Hoof Care with Jerry Schmidt: Trimming to Address Imbalance

One of our major goals at Wise Horseman is helping owners trim their own horses. This is the case with Louie; his owner has been trimming him for some time, and was trying to diagnose persistent lameness in his front feet, as well as the source of an abscess in his front left foot. In that search, he had x-rays done to see if there was a coffin bone issue or some other misalignment inside the hoof. He came to us for a coaching session, to see whether imbalance was playing a role in Louie's soreness, and what he might improve on when trimming in the future.
Jerry Schmidt and Mary Gallagher inspected Louie's feet, and found some medial-lateral imbalance and less than ideal hairline angles that would contribute to (if not entirely account for) soreness and the abscess.
The resulting trim and coaching session focuses on a few main themes:
- Reading feet to understand imbalance
- Balancing feet medial-laterally to properly load the hoof
- Returning the hairline angle back into balance, so that the hoof can grow, increasing concavity.
We hope this session helps you to better understand some of these issues and solutions! As always, comment below with questions, and subscribe to our channel for more educational videos.