Hoof Balance
Are my horse's hooves balanced? That's a hard question to answer, because there are so many contradictory opinions about what proper balance is. In the past, you didn't hear much about hoof balance. Horseshoeing was primarily concerned with enabling whatever use the owner had in mind for the horse and in addition somewhat concerned with "protecting" the hooves. In recent years, however, horseshoeing has been influenced by what is called "farrier science" and has become more and more concerned with the notion of proper hoof balance. As a result, various interpretations of hoof balance and how to achieve it have come from the farrier community. The barefoot movements have also helped push the notion of hoof balance to the forefront and added various interpretations of their own. The result of all this is that since it's talked about so much, horse owners are naturally concerned about hoof balance but at the same time somewhat confused because of the variety of conflicting opinions floating around. I talked with a woman not long ago who had recently moved into the area from another state. The farrier and vet she worked with back home had assured her that her horses' feet were balanced and in good condition, so she was surprised to hear from her new farrier and vet here that her horses' feet were in terrible shape and grossly unbalanced. Two very different opinions from professionals...so who do you believe?
When you hear some farriers and vets talking about hoof balance, it can really sound impressive. They might use technical terms for the parts of the legs and hooves and speak of concepts like "medio-lateral balance." Most average horse owners have no idea what those words mean, but they sound really advanced......and anyone who would use words like that must know what he is talking about! So first, we need to define what is meant by hoof balance. Basically, in a very general, non-technical sense, I think a balanced hoof means that there's nothing about the hoof itself that causes significant interference or strain on the rest of the horse's body, and this includes when the horse is standing still as well as when it's moving. Another way of saying it is that there's nothing about the hoof that significantly hinders the horse in one way or another.
There are all kinds of opinions about how to measure hoof balance. Some involve just looking at the hoof and/or legs as the horse stands, some involve X-rays, some involve taking certain measurements of the hoof, and some involve watching certain things as the horse moves. Just as the words used to talk about hoof balance can sound impressive, so can the methods used to measure balance look impressive. There used to be a farrier in this area who charged over two times the going rate to shoe a horse, and he had loads of business. His actual shoeing was no better than anyone else's, though. What was his secret? Well, it was sort of a joke, which he would even occasionally admit to. He made a big deal out of balance. When a customer brought a horse toward him, he got down into all sorts of positions and watched the horse walk from different angles. Then as he was trimming and shoeing, he would set the hoof down numerous times and croutch down in various positions and view it from different angles, then pick it back up and make minute adjustments with the rasp. Then after the first couple of nails were in, he would have the owner walk the horse, again viewing the action of the hoof from different angles. Then finally, when all hooves were shod, there was another parade of the horse with him again croutching in different positions to view the hooves as they moved. It was really just a show, put on for the owners, and he himself would admit that. But it convinced the owners that his shoeing jobs were far superior to the other farriers, and they were glad to pay him over double the going rate.
In the article on Barefoot Trimming, I stated that I approach trimming cautiously. I approach balance cautiously also, because I've seen a lot of damage done to horses by attempts to balance their hooves. This damage was a result of trying to force the hooves to conform to one or another of the different opinions about what consitutes proper balance. There are a lot of different interpretations of balance floating around, and most vets and farriers will choose one of them and promote it in their practice. This means that the hoof of every horse they work on will be seen through the eyes of that particular interpretation of balance, and they will tend to try to make the hoof of every horse fit that particular interpretation. Vets and farriers divide up into little subgroups and argue among themselves over the proper interpretation of balance and how to achieve it. Each interpretation has followers which hold to the interpretation with almost religious fervor, and the arguing between the devotees of the different interpretations can sometimes get so nasty that it reminds one of a religious war.
I think our mental image of a balanced hoof, whether shod or barefoot, is similar to the look of a woman's fingernails after she's had a manicure....everything is all nice and even and smooth and symmetrical. That's how we like our horses' hooves to look when the farrier or trimmer leaves, and that's how the example horses' hooves look in the books and articles on hoof care. We've read or heard things like, "When the farrier leaves, the horse's hooves are in balance, but as they grow, they become out of balance." Statements like that are used to back up claims that horses need regular trims. If you just let a horse's hooves grow, we are told, they will become out of balance. And we believe it. But, if we want to look at things from the horse's perspective, we have to go beyond the human notions of how the hooves should look. Remember, horses are naturally-occurring animals. Even though we have domesticated them, they are technically "wild animals," and their feet won't and shouldn't look like manicured fingernails. Horses existed for eons before they were ever domesticated and subjected to hoof "manicures." The fact that the horse as a species existed long before humans came along and domesticated them means that we should be able to trust that Nature endowed the horse with the ability to maintain its feet, just as Nature endowed deer and antelope with the ability to maintain their feet. Obviously that's true for horses or else their hooves would have failed and they would have become extinct long before they were domesticated by humans. Even the desert-praire horses who formed the basis for the popular barefoot models didn't have feet that looked like they just came out of a nail salon. This image we have that horses' feet should look all smooth and even and symmetrical is a human image, completely divorced from the reality of how hooves naturally function, and trying to force this human image onto the horses' hooves can cause serious problems.
