The Problem Pt4 No Frog Pressure

The Frog has 3 main Functions:- 1. Blood Supply 2. Shock Absorber 3. Brake

By the frog bearing weight it is pressed upwards in to the hoof capsule and in to the digital cushion, which in turn presses the lateral cartilage that has blood vessels running through it, in effect it acts like a pump helping with the blood circulation.

The frog has a natural rubbery/elasticity which helps in shock absorption. Not forgetting the frog is a perfect wedge, hence when the horse digs it's toes into the ground the frog helps in stopping the forward momentum of the horse.

Unfortunately when rim shoeing, the system doesn't allow the fully lowering of the heels to allow correct frog pressure.

Why?

Pictured above is a hoof which doesn't look paticularly long toed or high heeled from the side, but from a second inspection from underneath its quite obvious that more than 10 weeks of heel growth is present.
The "Catch 22" with heels when rim shoeing is this :- If I lower the heels to get frog pessure, I create a low heeled long toed horse. To counter this I rasp the front of the hoof back to create the optical illusion of a upright hoof. But in actual fact all you get is the front wall of the hoof thin and weak that now cracks.
The line drawing below is a simplified picture of the hoof above, first picture long heels hiding the long toe. The second picture the heels have been lowered, now the toe sticks even further out. To counter the long toe the farrier has to try and shorten it by rasping the front wall.

Rim Shoeing has no solution to this problem, which leads to the next problem:-

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