When first exploring the possibility of providing hoof care for dressage horses, a common perception is, “Well, how hard can it be?”

They are trained and shown on a smooth, level surface, seemingly without much exertion. They never have to run full-out for a mile-and-a-half, nor stop on a dime and spin like a top. Mostly, they just go quietly around in a circle, travel sideways a bit and sometimes they have to trot in place.

How hard can that be?

Actually, it’s very challenging.

The discipline of dressage is one in which a performance is judged on the fluid movements of the horse that is moving happily with grace and style. To achieve this, everything has to be working well, and hoof care is closely scrutinized.

What is sought is a horse with a good mind that performs willingly without showing resistance to the aids; travels forward with impulsion, lightness and extension in the forelegs; elasticity in the shoulder; softness in the back and engagement of the hindquarters.

What Is Dressage?

Dressage is a French term meaning “training.” It’s a competition that provides a prescribed pattern of movements called a test. Each movement is judged individually and given a score from one to 10.

There are 10 levels of tests. Each level is more difficult than the previous, and is based upon the mastery of those movements before moving up to the next level. The levels are introductory, training level, first level through fourth level, Prix St. Georges, intermediate one and two, and the highest, Grand Prix.

Few horses reach Grand Prix level. Most horses are started under saddle in serious training at 4 years old. It generally takes another 6 years of training to get to Grand Prix. This is why ideal conformation is so important. It is a major tragedy for a well-trained horse to be unable to compete because of poor conformation.

Founded in 1973, the United States Dressage Federation has more than 35,000 members and growing. Along with its rise has come a need for a support team of trainers, vets, hoof-care practitioners and many others who are structured to aid the horse and rider achieve their goals. For the farrier, it presents a golden opportunity for job security and a good source of income.

Being Part Of A Team

Getting a horse to compete and win involves a lot of people working together to make it happen. Everyone must do his or her job to the best of their ability and be able to work together as a team.

The team leader is the rider/trainer and team members serve at his or her pleasure. The dynamics of every team are different. Every leader is different in regard to how they handle their team. Some are very hands-on and others are more into delegating.

Some want to stick to the basics and others want to experiment and push the boundaries. Some take the “don’t change anything” route, while others have more confidence to say, “I think we can make him better.” Another approach is that your job is to figure out how to shoe the horse, and my job is to train and ride him.

Often, it’s easier shoeing upper-level horses for good, professional riders than it is for lower-level horses. Working for experienced professionals generally is easier than working for amateurs and less experienced professionals because the former tend to be better trainers and have an eye for picking horses. When choosing a horse to buy, train and compete, generally experienced professionals have more money to spend and consequently can buy the better horses with good minds, better conformation and better movement. Because these horses have better conformation, they are somewhat less likely to break down in the training process and be able to compete at the upper levels.

The riders also are better educated in determining when “something just doesn’t feel right.” And lastly, they tend to have a better team to help understand what needs to be done to “fix” the problem. Often, it is not a shoeing problem at all. It might be a saddle-fitting issue, muscle soreness, injury or soreness from over-training.

A good team member has to be aware of knowing when to speak up and when to keep quiet, especially when encountering a rough spot in the road. You must keep your comments to the group positive, and criticisms to yourself. Knowing just when to speak up and when to be quiet are essential. You must be proactive to maintain your status in the group.

Learning The Language

Before shoeing a dressage horse for the first time, be sure to watch it being trained and shown.

If you are going to successfully shoe dressage horses, it’s necessary to study the discipline. This involves a lot of reading, watching horses being trained and shown, as well as learning to judge the scoring of the movements. Piaffe, passage, tempi, pirouette, half pass and being on the bit soon will become a part of your normal vocabulary.

You will find a variety of breeds showing successfully at the lower levels. That changes at the upper levels, where warmbloods reign supreme. The only real challenger for dominance is the Spanish-bred Andalusians with the internationally famous Fuego XII leading the way.

Working On A Horse For The First Time

When working on any horse for the first time, especially a dressage horse, it’s extremely important to get a complete history and thoroughly examine what you are presented with before working on it. In observing top farriers working on top horses, there are common procedures before shoeing.

