VET SERVICES LTD (VSL)

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ANSWER:

That's great to hear, well done! I'm sure Higgins had something to do with that....what a good boy!

Answer: Hi,

(Link to thehorse.com losing shoes)

Losing shoes is a multifactual problem that is not always related to your farrier. Hoof wall health and softness can influence shoe stability. Does your horse have interference between the back feet and front feet?, if so changing the type of shoe or length of hoof can help that i.e shorten the breakover.  Some horses just dont know where their feet are especially the youger ones and can often trip over their own feet and rip a shoe off. The type of riding you do and the terrain you ask your horse to work on is a huge player in shoe stability, i.e. deep sand arena's can slow down the speed at which the front foot gets out of the way of the back.

Often a horse will have a hoof problem that takes several shoeings to get right and will sometimes mean throwing the corrective shoes.  For example low heels (link to low heels)may need more heel support on them which can leave a little bit of shoe sticking out thats able to be caught. Some clients are not interested in fixing these problems and just want the farrier to keep a shoe on.  This can mean the farrier places a tighter shoe or lowers the heel all of which can exacerbate the problem and increase unsoundness in the long term, but will keep the shoe on. as we are very interested in the long term soundness of our patients we will often shoe for this, it is for this reason we gaurentee our shoeings even though we know a thrown shoe is not always our fault.

So as you can see it is always best to talk to your farrier about this and go over the various options that might be best for your horse as an individual.