Corrective shoeing for laminitis doesn't always work, despite veterinarians' and farriers' best efforts, and it's not always clear why a particular shoeing job isn't successful. In-shoe force measurements, however, can show the effects of shoeing on the foot, allowing for timely adjustments and improved treatments. During the Sept. 17-18 Laminitis West Conference in Monterey, Calif., Patrick T. Reilly, chief of farrier services at the University of Pennyslvania's New Bolton Center, explained the advantages of taking these measurements in laminitic horses.

There are a variety of opinions on how best to treat each individual laminitic horse, but, Reilly said, "There are two things that we seem to agree on universally in our mechanical goals (for laminitis). One goal is that we want to take some strain off of that lamellar interface–we want to try to protect that interface. Secondly, we want to protect the dorsal sole on the surface of the foot (the sole nearest the toe area, which is an area frequently traumatized as a result of laminitis)."

Reilly demonstrated how he was able to document the mechanical effects of a particular corrective shoeing treatment on the hoof using force measurements. At New Bolton, he and his colleagues have treated many horses at risk for laminitis (such as those with a serious injury in one limb, potentially overloading its opposite) with convex (arched) solar support. The idea is that putty on the bottom of the foot can help reduce weight bearing by the hoof wall, potentially relieving strain on the compromised lamellar interface. Subsequent force measurements showed that such treatment achieved this goal.

When one of New Bolton's research horses, a 34-year-old Morgan mare, developed laminitis, Reilly used force measurements to investigate three ways to manage the dorsal hoof wall: Leaving the distorted wall extending over the front of the shoe, squaring off the dorsal hoof that extended over the shoe at a 45-degree angle, and blending the hoof wall from the shoe up to the coronary band. While one might not think that it would matter what you do with wall that's not touching the shoe or the ground, Reilly explained that removing this wall seems to affect the structural integrity of the hoof capsule, which can affect other parts of the hoof as well