• Watch the horse as it exits the stall onto hard footing. Often those first two steps will tell you that something is not quite right.
• Watch the horse move in hand in a straight line on a hard surface.
• Take the horse to the ring and lunge him in both directions in a circle.
• Tack it up and watch as it’s ridden at all three gaits under saddle.
• Capture video of the horse being ridden.
• Take still pictures of the feet. While they are on the ground, a side view will enable you to measure the dorsal angle, the length of the toe, and view the condition of the foot and any deviations of the coronary band. A front view will help you see any flares, wall deviations and conformation problems. A rear view will help determine whether the heels are even. You also should take a photo of the bottom of the foot to document the condition of the frog and sole.
• Have radiographs taken of both front and hind feet.

The introduction of the digital X-ray machine has been the single biggest asset to farriery in the past decade. Finally, it’s possible to assess the alignment of the coffin bone, on the spot, in the barn. Although radiographs can be a luxury for a lower-level owner, it’s money well spent to get X-rays on a regular basis to ensure you’re staying on course.

• Pull the shoes and do a visual examination. Check its feet for soreness with a hoof tester.
• Talk with your client about your observations, and come to an agreement about how to proceed.

There are an increasing number of women entering farriery. I find one of their assets is that generally they are better listeners and communicators than men. I’ve been guilty of just wanting to get on with the project rather than thoroughly explaining what I wanted to do and why. This is something for all of us to work on.

In the veterinary profession, transcripts are recorded whenever a procedure is done on a horse. This is one area that greatly would enhance our professionalism if adopted. There are three types of software — Forge Ahead, Farriers Manager and Equine Educational and Diagnostic Software — at reasonable prices to do this. I urge you to consider this.

Six Things To Consider To Formulate A Plan

In deciding how to manage a horse’s hoof care, several factors must be considered, making each case unique. They include: age, conformation, environment, injury, level of training and foot quality. It would be difficult to put them into some order of importance because each can make a significant difference in how you proceed.

Best Foot Forward

So what is the best way to manage a dressage horse’s feet?

The simple answer is that there is no best way for all horses. Never before have we had more options that have proven successful in competition.

When discussing hoof-care options, the Internet has been both a blessing and a curse. It has spawned a lot of discussion among horse owners about what other riders are doing to achieve success. Some of the information is factual, while some is bordering on misinformation.

Changes in arena footing are hindering slide and causing stress to the internal structures of the foot and leg.

One of the criteria for success is how well certain techniques have worked for other horses. Too often, a herd mentality takes over when clients think that if only I use the same tack or shoeing as that Olympic champion, I also will be a champion.

The best way to deter misinformation is to communicate. Be sure you have all of the facts to back up your point of view. You might have to patiently explain that the hoof-care approach used on that particular horse might not necessarily be the best for its situation. Some techniques and practices work on some horses in some climates, but it’s not universal. Very often these horses won because they are very good and well-prepared horses that were ridden well. The shoes had little to do with the success.

I believe in the KISS method of hoof care — Keep It Simple Stupid. Often horses are presented with bar shoes, pads, acrylics and all sorts of bells and whistles that have been added along the way. Some owners are quite reluctant to make a change back to basic hoof care for fear of a return to lameness issues. If an owner is so uncomfortable with the idea, don’t press it until you gain some trust and some history with the horse.

Keep an open mind and, if necessary, think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to make changes if what you are doing is not satisfactory, but beware of doing anything radical.

What’s working today doesn’t necessarily mean that is going to work for the duration of its career.

Get The Trim Right

All hoof care begins with the trimming of the capsule. The object is to properly align the coffin bone in relation to the ground without compromising its protection. The gold standard for accomplishing this intelligently is radiographs.

Static balance involves alignment of the coffin bone in two planes. First is to achieve lateral balance, which means having the wings of the coffin bone parallel with the ground. Second is the anterior/posterior balance, which positions the distal margins of the coffin bone ideally 3 degrees to 5 degrees higher at the heels than the toe.

Trimming the hoof capsule begins with removing any frog tags to define the perimeter of the frog, but leaving the frog as full as possible.

Next the sole is trimmed, removing just the exfoliating dead sole down to the live sole.

Sometimes this trimming only needs to be accomplished with a wire brush. The biggest mistake in trimming is being too aggressive in sole removal and shortening of the toe. A minimum thickness of 10 mm is needed for a small foot and up to 20 mm or more for a large one.

If the trim is too short, the hoof is going to get too sensitive, which could lead to a shorter stride or lameness.

