Investigating Associations between Horse Hoof Conformation and Presence of Lameness

Mata, F., Franca, I., Araújo, J., Paixão, G., Lesniak, K. and Lima Cerqueira, J., 2024. Investigating associations between horse hoof conformation and presence of lameness. Animals, 14(16), p.2393. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14162393

Hoof shape can provide a visual indication of imbalanced forces being transferred through the limb; such imbalances are commonly associated with lameness. The circumference of the coronet band and the angle of the hoof wall at the toe region were measured in all four feet of 73 adult horses.

The horses were categorised according to their regular work requirements as either show jumpers, dressage horses, or riding centre horses. The horses were observed in their regular work by a veterinary nurse who recorded the presence or absence of lameness. For both the show jumping and the dressage horses, having either a small coronet band circumference with a large hoof wall angle or a large coronet band circumference with a small hoof wall angle increased the probability of the horse presenting with lameness in the respective limb. A small coronet band circumference with a large hoof wall angle would imply a more upright foot, which is known to be predisposed to increased concussive forces. A large coronet band circumference with a small hoof wall angle implies a broken-back hoof–pastern axis and increased loading on the suspensory apparatus.

Read Full Paper Here.

Download • 1.48MB

© 2024 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).