Apex uprights a heel without gimmicks and gadgets.

Top 2 pics, are an example of what farriers do, to upright a heel. They back the heel to the widest part of the frog. They attached a wedge and shoe to build a false heel. This does not even make common sense. They remove the heel to rebuild the heel!

Not only have they removed sole depth, the heel, and flattened the digital cusion, they caused severe stress to the tendons and ligaments. They did not heel the distortion and mechanical lamenss. They put a band-aid on a huge issue. Gadgets and gimmicks don’t heal the hoof and get to the root of the problem.

You ask why people do what they do? They don’t know better. Do not let trimmers that don’t know better try to fix the mistakes they caused. They will ruin your horse! You endup with worse mistakes and a rabbit hole of lameness and ruinded horses. The ligament and tendons on this horse won’t hold up forever with this mechanical stress. Not to mention the joints with the metak shoe and lack of sole depth. The destruction of the lamina health.

Second set of pics is a rehab by Apex out of the farrier trim. A farrier would of wedged this hoof and never uprighted the heel. We actually uprighted the heels, rebuild the digital cusion and bone alignment. The enire hoof and horse is rehabbed. I do this all day every day. Correcting bad trims and actually healing the disortions in the hooves.

Kissing Spine

The equine spine has individual vertebrae connected by ligaments and muscle. Each vertebra has a bony processes that sticks up. The processes should be evenly spaced. This allows the horse to work over their back. They are able to flex and extend the back. If the horse doesn’t have mechanical support from their hooves, the back drops. The even spacing between the processes closes. The horse now has pain, stiffness and even muscle spasm. This is often disagnosed as kissing spines.

Below is horse with a dropped back and closed spinal process. The horse was getting the typical farrier trim. Low heels and long toe. The after pic is the Apex trim and how the trim lifts the back. The horse is now able to lift and engage his back. He is now more correct in support and ability work over his back. Support from the hooves directly effects your top line and skeletal system.

Vets support Apex Trim

118224188_1740548652751183_8863380569800878359_n.jpg

A couple of weeks ago our vet came out to do vaccinations. He always notices our horses’ feet and we had a long chat about the barefoot transition which has happened since we last saw him, and he seemed very impressed especially with Tuco’s (Spotty) changes. He actually said it was actually a quite remarkable change and that all their hooves looked great.
Today we took Zanti and Tuco out for a jumping lesson. When we got to the venue, we saw our vet on the yard doing what appeared to be a lameness examination on a client’s horse. We waved and said hello. While we were waiting to go in the arena, he brought his client over, and showed her our horses hooves! He told her this is how they should look, how nature intended - not distorted like how her farrier was making her horse with the shoes !!! And he told her how Spotty’s hooves had changed since the shoes came off (uprighted, grown heel, rounded toes etc).
If you lead by example, you do not need to say anything. Thanks Lana for sharing your knowledge so passionately, and leading us all to better hooves and happier horses 🙂

Horse Safe Pasture

14448891_10205648808618588_9004496513377665599_n.jpg

Healthy horses are safe on horse safe pastures.

Pastures such as timothy and orchard grass and even native fascue. Heavliy fertilized rye pasture and too much clover isn’t a safe pasture. A healthy horse can handle small amounts of rye and clover but it shouldn’t be the main diet of pasture. You can’t put your horses out on lush cow or sheep pastures. These pastures are not for horses.

Horses with metabolic issues are not healthy horses.

Their diet must be monitered and medications are needed in some cases. They must have a strict low NSC diet.

If your horse has hoof issues and is not metabolic it’s the trim.

A healthy hoof can get laminits from the hooves not been trimmed correctly. Over trimming, removel of sole depth and heel, too long between trims can all cause laminits.

Blood work is how you know if your horse is metabolic. Never pull your horse off pasture and blame pasture for laminits if the blood work doesn’t confirm. Many trimmers don’t know how to trim and create laminitis and blame the pasture. Their inability to understand the hoof creates a sad isolated life for a horse. Horses need to gallop, eat, nap and play in a herd. Use science and blood work to know what’s going on with your horse. Don’t rely on the words of a trimmer that are causing your issues.

Any Horse Can Be Sound Barefoot.

86350373_10213490274930345_5025293301767471104_o.jpg

Human error creates lame horses, Uneducated trim methods done by farriers and barefoot trimmers. Any horse can be rehabbed. This horse hasn’t been trimmed all winter. When you understand how the enviroment helps the hoof, how to reset growth naturally, sound hooves are easy to achieve. It just takes some thinking ahead, a little studying of Apex. If people invested just a small amount of time to hoof education, you can change the quality of life for your horse.