When Shoes are Required

When Shoes are Required

Clive Meers Rainger RSS BII,  October 2018

When Shoes are Required

If your horse requires shoes you will need the services of a farrier.  In the United Kingdom we have the gold standard in apprenticeships around the world, ours being a four year apprenticeship opposed to two years in other parts of Europe, and in the USA as little as twelve week period in shoeing school.

However, there are many pitfalls even when dealing with a gold standard.  Many years ago an apprenticeship consisted of “one man, one boy”.  This was based on the fact that the master farrier had to earn a living as well as teach his apprentice.  During this four year period the apprentice also attended thirty-six weeks at college in block releases of four to six weeks at a time.  This gave the apprentice a well rounded appreciation of not only the forging skills required of a farrier but also an in depth knowledge of anatomy and physiology, combined with the function and inter-reaction of all these structures, thus enabling a master farrier to identify irregularities in gait and movement, and therefore make alterations before they became a problem.  

This justifies the old dictionary definition of a farrier which was “horse doctor”.  This may sound ridiculous in the light of modern veterinary science but when it was applicable, horses were working animals, and a man could not go to work unless he had a sound horse, particularly with the laws of animal welfare and in particular, horse welfare, which came about during the Victorian period.  In those times horses developed many ailments due to hard work and the farriers’ job was to keep them working by relieving pressure at the seat of pain.  

To understand how this was done we need to understand that a farrier doesn’t just nail metal to the bottom of a horses’ foot.  His job is to line up the column of bones so the weight descends through the centre of each joint, allowing the connective and motivating tissue to work to its optimum. Many of the complaints during this period were ailments such as curbs, spavins, sidebone and navicular.  

All of these had a variety of shoes that altered the angle of the column of bones to relieve the pressure from the seat of pain, enabling the horse to continue its daily work, bearing in mind this was long before veterinary science had all the diagnostic equipment and drugs available today.  The term “horse doctor” is still relevant to this day as a farrier should be able to note changes in the horses’ gait and excessive wear on shoes to make alterations before the horse goes lame.  

The poor old vet however often has to deal with the consequences of a horse to whom this level of intervention may not has been applied, and once lame, it is a far harder job to return a horse to pre-disease soundness.  However, about fifteen years ago the Government altered the terms of an apprenticeship, allowing an Approved Training Farrier to train four or five apprentices at once, which restricts the amount of teaching time the master can give to each individual, therefore limiting the learning opportunities.  This has led to an over production of farriers, many of whom who have not gained the depth of experience required to set up on their own. 

As a horse owner how do you find a farrier who puts your horse first?  Questions should be asked before employing a farrier.  These should be:
What qualifications have you got (the standard being DipWCF, AWCF, or FWCF).  There are other exams farriers can take which related to modern shoeing techniques evolved around the world, each technique having its own individual set of letters.

The next question you should ask a farrier is do they go to continues professional development, as we are the only profession in the country were CPD is optional, and with all professionals, it is important to maintain an up to date knowledge of the latest scientific developments.  
Thirdly, do they go to product knowledge days, as it is all too easy to buy product from the shelf without having a detailed knowledge of how it was designed to be used and its applications.
 
How long do you take to shoe a horse?  To shoe a horse properly should take an hour or more, depending upon the size of the horse, and farriers that shoe a horse in twenty minutes are not spending enough time observing the needs of the animal.  

Lastly, the means by which payment is accepted.   All farriers running a professional business will take cards, bank transfers, cheques, as well as cash, and will issue a numbered invoice, which is your insurance that they have shod your horse.   

Recently the Money Programme on Radio 4 discussed the cashless society that we now live in, and asked what do we need cash for. The first example was farriery.  Dealing with farriers who insist on cash only is dangerous for the horse owner, as they may be risking partaking in the black economy, which has on a number of occasions not only affected the farrier but has compromised the owners with a detailed investigation into their affairs by HMRC.   

