Reprogramming Troubled Horses

David has a way with turning mentally and physically abused horses around to become a very useful horse. There are two reasons why a horse does not perform a task that is expected of him. One is a training problem and the other is a physical problem. How can the horse perform when it’s not been trained for the task? Or, the horse cannot perform if it is in pain or hurting. It is very common for a horse to have a vertebrae out, a rib out, a hip out or some pinched nerves. This can happen when a horse pulls backwards when tied up, rearing up and falling over backwards, getting kicked by another horse,  improper fitting of a saddle or improper trimming of the feet.

David takes the horse and puts it through the diagnostic program to see if and where the problem exist. Whether it is in the training, improper feet or even a physical problem, he then goes to work fixing the problem.

Swischer was a 5 year old walking horse that came in for training. This horse would stumble and fall with his owner. Swischer moved his feet like a clumsy footed pup not paying attention where or how to place his feet. One problem was that his back feet was striking his front feet. A farrier had shortened the angle on his back feet to 58 degrees making him short in the toe and them put on a break-over shoe and rasped his toe off square. The farrier then left the front feet long which delayed the break-over in the horses stride. This was just opposite of what needed to be done. The farrier’s thinking was, if the back feet hit the front feet simply shorten the hind and this would solve the problem.

In reality by shortening the hind toe and then adding the break-over shoe and squaring off the toe only made the hind foot break-over much quicker thus making it travel forward faster. Also by leaving the front foot long delayed the forward movement this foot and it could not move out of the way quickly enough for the hind feet thus creating the problem even worse.

Now combine this with an attitude problem like a spoiled child who would not pay attention and you have an accident about to happen.

SOLVING THE PROBLEM

We first started working with the attitude problem in the round pen. Once we had established a pecking order with the horse we then could handle him much easier. We then started taking him on trails where there were many obstacles and the horse had to pay attention where he was placing his feet. We also started resetting the horses head where he would not have it so high in the air but have it lower where he could see where he was going. Even after this the horse continued to over step and strike his front feet. David then decided to start working on the horses feet.

David has been a farrier for over 25 years and has done much corrective shoeing. First he wanted to get the front feet to move forward quicker so to achieve this he put on a balance shoe with a break-over toe on the front feet and then squared off the front toe, making the break-over on the front feet much quicker. He then pulled off the hind shoes and built up the toes to 53 degrees. This is done with a new product called Equithane and works just like the hoof when applied. He then placed on a normal shoe and this brought the toe back out to a normal position. Remember, the hind toe was rasped off square so the Equithane had to be applied to the front of the foot making the toe round and normal. By doing this it delayed the movement of the hind feet just enough for the front feet to clear thus solving the feet problem.

The horses attitude has totally change for the better, he is not over stepping and striking his front feet nor is he stumbling any more. We are now doing some fine tuning with the horse and his owner. The owner is taking riding lessons to learning how to use proper balance and leg aids with his newly built horse. The horse is a little light on his weight and the owner is a slight bit to heavy. So we are working with this horse on a special diet to allow him to gain more weight during training and this builds into more muscle so that the horse can better carry the weight of the owner. We strive in every direction to build a better horse for it’s owner.

With all the farrier work performed at Forest Hill Farms, David works with our local vet and farrier to correct problems.

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