Chuck Potter

There is no greater concern and worry a horse owner has than to find your horse going out to the barn or pasture limping and in pain. After assessing the situation you wonder what the problem might be. Is it founder? You are willing to do and pay anything to get them back to “normal.”

We have had the privilege of having Chuck Potter as our farrier for many years. He is one of the hardest working farriers in our area, doing 20-30 horses per day. Even though he does not take new clients now, he hates to see a horse in pain. He will still take care of an emergency and follow up with the owner’s farrier or vet.

Our Saddlebreds foundered the first time several years before we met Chuck. When they foundered, we did all the old school treatments in the hope of making them sound. We took them to a veterinary hospital where they stayed for an expensive few days. The farrier there cut the heels off and put on reverse shoes. Later he put on heart bars. When they came home we built a sand pit for them to stand in. Eventually they became sound but never really rode the same.

Our horses foundered again after Chuck became our farrier. At that time the only treatment that he could recommend was the Nolan Hoof Plate. To have them installed, our horses had to be heavily sedated to stand the pain of having nails pounded into their hooves to hold the plate in place. They recovered and became sound again. We knew there was something different about Chuck because of the passion he showed when explaining everything he was doing and why. He also explained what was going on in the hoof with laminitis. The horses had X-rays and a blood test done to understand if there were underlying causes (it was Equine Metabolic Syndrome). It was an education we did not get the first time around, and it made all the difference in the world in understanding what our horses were going through. 

Chuck is not the sort of person to stand still and wait for solutions to come to him, though. He looks to find a better solution on his own. An example of this is the hoof dissections he does every year with Dr. Jan Doelle, the veterinarian he works with. Throughout the year they freeze legs of deceased horses. Then during Chuck’s downtime, usually in the winter Dr. Doelle and Chuck dissect them to learn what was going on in the hoof. It was through this dissection process of a laminitic hoof that Chuck had the idea of creating a device that would stop the hoof from flexing and relieve the pain of an acute laminitis attack. 

Our horses became test subjects in order to see if this device would correct the rotation of the coffin bone in their foundered hooves. After completion of the treatment they went from about a 10-degree rotation to 0. From the X-ray you could not tell they had foundered. Even better, they rode like they did years ago before their first bout with laminitis.

Chuck’s personal research and desire to find a better solution led to his development of The Hoof Cinch. Over the past year of selling the device on-line and installing it on his clients horses, Chuck has relieved the pain of thousands of horses and fixed their foundered condition. As a horse owner, I can’t think of a better way for a farrier to make a difference.

— Keith & Sally Martin
(La Crosse, Wis.)