Late winter/early spring is the time of year when those of us with the competitive urge start planning for the upcoming season of competitions. Top of mind is generally conditioning, schedule planning, and diet to ensure our horses are in peak performance shape come spring. But let’s not forget about the importance of addressing our horses from the inside out to make sure that there aren’t underlying issues that are going to rear their ugly head once competition season arrives. As many of you know, Dr. Penttila competes at a high level on her barrel horse so we’re going to share with you some tips and tricks from our veterinary team on how we keeps her horses in top form. In this post we are going to take a look at shoeing survey films (or screening podiatry radiographs as we refer to them) and how they can be the crystal ball you need for predicting and preventing foot injuries.
You’ve likely all heard the saying “No foot, no horse” - in our experience, no truer words have ever been spoken. That’s why we think it is so important to know what is going on in your horses’ feet so that we can make any necessary adjustments to their trimming and shoeing to help prevent injuries and soreness.
When we take a set of podiatry radiographs, we generally shoot 2 views of each foot that are specific for evaluating the foot from a podiatry standpoint. These x-rays allow us to measure key details about the foot that can be used to make adjustments to the way they are shod. We can evaluate foot and joint balance, bone angles, sole depth, and determine if the foot is being loaded appropriately.
Figure 1: This figure shows a cutting horse with a very common shoeing concern where the shoe is not well balanced around the center of rotation from toe to heel, leaving too much foot in front of the center of rotation compared to behind. This leads to increased load on the heel and navicular region and a prolonged breakover phase, causing unnecessary stress on the structures in the foot.
Figure 2: In this figure, we see another common foot concern. This jumping horse has a long toe and heels that have run forward, creating a broken back hoof pastern axis. This can result in increased stress on the joints of the lower limb and lead to early signs of osteoarthritis such as bone spurs as seen here.
Dr. Penttila takes shoeing survey films on her good mare, Chic, and all her prospects at least twice a year. This has allowed her to make timely changes and intervene when needed to ensure their foot balance and loads remain ideal.
See this section of our webpage for more info about shoeing survey films:
https://www.burwashequine.ca/podiatry