When sitting down today with Dr Tracy Turner, the topic of hoof care was brought up. Dr. Turner is pretty straight forward when it comes to hoof care and prefers to keep it simple. The starting point all begins with a good farrier and a good trim. “You must have a good relationship with your farrier, and keep your horses in good conditions for their hooves, meaning dry yet conditioned circumstances”.
“Don’t over complicate it,” he states “Take a step back and consider the horses’ conformation, the type of work they are being ask to do, what kind of surface that may be on. Then, if additional support is needed due to high performance or an imbalance in the foot, consider bringing shoes or a pad and shoe into the equation. When adding in a pad, absolutely consider a good hoof packing within it. Start with the basics and add additional support as needed, adjusting to the conditions at hand for your horse.”
If you have a horse in competition, this is where you should consider altering your “basic care” and turning it up a level. “Should a horse become sore, for example an eventer that’s showing on a circuit, those horses tend to come into contact with a lot of hard ground. I would suggest packing their feet over night to help improve their recovery time and reduce the sting that can develop in their hooves due to the hard impact.”
A hoof packing option:
Absorbine’s Magic Cushion® and Magic Cushion ® Xtreme is formulated to work like magic in your horses feet, no pun intended. Being one of the top 5 products recommended by farriers, Magic Cushion is all business when it comes to reducing heat within the hoof in and hour – then continuing to do so for the next 24 hours. It also calms any kind of soreness around the frog sole of the hoof. Click here to learn about all the other benefits of Magic Cushion.
Check out this informative video on Magic Cushion…
To read more about the topics that Dr. Turner covers, click here.
