So-called “Hot Nail” or “Pricking
the Horse’s Foot”.
Sorry folks, my English is not as broad as it should be,
because it seems to me that there should be some better terms to describe the
following. I guess I will run into such problems in the future when writing
about horses, as there are just too many words around horses in other European
languages that cannot be directly translated into English.
Anyway, I’ll try to stay within the layman’s/horseman’s terms for better
In figure 1 you can see proper penetration of a shoe
nail through the wall of the hoof. In principle there is a thin layer of the
hoof wall between the nail and the sensitive part of the hoof (laminae).
Figure 2 shows so-called “indirect hot nail”,
where the layer of the wall between the nail and the sensitive part of the
hoof is too thin. In other words the nail is pressing against the sensitive
part of the foot. Often in this case horses do not go lame immediately. In
some cases they do not go lame at all. Sometimes however, horses can go lame
as late as two weeks after shoeing. In this case the sensitive part of the
foot gets inflamed and very seldom infected/abscessed.
Finally, the figure 3 shows genuine/direct “hot
nail” or “pricking the horse’s foot”. In this case the sensitive
part of the foot gets directly damaged which can lead sometimes to very
serious complication, especially if the treatment is delayed. In most cases
this kind of injury causes infection/abscess, hence it must be treated
immediately to prevent these complications.
Most common causes:
placement of the channel or a groove in the shoe. This was most common in
the old days, when farrier made his own shoes. However, there are on the
market these days shoes with the same faults, mainly the "wide web"
shoes, where the groove is too far inward from the outer edge of the shoe.
made nail holes in the shoe. This is pretty much the same case as above,
most common when farrier made his or her own shoes.
trimming of the foot, especially by removing large amounts of the hoof wall,
as you can see in the figure 3, where the shoe is set too far back and the foot then
filed even with the shoe.
condition of the foot like: too thin walls, crumbling walls or too hard hoof
for the farrier to work on.
of experience and expertise of the farrier.
but not least, is badly behaving horse when being shod. Folks, this should
be your responsibility to educate your horse for the farrier, especially
here in the US where the blacksmith is not only shoeing your horse, but he
has to hold the foot as well. Just in case you didn’t know, it is fair to
mention that in many countries in Europe, the handler hold the horses leg up
by shoeing and not the farrier. Something that is being taken for granted
here in the states. Should that be like that here, much less folks would own horses,
don’t you think? So, learn a lesson here and make sure that your horse
behaves well for the farrier, as he is supposed to shoe your horse and not
train it. Well, that of course all depends just how well you can train your
horse, because in some cases folks would be better off leaving the horse
alone as they could make him worse rather than better. One should know his
my comments are merely my opinions and beliefs gained from 40 years of
professional life with horses. All drugs should be used only by the consent of a
veterinarian and according to his instructions. A person who is with the horse
everyday, should know him better than anyone else.
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