The Problem Pt2 Support

Because a rim shoe is fitted to the horny wall, it requires altering to fit what ever shape the hoof capsule has deformed to. The entire weight of the horse passes down through the wall on to the rim shoes, which in turn takes the weight bearing away from the sole and away from the skeletal structure. In other words the entire weight of the horse passes through the bones until it gets to the hoof, then suddenly it gets transferred to the horny wall, a purpose it was not designed to do.
Over a period of time the outer wall flanges or breaks away, and the sole which grows under the pedal bone starts to thin out. The stretched thinner sole allows the pedal bone to drop nearer the ground, and so allows more weight to be supported by bony column. In the worst case scenario this can clearly be seen by looking at lamintic horses, the sole drops down to get pressure to support the pedal bone.

Each foot is a totally different shape, yet the bone inside the hoof capsule hardly differs!
Why?

As soon as the horse is domesticated and placed in an area which it can't roam freely, things start to go wrong.

Either the hoof grows down and starts to bear weight, or farriers with rim shoes place a shoe on the horse's hoof, forcing it to bear weight on the wall.
Any which way the hoof responds by either flanging or breaking off the hoof wall.
Why?

By flanging or breaking away it takes the weight off the wall and places the horse's weight on the sole.

Your horse's foot changes shape year after year, and gradually spreads out creating a flangy larger hoof. The sides of the hoof are always cracking and splitting and the sole gets thinner.

The horse's hoof was never intended to be entirely weight bearing on the outer wall, after all ever noticed if you take the rim shoes off and turn the horse out, the first part to break off is the side walls.

By breaking away this puts weight on the sole of the horse, at first the horse is uncomfortable with this, but after a short time the horse becomes accustomed to this.

And if it doesn't break away it flanges!

This flanging causes a pinching effect to occur, the green arrow shows the force pressing on the sensitive structures and the red arrow shows the forces pulling the sensitive structures. These act together causing the outer wall to flange.

The only way of straightening a flange in rim shoeing is to rasp the outer wall making it thinner and causing damage to the horn tubules i.e.:-

1	2	3

In the first picture you can see the flange formed, in the second the farrier rasps away the flange (red line ) and in the third the bottom of the hoof wall is now thinned. Initially it looks better but is only costmetic as the strength has bean reduced, making it weak enough to crack, and has failed to stop the flanging problem.

To help get the rim shoe to fit to the edge of the hoof, many farriers will rasp (box off / safe off) the shoe.

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