What's Wrong With High Heels?
by Scott Kroeger
(Research courtesy of Dr. vet med Hiltrud Stasser)

From time to time I run into people who have horses with enormously high heels. Their horses short step and are usually in pain and most have various contractions of the hoof of a severe nature. And yet when the subject is broached with them they get defensive and say this is the way they have always done it.

So what is wrong with have high heels on horses and what should be done? While we cannot possibly cover the topic comprehensively here, let me give you some bullet points that may satisfy you enough to bring the heels down.

• The coffin bone of a horse is meant to be ground parallel. This is true of all wild horses around the world. For the coffin bone to be ground parallel, the heels of any horse need to be at a low enough level to measure approximately 3.5 cm straight down to the ground from the fall of the lateral cartilage (or 3 cms from the hairline on a normal heel bulb and coronet). If you have high heels, then the coffin bone is no longer parallel with the ground, but is tipped forward. This causes pressure on the front laminar wall with every step causing the white line to stretch, thus setting the hoof up for separation (laminitis) and possibly rotation over a period of time.
• High heels also restrict blood circulation to the back of the hoof, by pinching off the digital arteries. This lack of freely circulating blood leads to frog and bulb desiccation as the microbes in the soil will destroy the frog and/or bulb faster than it can grow with the lack of proper circulation. Thrush and greasy heels are the result.
• Another result of the restriction of blood circulation due to high heels is the loss of feeling in the lower parts of the hoof. The foot is less susceptible to pain in the sole, but can still obtain stone bruises and other injuries and not know about it.
• High heels will often have impacted bars associated with them. These bars of the hoof are often jammed up inside the hoof capsule so far that they pinch, to a greater or lesser degree, the solar corium against the navicular bone and cause pain to the horse.
• High heels cause enormous lever forces on the breakover of the hoof which often result in toe crack in the front of the hoof and/or cracks in the quarters or sides of the hoof wall.
• High heels coupled with lever forces also causes white line separation setting up the hoof for seedy toe and other problems.
• Because of the forward tipping of the coffin bone and the extra loading of the front laminar wall of the foot when high heels are present, there is reduced capacity for shock absorption as well as reduce hoof mechanism. The whole suspension of the leg is compromised with the natural harmonic curve of the leg elevated and stacked on top of itself. This is most easily seen in horses that have club feet.
• Long heels leave a slacker flexor tendon. The horse will either relax the foot so that it drops down into a 'coons foot' (which is rare) or more often take up the slack of the tendon in the muscles of the shoulder and rump. This hunching is the reason so many horses are bigger in the chest area because the muscles of the shoulder and chest are overworked to keep the flexor tendon taut. Lowering the heels will cause these muscles over time and with therapy to relax and return to normal size.
• Because the shoulder and rump muscles are always working to keep the flexor tendons tight...the horse can not relax and rest in the normal 'stay apparatus'. This is the function of the horse that allows the horse to sleep standing up because it is expending no energy. The joints are locked and the horse can be completely at rest standing up. However, it the muscles are hunched to keep the slack flexor tendon tight, then the horse cannot do this. The result is horses who spend a lot more time on the ground, sleeping for longer periods of time.
• High heeled horses also suffer more tendon and ligament damage when used in performance exercises like sliding in western reigning competitions.
  

  This is a simplified explanation of some of the major problems with high heeled horses. The answer to most if not all of these problems is good trimming to bring about a ground parallel coffin bone and establishing a hoof mechanism that will in turn bring about proper vascular circulation, healing the horse of damage and bringing it to soundness. This may take many months, but if you are guided by trained professionals in this area it is often accomplished.
  
  What needs to be done:

1. Get yourself educated on the subject. Read A Lifetime of Soundness and Shoeing: A Necessary Evil? by Dr. Hiltrud Strasser and learn more.
2. Try to find someone who can help you here.
3. Attend a seminar somewhere where you can get some experience.
4. Lower the Heels of your horse to the proper levels to establish a ground parallel coffin bone...and always establish a good visable hoof mechanism. See "Starting To Trim".
5. Have your horse engaged in Natural Living conditions before you start this project.
   

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Last edited: 30 June, 2007
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