Q: I have a horse I’ve worked on for some time who has shelly walls, no heel, a long toe, dead-flat soles and chronic laminitis. I’ve tried several things, including a Myron McLane full support pad, which didn’t seem to work due to the amount of frog pressure.

Although many factors associated with catastrophic injury, including horseshoe characteristics, have been explored in the past, it remains unclear if these links are really causal and how they may be inter-related.