Once you have negotiated this potential minefield, the next question is what shoes should my horse be wearing.  Horses in this respect are just like us, the shoes they wear should be appropriate for their confirmation, the type of work they are doing, and the environment they are being kept, and also the length of the shoeing interval.  

This ideally should be no longer than six weeks, as a horse should be shod to remove surplus hoof, not to replace worn out shoes, and if you have a friend who tells you their shoes have been on for an extended period over and above six weeks they are actually causing their horse more harm than good, as the toe is the part of the foot that grows most quickly, as in nature this is the point of wear as it is through the toe that the energy is transmitted to drive the horse forward.  

When shod with a traditional shoe with one clip in the front, the toe growth will be starting to lever the pedal bone forward out of position, and in a recent study by Dr Renata Weller, she states that every centimetre of forward growth, creates an extra fifty kilos of stress on the tendons, and from this study we can see how long toes are detrimental to the horses’ wellbeing.

As the use of horse has changed, modern farriery has come up with a number of solutions that are referred to as multidirectional breakover shoes.  
These were developed firstly in the USA, but repeat studies have been done in Australia and Europe for horses working on surfaces.  On an artificial surface a horse has to use more muscular energy to lift each limb, whereas on hard ground they use kenetic energy to bounce them into the next stride, amply illustrated by the fact that racecourse records are broken when the ground is firm, giving the horse longer in the air between strides.  

Artificial surfaces being soft remove the kenetic energy from the stride, making movement more of a physical effort, but early breakover shoes allow the horse to move with the least resistance, reducing the amount of effort.  However, modern scientific techniques are not on the apprenticeship curriculum, which is why it is important that your chosen farrier regularly goes to Continued Professional Development, as many of these shoes have had acquired a bad name in the past from being fitted incorrectly and then blaming the product for a poor result.    

Should your horse require special shoeing when lameness has occurred, it is essential for the vet and farrier to work as a team, as the toe is the part of the foot that grows most quickly, as in nature this is the point of wear as it is through the toe that the energy is transmitted to drive the horse forward.  

When shod with a traditional shoe with one clip in the front, the toe growth will be starting to lever the pedal bone forward out of position, and in a recent study by Dr Renata Weller, she states that every centimetre of forward growth, creates an extra fifty kilos of stress on the tendons, and from this study we can see how long toes are detrimental to the horses’ wellbeing.
 
As the use of horse has changed, modern farriery has come up with a number of solutions that are referred to as multidirectional breakover shoes. These were developed firstly in the USA, but repeat studies have been done in Australia and Europe for horses working on surfaces. On an artificial surface a horse has to use more muscular energy to lift each limb, whereas on hard ground they use kenetic energy to bounce them into the next stride, amply illustrated by the fact that racecourse records are broken when the ground is firm, giving the horse longer in the air between strides.  

Artificial surfaces being soft remove the kenetic energy from the stride, making movement more of a physical effort, but early breakover shoes allow the horse to move with the least resistance, reducing the amount of effort.  However, modern scientific techniques are not on the apprenticeship curriculum, which is why it is important that your chosen farrier regularly goes to Continued Professional Development, as many of these shoes have had acquired a bad name in the past from being fitted incorrectly and then blaming the product for a poor result.    

Should your horse require special shoeing when lameness has occurred, it is essential for the vet and farrier to work as a team, and should the vet require specific shoes, it is important that they provide a shoeing prescription, with a copy going to the owner and farrier, along with relevant x-rays and a diagnosis.   

This prescription should consist of the type of shoe the vet requires, how they want the foot to be prepared, and the biomechanical effects they are looking to achieve.  This way there is no misunderstanding between the parties working for the benefit of your horse.
 
I hope this is an insight in to the possible pitfalls that can befall the horse owner and will help to empower them to get the best service possible for their equine friends.

Clive Meers Rainger RSS BII
October 2018



Clive Meers Rainger RSS BII
July 2018


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