The Hoof Architect

In part I of this series of articles we have gone through the ways in which horses’ limbs can be deformed and learned how and why hoof capsule distortions occur. In this part we are going to focus on correlations between specific limb deformities and corresponding hoof deformation patterns. 

  Fig. 1. Illustrations showing 2 out of 4 types of front hooves and 2 out of 4 types of hind hooves determined by conformation and posture. More on that in part II. Let’s get one thing straight: every horse’s leg is crooked to some degree.  Symmetry does not exist in nature. Straight horses do not exist. No leg is straight, no bone is straight and no joint is straight. Sometimes crookedness is obvious even for an untrained eye and sometimes it’s hard to spot.  It is not possible to illustrate and describe all possible variations of conformational and postural deviations (or rather it would require a whole book to present them all). Instead, my goal is to set a common language for talking about equine crookedness, so everybody can understand them and won’t need to learn by heart anymore.

I don't know if there is another topic as complex as the hooves. To understand them well, you need not only to have mastered all the knowledge regarding horses,   including their anatomy, physiology and behavior. You should be familiar with issues related to medicine, biology, biochemistry, biomechanics, mechanics, material properties, and it turns out that geometry and optics are important as well.

What happens when DCA is out of range - 6 hoof types In the previous article we have explained what DCA is, how to measure it and why it is important. We mentioned that specific angle range values go hand in hand with certain characteristic features of the hoof. Before we describe each type, we need to pre-introduce one more parameter that will help define what type of hoof we may be dealing with.

WHAT IS DCA The angle between the dorsal hoof wall and the coronary band in the lateral aspect of the hoof capsule - for convenience we have called it DCA ( D orsal hoof wall - C oronary band A ngle). When evaluating hooves, there are so many parameters to be taken into account. There are normal ranges set for the values of PA, dorsal hoof wall angle, sole depth, heel length/height, coronary band angle, etc. However, there is one really important parameter that we have found not much mention of - the angle between the dorsal hoof wall and the coronary band (in the lateral view) - and it seems some systems assume this angle to be constant in every hoof, thus irrelevant.