I take exception to the popular term of sole depth in favor of sole thickness. I often hear vets and farriers alike look at a radiograph and declare that the coffin bone has adequate sole depth when they are measuring from the dorsal distal edge of the coffin bone to the ground, which in an untrimmed foot can be quite long. What they fail to take into account is the thickness of the sole might be insufficient to protect the coffin bone even if the toe is left long enough to keep the point of the coffin bone high enough above the ground. In these cases, the sole is thin from being over-hydrated and is being worn away because it’s so soft.

The remedy is either to apply topical solutions to harden and dry out the sole, or to apply a pad for one or two shoeings until the sole can recover. Warmbloods typically need more foot and sole than Thoroughbreds.

The wall then is trimmed to the junction of the thick live sole and the wall. In general, I disagree with the advice about trimming the heel back to the widest point of the frog. In my experience, this point is too indefinite to be of any value.

I prefer taking the heels back to the junction of the wall and the lightly trimmed, thick live sole. While this might not achieve the desired palmar or plantar angle, it will keep the horn tubules at the heel in a straight vertical plane without the destructive bending that causes no end of problems.

In the event of having a zero or negative palmar angle, wedge pads are necessary when the trim is unable to achieve the desired elevation. I prefer ones with ground frog support with a soft cushion material under the pad.

The angle will depend on the horse’s conformation. Generally, a horse with a longer pastern will have lower angles, the opposite generally is true of horses with shorter pasterns.

Options For The Front Feet

Ideally, you want to start simple and keep it simple.

Barefoot: When young horses are first started under saddle, a common practice is to leave them unshod all around, or shoe them in front and barefoot behind. Again, it all depends on the six things to consider and these will change over time.

Steel keg shoes: Because you want to engage the shoulder and knee, the vast majority of dressage horses are shod with open-heel, steel keg shoes of either 8-by-20 to 22 mm or 10-by-20 to 25 mm.

Years ago, there was a push in the sport horse industry to have toe clips on all front feet, but this has given way to personal preference and conformation. Horses with angles of more than 52 degrees easily can go into toe clips, but horses with angles lower generally do better with side clips so the shoe can be set back.

A good practice is to fit the front half of the shoe to the white line to get good nailing. Dressage horses typically can be fit longer and fuller at the quarters and heels, so a good guideline is to use the coronary band and heel bulbs as an indicator of how much caudal support is needed.

Like Bob Dylan said, the times are a changin’ — at least when it comes to arena footing. More horses are being trained on synthetic surfaces. Horses seem to have difficulty with outside rings that have very hard bases with a thin covering of material to allow penetration for breakover. They’re very sticky, which inhibits slide and causes stress to the internal structures of the foot and leg.

The remedy is to use wider shoes, giving more flotation with more slide and building much more breakover into the front part of the shoe. A solution for the footing problem is to provide a shoe with a rolled toe that is either forged or made with a grinder. Many manufacturers now offer shoes that have these mechanics manufactured into them. These are going to be the shoes of the future.

Bar shoes, especially egg bars, were the rage about a decade ago. While they still are used, they have lost popularity within dressage because they tend to crush the heels on some foot types.

Options For The Hind Feet

Most riders elect to put hind shoes on their young horses as soon as they have advanced to collected work — when the horse is on the bit and is in the process of learning to shift its weight back onto its hindquarter.

Normal open-heeled shoes, usually of the same dimensions or a little heavier as the front shoes, are used.

At the upper levels, when more advanced movements are required, it’s common to employ a lateral extension that is made by using a creaser to widen the shoe or a shoe that comes with a lateral extension, such as the Kerckhaert Grand Prix.

Egg bars on the hinds once were common, but they cause too much drag in pirouettes, making it more difficult to perform.

Changing Perceptions

Our role as hoof-care providers is becoming more complex in the digital age as our clientele increasingly are being exposed to a lot of information, much of which involves conflicting opinions.

In our culture of Internet communication, there has been information overload on virtually every subject. It’s a daunting task for our clients to sort out sound information from all the chaff floating around cyberspace. In addition to good hoof care, a good bit of our time is needed to convince our clients that we know what we are doing.

If we as farriers want to elevate our profession, it might be necessary to change the perception of the horse-owning public. We have to accept the new reality of the back-to-nature movement with its barefoot and booting experiments. We must have a broader perspective about being adamant about fixing everything with a nailed-on shoe. We also have to not allow misinformation to compromise what a farrier who shoes is trying to accomplish.

As with many things in life, there is no substitute for experience and the voice of reason.

 Novice farriers should find mentors with some gray in their hair that’s been brought on by life in the trenches while caring for dressage horses. If you can benefit from that experience, it will be time well spent.