We need to be able to think about hoof balance without having that manicured-look hoof image in our minds. In my book Maintaining a Natural Horse, there is an extended discussion of an illustrated example of the different ways horses' hooves self-trim. The important thing to realize is that in Nature, these self-trimming processes don't happen in a concerted manner all at once, like when your trimmer or farrier comes out. They happen gradually, in stages, a little at a time. A piece of excess hoof may flare up on one side near the toe but not yet on the other side, one quarter may break out but not the other quarter, and so on. This happens in all self-maintaining horses. You can see this yourself if you let an unshod horse go for a while without trimming it. One part will break off but not the corresponding part on the other side of the hoof, one side will flare out and get worn off, while the other side is not yet worn as much, you will see evidence that the horse is bearing more weight on one side of the hoof than on the other side, you will see that breakover doesn't necessarily happen in the centerline of the toe...and so on. This is completely normal, and it does not represent the horse's hoof being "out of balance." In other words, the concept that we have of "balance"--that everything must be even and smooth and level and symmetrical and conform to certain standards of appearance and certain patterns of lifting off the ground and landing parallel-- is completely foreign to the way horses' feet maintain themselves in Nature. By the popular standards of "balance," including those originating in many so-called "natural" circles, the hooves of most self-maintaining horses, especially those who don't live in desert-prarie environments, would never be considered balanced. The hooves don't have an even, level, symmetrical, manicured look. What's more, there's no one there with an angle gauge to measure hoof angles, there's no one there with a tape measure to equalize wall length, there's no one there with a T-square to force the heel bulbs into a certain alignment, there's no one there watching how the foot lands to make sure it lands parallel...and not only is there no one there nailing on metal horseshoes, there's also no one there with nippers and a rasp. But yet the horses maintain soundness. (And don't let anyone tell you that the only reason you don't see the lame ones is because they all got eaten by mountain lions!)
Enough is known about the function of the hoof so that we can make some generalizations about what constitutes a healthy hoof, but we simply don't know enough to do "fine tuning"--that is, "balance" the hoof or even determine whether it is out of balance and needs balancing. If we nonetheless try to do fine tuning, if we attempt to change the hoof to fit one of the many different opinions about what constitutes proper hoof balance, we're stabbing in the dark. Unless we just happen to get really lucky (probably about the same odds as winning the lottery), we risk harming the horse in the long run. All the little adjustments we might make in the name of balance are going to be hindrances to the horse to one degree or another. Hopefully they won't be overwhelming so that they lame the horse years down the road. But think about it.....if they did result in lameness down the road, how would we ever recognize the lameness as being caused by our attempts at "balance" 8 or 10 years ago? If your horse is lame today, how do you know the lameness is not coming from attempts made years ago to "balance" the hoof? You can't really know for sure. In fact, even if you have an X-ray of the lame hoof and can point out something abnormal, how can you know for certain what caused that abnormality? You can't. You can only make assumptions. If you don't know what's in a box, and if it could either be a rattlesnake or a thousand dollars, why risk opening it? You can survive without the thousand dollars, but you can't survive with the rattlesnake. We do know for sure that self-maintaining horses, including horses from environments which produce hooves that do not match the popular barefoot models, maintain soundness with no hoof care, which means that they maintain soundness even though no one "balances" their hooves. So we can make a general statement that balancing the hooves is not a requirement for a horse to maintain soundness. We also have to admit that we don't in fact know the long-term consequences of trying to "balance" the hooves. So why do it? As advanced as we think we are, there are limits to what we know and limits to what we can understand. When you think about it, it's really egotistical to decide that Nature is too stupid to have endowed the horse with adequate feet, that Nature is too stupid to maintain the feet, and that we must step in with our knowledge, which we apparently feel is superior to natural processes, and "save" the horse. Of course we don't usually think of it in such terms when we try to balance the hooves, but really, such an interpretation is there to a certain extent in the background, even if unstated.
In any discussion of letting natural processes work with horses, invariably the objection comes up, "Yes, I understand all that, but my horse's feet are too ............ ." (Fill in the blank with whatever.) It seems that most people are willing to accept that natural will work on most horses, but just not on theirs. Vets and farriers may have pointed out so many supposed "problems" with the hooves of a particular horse that the owner feels it is a miracle that the horse is able to walk at all. But...not only in hoof care, but in all aspects of horse care, don't be too quick to assume that your horse would fall apart tomorrow if not for all the things done to "help" it. Instead, be quicker to at least consider that your horse is the way it is today because of the things that have been done and are being done to "help" it, and you might be closer to the truth. Just remember that big businesses are built and big bucks are made and big egos are stroked because you are convinced that your horse needs all those things to "help" it...including balancing of the hooves. This is not to imply that your horse is some sort of victim of a system of greedy liars and snake-oil salesmen. It merely takes into account the realities of human nature and the horse care world.
