Author : Lisa Agius-Gilibert
Lisa is a Sydney-based Equine Podiotherapist with a Bachelor of Equine Science and over 12 years’ professional experience in hoof care. At Flex Hoof Boots, she creates evidence-based educational content to help horse owners feel confident in hoof care and boot fitting – empowering them to give their horses the best possible lives.
So, you’ve measured your horse’s hooves for boots, only to find that the width and length don’t match any boot size chart. What do you do?
If your horse’s hoof is wider than it is long, then this might be a clue that your horse’s hooves need extra support. You might be thinking “well, that’s just the shape of his hoof… right?”
Not necessarily.
Hoof shape can tell us a lot about how healthy and comfortable your horse really is.
What Does A Healthy Hoof Look Like?
Healthy hooves of all shapes and sizes will share some basic similarities. Let’s have a quick look at some basic anatomy.
When looking at the bottom of a healthy hoof, the heel is at the back of the hoof, at the widest part of the frog. The hoof walls will be the same thickness all the way around the hoof, with a rounded edge (called a bevel). The shape of the hoof wall will also mirror the shape of the outer edge of the sole.
The weight of the horse will be supported by the wall, frog, bars and some sole. Wide hooves with a nice, tight connection between the pedal bone and the hard hoof capsule are considered “healthy”, as there is no excess weight and leverage being placed on the hoof walls.
What Happens When Hooves Get Too Wide?
Hooves that are considered “wide” are wider across (from side to side) than they are long (from toe to heel). Wide hooves tend to be associated with front feet, as front hooves are more “round” in shape than hind hooves, but it can occur in hind feet, too!
Unhealthy wide hooves are a result of inflammation in the body and/or long hoof walls. When the hoof wall is too long or wide (or both!), it forces the hoof wall to take too much weight, not sharing this load with the other structures. The hoof wall attachment is incredibly strong, but if there is inflammation or excessive leverage, it degrades the attachment. The “zipper” that holds it all together becomes misshapen and isn’t able to interlock well, causing the hoof wall to pull away from the bone and soft tissue inside, leading to a curve in the hoof wall (flare). This is like having long fingernails pulling away from the nail bed, except the horse needs to stand on his nail!
The leverage of having long walls actually decreases blood flow throughout the foot. Less blood flow means less nutrition available for the cells that grow the sole and repair bone and soft tissue, leading to bone loss and an inability to grow enough sole. Horses with thin soles are usually quite sore, especially if not working in soft footing.
Flared walls are more prone to problems like White Line Disease and hoof wall separation, allowing microbes and debris to work its way up inside the hoof wall, which can cause your horse to be very sore or even develop a nasty abscess.
How To Spot a Problem At Home?
There are a few checks you can do to investigate if your horse’s wide feet are healthy or unhealthy.
First, check for wall flare (curved walls). Use a straight edge (like a metal ruler) and place it up against the hoof wall. You should see little to no space between the wall and the flat edge, but flared hooves will show a gap – this tells you a story! That zipper isn’t strong and the connection is letting go.
It can be helpful to use a marker to draw a line around the outer edge of the sole. Check the hoof wall shape against the sole shape. In unhealthy wide hooves, the hoof wall shape can deviate from the shape of the sole and not run parallel, especially in the quarters.
The frog may be long and skinny, taking up most of the length of the hoof. The sole is also often thin, with either a very flat or very cuppy appearance.
The heels in an unhealthy wide hoof will usually be run forward and curved (instead of flat), which causes the bars to curve and fold over the sole, too.
So… does that mean Flex Boots won’t work for my horse?
Flex Boots will still probably work for your horse, but will fit best with a few changes.
Flex boots are designed to fit a wide range of hoof sizes, and there are regular width and wide width sizes. However, because Flex Boots are an innovation from the minds of professional barefoot trimmers who have been in the game a long time, the design of the boot is carefully thought out so that they fit healthy hooves that are trimmed well. So, when there is flaring or a forward-run heel, the boots won’t fit the horse as well as they should. This doesn’t mean that your horse’s feet need to be perfect to wear Flex boots! It just means that some adjustments need to be made to your horse’s management. And as a bonus, your horse gets healthier, more comfortable hooves out of the deal, too! The more comfortable your horses’ hooves are, the more they can enjoy the work you do together.
I think my horse has unhealthy wide feet – what can I do?
You can help your horse a lot by making a few simple changes. You will need to give the hoof some time to heal with supportive trimming and management.
The trim concentrates on reducing the leverage on the hoof walls and heels. Have a chat with your trimmer about reducing the width and height of the hoof wall and bringing the heels back to the widest part of the frog, uncurling the bars and heels.
As with everything with horses, trimming the hooves little and often is so important, as the hoof wall can grow very fast, especially when healing! A short, strict trim cycle is a must. A small trim every week is ideal, to keep the leverage at bay, however a short trim cycle with your professional trimmer is a good substitute. Have your horses trimmed no more than every 4 weeks.
Ensure your horse is landing heel-first to help strengthen the back of the foot, and encourage the heels to grow in straight.
The other side of the coin is species-appropriate horse care. Horses evolved in an environment with large amounts of low quality, low calorie, fibrous roughage (grass), and horses had to walk approximately 11km per day between grazing and watering areas, over varied terrain. Their digestive systems are set up for almost constant digestion, even to the point that their gastric stomachs don’t ever stop producing stomach acid, and the safe journey of food through the digestive system depends on the horse moving enough all throughout the day and night.
High stress environments for a horse increase inflammation throughout the body, which shows first in the hooves. The hooves are very sensitive to inflammation, especially the connection between the pedal bone and hoof wall. Healthy horses spend most of their time eating, moving and living in a herd environment, which provides opportunities for play, bonding behaviour, exploration, sleep, being able to eat enough forage and drink enough water. This is a low stress environment for a horse.
So, turn out your horse in a herd in a large paddock with low sugar (calorie) grass. Ensure he has enough clean, fresh water, good quality shelter, and access to lots of forage so he can eat 16-18 hours a day. Provide low sugar hay in a slow feed hay net. If you need to feed a meal, make sure it is small and grain free. Make sure he has enough room to move around freely. Ensure there is not too much mud or wet standing areas that can weaken the hooves with excess moisture. Have his manure checked every 3-6 months for worms (your local vet should be able to provide this service) and only drench or worm your horse if there are large amounts of parasite eggs present, on recommendation from your veterinarian.
Reduce the horse’s levels of stress (and therefore inflammation), and trim the horse little, often, and in line with how the hoof evolved to be worn down, and you will support the horse to heal, sometimes very quickly!
(Keep an eye out for more blog posts about species-appropriate hoof trimming and husbandry, it is a BIG subject!).
Wrap Up
Here’s a handy, horse-side visual guide on how to tell healthy from unhealthy wide-hooves.
Wide hooves might seem like a harmless conformational fault, but they often signal deeper hoof health issues. With regular, appropriate trimming, proper species-appropriate care, and hoof protection like Flex Hoof Boots, you can support your horse back to soundness.
Happy Hoofing!
Found this post helpful? Share it with a friend or tag us @flexhoofboots if your horse is on a healing journey – we love a good transformation story.
