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The Chronic Quarter Crack
The day before a three day event...left his shoe out on the course, lame and quarter cracked again!!
Quarter Cracks can be a nightmare for a show horse or breeding stallion. Just before the big show, when the pressure is on, and just one last tune up and wham, the horse comes up lame and is bleeding at the coronet. All the time of preparation, all that training, all those show fees and stall fees and vet and farrier bills and there it is...yet another bleeding hoof crack and there goes the show...
Most cracks can be repaired and grown out. But are they ever "fixed"? One type of hoof crack that can plague the horse all throughout its life, is the crack that is caused by a coronary band injury. Wire cuts, fence injuries, coronary lacerations from being caught under the stall door or round pen wall or trailer dividers can all cause damage to the hair line. Since the hoof grows down from the coronet, these injuries can be permanent. Ugly hoof walls and chronic cracks or seams can be the result of these types of injuries.
A veterinarian and your farrier should be called immediately, should your horse injure the hoof or hair line at the coronet. Some cases may require emergency surgery and investigation as to deeper structures that might be involved or dirt, sand, wire or wood that may be encased under the hoof wall acquired at the time of injury. Some may grow out as chronic seams in the hoof wall at best. And if so, it is prudent to just leave those alone, if they have healed well. Chronic draining or healing and draining may indicate the presence of a problem deeper within the foot that will call for further diagnostics by the veterinarian. And a tetanus booster may be called for, to boost immunity.
The other cracks fall into an easier category to "fix", as differential wall length can be a common underlying problem and cause for chronic hoof cracks. If you don't resolve the cause, the hoof will just keep cracking again. Quick stabilization with staples, lacing or banding, clips, bar shoes and casting material, can hold them together by artificial means, but if the primary cause is not corrected, the hoof will just keep cracking when the external fixation is removed.
Covering a bleeding crack with hot thermal fixatives or bondo materials, will usually result in a hoof abscess within a week or so. Trying to burn cracks with a hot iron or caustic chemicals can damage the sensitive corium the quick) or bone underneath the hoof wall and that can lead to more problems down the road.
So, let's look at the foot closely. When you look at the toe of the hoof, you see almost a whole year of history. Just like the cross-section of a tree, will show wet and dry years, the hoof capsule will tell its own story.
Horizontal rings can result from diet change, environment temperature changes, internal temperature changes, like a fever, diet changes, shoeing changes, farrier changes and systemic illness of the horse. The spacing of the horizontal rings can show deviations from stress on the hoof wall and how that hoof was balanced as well as irregularities resulting from deviations in conformation (toed out or toed in). Wide spacing indicates rapid growth and narrow spacing, slow or no growth in that area. The coronary band is where all the hoof wall growth comes from and it says it all! Study the growth pattern here to see what this foot is screaming about.
The toe length should be the longest wall length on the foot. If the quarter is longer than the wall length, the quarter will crack. That can be measured and charted. If
recorded during several months, it can be verified by the fact the crack is growing out all by itself, with no artificial aid, other than balancing the foot properly.
Many cracks will respond to doing nothing more than removing the shoes and letting the foot re-balance itself. Some horses cannot go without shoes because of the terrain, use or lameness conditions. Glue on shoes or therapeutic horseshoes that will float the heel (heartbar shoe) and keep it floated, will allow the coronary band to level out again. With frequent trimming, the foot can be balanced and the normal wall length restored to the hoof. An average, generic 1000# horse could have example measurements similar to a toe length of 3.5", a quarter length of 3.25" and heel length of 2.75". This again is just an example, not a rule.
This foot shown below had had over $1,800 in repairs for a quarter crack over two years time. The shoe was a too small straight bar shoe with clips (in the wrong place), then a patch, then a circle of wire and then the coronary band removed, as you can see working your way up the "history" of the foot from the ground up.
A glue-on shoe was applied to the foot with a full pad underneath. The pad was cut out so that the heel and quarter were non-weight bearing. The horse was trimmed every 30 days. A good hoof care supplement like
Hoof Rite, will nutritionally improve the quality of the horn wall and help to grow out the problem hoof. Some horse owners have reported having to have their horses trimmed at an increased frequency of every 4 weeks due to the growth rate, rather than every 6-8 weeks. When trying to grow out a hoof problem like a quarter crack, hoof supplements definitely help.
Here is the foot later down the road. Take a look at that coronary band and no crack. The toe length had become the longest length on the foot. The hoof was in balance and the coronary band restored to "level". The wall grew out uneventfully, with no artificial support. The last of the bad wall was almost grown out.
Most chronic cracks that I have worked on for the last 24 years, have responded to achieving a balance hoof. I have used this technique on hoof cracks as old as 4 years in duration and this simple approach has worked for me.
The few that have stayed cracked or have cracked again, were causes by a primary injury to the coronary band. A permanently weakened wall may produce cracks again through the horse's life, especially if not shod in a balanced manner. Toe cracks are a whole separate beast and will be dealt with in another article to come.
All the best to you and your horse!! Jan Young, DVM
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