#the farriers apprentice

I’ve been around horses for most of my life and towards the end of my undergrad time at university, I really wasn’t enjoying what I was studying. Over time I figured that I wanted to work outside, with horses, but didn’t know what I wanted to actually do. I shadowed some vets and physios, but nothing really jumped out at me.

My horse was getting abscesses every time I had a jumping competition and through some X-ray scans, the vet figured out that the angle of his coffin bone was a little too upright, which was causing deep bruising every time he landed hard - this was easily corrected with trimming once we knew what was wrong, but this was the first time it actually hit me how important farriers are.

I began reading up and found that cool quote “no hoof, no horse” and how the king of England, hundreds of years ago, made a law that farriers had to undergo proper training because of the importance of (sound) horses during their wars.

I shadowed some farriers back home and figured that this was definitely more of I wanted to do.

A vertical crack is the result of some sheer force disrupting the growth of the hoof wall so it’s severity depends entirely on the crack itself - does it hurt, where it is (toe, quarters, towards the heel?), where does it begin (if it starts below the coronary band, how far down etc), how deep it is.

If it’s getting smaller, growing out the hoof, that’s good - it means it’s not continuing to crack. Has your farrier seen it? Sometimes cracks can be healed quicker with some type of bar shoe so that the wall isn’t stretching apart every time the horse bears weight on it.