EQUINE | Equine Disease Update
opinion rather than fact, research and sound long-term
clinical impressions. Veterinarians and farriers need to
work together to develop good basic farriery using anat-
omy, foot function and an emphasis on biomechanical
principles. Dr O’Grady has suggested that the ambigu-
ous term ‘hoof balance’ should be replaced with stan-
dardised, repeatable guidelines for trimming the foot.
These guidelines include the hoof-pastern axis, the cen-
tre of rotation and the heels of the hoof capsule trimmed
to the base of the frog when trimming the foot. The use
of shoes should be simplified, basing their use and ap-
plication on strict biomechanical principles appropriate
to the use and requirements of each horse.
Clinical highlights: The farrier and veterinarian should
form a close partnership allowing them to use sound
biomechanical principles to trim and shoe both the nor-
mal and abnormal hoof and maximise the welfare and
benefit to the horse.
Authorship This was a clinical review article of the 50th
South African Equine Veterinary Association Congress.
The authors divided the guest lectures equally between
them to write up reviews on them. They also both re-
viewed each other’s work for grammatical and spelling
errors. Both authors have reviewed the final draft and
have accepted it.
S. M. Miller and K. E. Spargo Summerveld Equine Hos-
pital, Summerveld, South Africa and Section Diagnos-
tic Imaging, Department of Companion Animal Clini-
cal Studies, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of
Pretoria, Onderstepoort, Pretoria, South Africa *E-mail:
[email protected]
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