Sometimes a statement is made something like, "Yes I understand all that, but natural processes don't take into account that the horse is to be ridden." There's much truth to that objection. Horses are actually not designed by Nature to be ridden or to pull wagons or carriages. Riding or pulling places stresses on parts of the horse that were never intended to bear them. In the video Understanding the Horse--From the Horse's Perspective, I talk at some length about this. I also discuss respecting the limitations of our horses, which is the most important thing when thinking about the stresses of riding or pulling. Here I will mention three things: First, the hoof is only a small part of where these unnatural stresses are born, and no kind of hoof setup or balancing will be able to negate those unnatural stresses to any significant degree. In other words, no form of hoof trimming, balancing, or shoeing will increase the weight carrying capability or work capability of the horse...it may protect certain hoof parts from wear, but that's all...and wear on the hoof parts is the last thing to be concerned about. A horse should be conditioned for being ridden, and during that conditioning process, which must be an ongoing thing, not only the hooves will be strengthened, but the entire body as well, which is essential to avoiding problems such as tendon damage. In general, I believe that if the hooves aren't strong enough for the horse to endure a certain ride, then neither is the rest of the body strong enough for that ride. Always remember that the hooves reflect the overall condition and health of the body. Second, if you're tempted to try to set up your horse's hooves for the stresses of riding, please remember that except in the case of injury, most lameness is caused not by what happens while riding but by what happens during the 99% of the horse's life when it is not being ridden, but during which, if the hooves are maintained in an abnormal condition, hoof function is hindered with every step. The shoes you put on to enable you to go on seven-hour trail rides five times per year may lame your horse during the 360 days per year you are not on a seven-hour ride. And finally, if we respect the limits of human knowledge and understanding, we have to admit that we don't know enough about hoof function and hoof balance to be able to say for sure how the hooves need to be set up to negate the stresses of riding, or even if it's possible. Again, should you try to do that, you'd be stabbing in the dark and could very well be doing more harm than good. To repeat, if the horse is conditioned for riding, the hooves will also become conditioned during that ongoing process...and that essential conditioning, which admittedly takes work and commitment, will prevent many joint and tendon problems that you might be tempted down the road to interpret as hoof problems.
We've seen, then, that the concept of balance is not well understood...certainly not understood well enough for anyone to claim to be able to balance a horse's hoof better than Nature. It's my opinion, after seeing and working on many, many horses, that trying to "balance" a hoof is a dangerous thing that usually ends up doing more harm than good. At the same time, I'm aware that various theories of balance are sometimes promoted by people with impressive-sounding credentials and in positions of unquestioning trust among horse owners.
Let's look at one of my favorite examples, cancer in humans. I got a call not long ago from a cancer organization wanting a donation. Part of the sales pitch to get me to donate consisted of a statistic claiming that over the past 20 years, the survival rate for those diagnosed with cancer had increased by a certain percentage. (The quoted percentage was actually lower than what I would have thought, and certainly not enough to brag about.) What was not mentioned, however, was the fact that during their watch, the actual incidence of cancer had skyrocketed. In other words, what they did not mention was the fact that during the years while the survival rate for those diagnosed with cancer improved to a small degree, your actual chance of getting cancer went through the roof. This is what happens when the focus is on treatment, when instead of starting at Square 1, you instead start at Square 25.
The focus of conventional medicine is treatment. If your horse runs through a wire fence and gets cut up, it's good to have conventional medicine to stitch him back up. Conventional medicine is necessary and invaluable in such a situation. The problem is that we fail to see the limits of conventional medicine, or to even recognize that it has limits, and therefore look to conventional medicine for all the answers. The mindset, or way of looking at things, that is responsible for developing ways to stitch up a badly injured horse may not be the best mindset to look to for all aspects of horse care. Conventional medicine does have some answers, but not all. Conventional medicine does not hold a monopoly on wellness. Everything which does not come from conventional medicine should not automatically be ignored, and everything which is valuable will not have the stamp of approval of conventional medicine. X-rays and MRI's and studies of anatomy and other experimental methods can tell us many important things, but there is a lot they can't tell us. Many important things can come from outside those walls. A realistic assessment of hoof balance is one of the things that can come from outside those walls. We need a trust in Nature, a trust in Nature's ability to care for her own creatures, and a willingness to step back and consider the limits of human knowledge and understanding. If we have those things, we can maintain our horses as close as possible to the way they would naturally live and then trust Nature to provide hoof balance, unhindered by human intervention. If it is impossible for us to maintain our horses in a way approaching natural, then we need to realize that proper hoof balance cannot come from nippers and a rasp, which means that an unnatural hoof will be one of the unavoidable consequences of our situation.
