracked twice, all the way to the coronet band and right down the front... she'd crack off that portion in between the two cracks, even if the farrier beveled off the edges like in those pictures.

I got some pictures of their feet on my cell phone today, too.

Magic's left front hoof: (Matt mentioned ordering some kind of staples for that big crack, because it just keeps spreading open.)


Magic's right front hoof: (you can't really see how it would snap off between the cracks, since he filled the space between the shoe and hoof with some kind of temporary hoof glue -- I can't really remember what it was called.)


Tanner's left front hoof (that is getting a trim just as soon as I can get Matt out here.)

They look long but that may be the angle. I'd love to see a sole shot as well as a side view. I highly suspect contraction.