overreaching

[Mary Ellis]

Just wondering if a horse overreaches badly, how would the problem be corrected. Would massage help or corrective shoeing? Any replies welcome, Thanks

[Wally]

Corrective shoes can help, or simple protection if they are bad. Re-schooling can help to balance them up, but it doesn't always work.

If they are really bad and injure themselves you'll just have to get the farrier to make some damage limitation shoes and put protective boots on.

[horselover]

If your horse is overreaching, make sure to use bell boots. They aren't very expensive, but they save the horse from severley damaging himself or from pulling his shoes off. I like the rubber kind that velcro.

[M-A]

Over-reaching is more common in short backed horses. It can be due to poor trimming or shoeing, leading to a late break-over of the front feet. This increases the chance of the hind feet interfering with the heels of the front feet. Rolling the toe can help prevent this. A tired horse is also more likely to over-reach, due to a loss of co-ordination. Young horses are not so well balanced, and also more at risk. This makes it very important to school a youngster for short periods, and build their work up very slowly.

Bell boots are a good from of protection. I always use the ones with double velcro fasteners. It is possible for a horse to trip himself up, if he stands on the basic type made of "solid" rubber, as they don't always release. They are also more difficult to put on and off! Petal boots are an alternative, as you can replace individual petals if they break off. The problem is that they are quite noisey.

[Wally]

Petal boots are not noisey if you get a tame saddler to run a line of stitching around the bottom of them to stop the petals from flapping.

I do not like rubber bell boots, they always rub the pasterns and make them sore, I use leather ones with felt lining. If they need to be weighted for training I use lead shot to make the weight up.

[Mary Ellis]

thankyou everyone,
We are in the process of trying corrective shoeing,and
using bell boots and boots, also some massage to see if it helps.