Bob, I have a 12 year old gelding with white hooves - we leave him barefoot over the Winter but when the ground dries out, we need to keep him shod to prevent chips and cracking. Had the nice but mediocre local farrier out just recently, and he put on standard keg shoes as usual. I look at the angles and they still look normal in relation to his shoulder and pastern angles but all of a sudden, he is striking his front heels with his hind toes, just at the ordinary walk. He doesn't do this at the fox trot, just the walk and we've never had this happen before.

Answer:

I suspect the farrier set the rear shoes full in the toe with maybe a slightly long toe and short heel. This clipping can be fixed in several ways, the easiest being to shorten the toe and set the shoe back a tad. I think that this is all that is needed as he does not have a history of this problem. Another solution would be to square the toes on the hind shoes, I don't think this is necessary as it has not been a continuing problem!

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