Jus wondering

Question
what does it do when you give a horse more toe when your shoeing a Tennessee walker?

Answer
Hello Rodrick,
thank you for this question!
The reason why gaited horses or horses where you want to get a lot of leg action are shod with heavy shoes or pads and often have long hooves and long toes. This is done to make the horse lift its legs higher and/or faster than it would if it were trimmed and shod in a physiologically correct way.
What the long hooves and long toes do is basically the same as if someone tied flippers to your feet and asked you to walk. What you will natually do to be able to move the foot forward without hanging up on the flipper is to lift your knees higher.....If I were to ask you to run with flippers on your feet, you would do this even more.

This is in principle why these gait enhancing methods are used. They do not really help a naturally gaited horse keep its gait, it just enhances it. My mare is naturally gaited and is barefoot with a physiologic trim and gaits beautifully, just not with the exaggerated leg movement expected in the showring.


Hope this answers your question.

Christine