To understand more about the heels in hooves, check this video out: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oa2klsSfzKnDaIU.html

thanks Graeme - very educative! The professional barefoot trimmer that trimmed our mare every 6 weeks (she's out of irons for 6 years) always answered our question (why can't she walk on gravelly/rocky ground etc...?) in the same way: it's the meadows fault. I decided sth had to change ;) and started educating myself and then carefully gave it a go. After learning all the theory it's learning by doing i'd say - carefully of course - but nobody can save you the effort of getting a good feel with the rasp/knife etc and also a feel for the hoof. After a while i found the hoof like 'talks' to me. I somehow feel what has to be done now. And here we are, 6 months later, the mare can be ridden everywhere now, trot, galopp on gravel - she's fine :) hooves look so good now but are still getting better each month ;) THANKS to you too Graeme because you contributed to my own development too :)

3D makes it easier for those of us who don't even own 🐎🐎, yet. Thank you so much Graeme!!! Cheers from South America 🌈

How do you treat this? Take more off the front? I’m not sure how the new trimmings affected the slope of the hoof above the crease. But that’s another video lol. Thank you. So informative.

Fantastic video, you sir, are a wealth of knowledge.

Great info about the hoof. Thank you. 👍

Thank you for sharing your knowledge of the hoof

Great video and the content is very educational

Can you please explain trimming the bars? I have had some people tell me to trim them all the way back and I have seen others leaving the bars. Would you be able to do a video on bars?

Love it! Wow, this 3D graphics are worth a thousand words :) Very informative! 🤓 Thank you for posting this, Graeme! 👍 Just wondering… Once a horse has been shoed, is it easily possible to go back to barefoot? Is there any truth to using shoes as “corrective measures”? My understanding is that poor trimming is the main culprit for structural problems with hooves (not talking about other problems being brought on by humidity and poor stall maintenance, just the physics). Thank you!

Thank you, this is very good pedagogy to understand the process with graphics. I remember another one you did last year to explain the anatomy of the hoof. But how can a horse walk with what looks like "flat feet" ? It must be painful as it is not a normal position on the ground.

In this video and the one about run under hooves you made it appears that you model the toe and heels of a hoof wall grow under the same angle. This seems to be a prevailing myth in the farrier community. If you look at the hooves of wild horses they all have a difference between toe and heel angles (from the top of my had this can be as much as 10 degrees). I don't mean to say that run under hooves don't exist, because they do. but without the difference in growth angle they wouldn't exist. If the walls are left too long and are due to circumstances (sugars, habitat, injuries or bad hoofcare practices) subjugated to unnatural wear and laminitic growth characteristics these angels can become extreme, i.e. run under. Just like the ones you show as the "bad hooves" in the model. But looking at your models i believe the second to last model to be the most accurate model, where as the parallel heel/toe model is too over simplified. You may find this interesting to look into. My working theory for the existence of the difference in angle is that just before impact healthy horse tip their toes up. This makes the heels touch ground first, and therefor are also MOST responsible for stopping any forward motion. By having a greater angle this places the fibers that make up the hoof more in line with the forces applied on the hoof. And just like you said, this is the orientation in which the fibers are strongest. Anyway, the idea of using 3d models to explain hooves is really interesting and one i may end up using when explaining problems to my clients. Good work!