The Four Point Trim or the Natural Trim for Horses and Equines

Careful study of a large number of wild horses has had a startling effect of the way we look at hoof care. The first thing noticed was that there were no thin walled, thin soled, contracted heel wild horses. Now some have argued that horses with bad feet are rapidly culled from a herd and there is probably some truth to this. But does this account for the fact that all the barefoot wild horses had much better than average feet? Angles of the hoof wall with the ground where always around 55 degrees. The feet were fairly short with a lot of horn mass. That is, the walls and sole and frogs were thick and dense. This allowed these horses to travel great distances over very hard terrain bare foot every day and remain sound. An interesting discovery has been that natural wear results in the main support of the foot to be concentrated in four areas of the sole. Several very knowledgeable foot experts, including veterinarians, farriers, and people who make their living using horses say that by mimicking this shape with trimming, a stronger foot results.

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