High-Low ‘Syndrome’ in front hooves? What causes it and what can you do about it?

What does High – Low Syndrome look like? Well when you squat down and look at your horses front hooves you will notice the hairlines do not match-meaning one is more horizontal and one is more sloped to the ground. The horizontal one is the high heel the one sloping to the ground is the low heel.

High low can start as early as seven months of age as all of the foals I have seen already have their 1^st rib tweaked not allowing the shoulder to move correctly.

This creates a horse not willing to canter on one side, and in a round pen. The lower hoof of the two hooves, which will also be the bigger hoof, is the weight loading side and is loading heel to toe. This is also the side that usually has the suspensory or tendon issue as well from over working. The high heel side which will usually be the smaller and more narrow hoof is landing toe to heel. You will notice these horses stand at liberty with the front hooves not square to each other; this creates uneven pressure on the hooves when growing. If you release the 1st rib and withers, the horse will choose to stand square in the front end and hooves can start to grow down correctly

This syndrome can be fixed.  You can learn how at one of my clinics. For my current clinic schedule follow the link April’s clinic schedule.

Sometimes we do not have a clinic close to you and we have resources that will show you how to help your horse.  Here is the link to our shop where you will find several DVD’s that will show how we work in our clinics. There is a home study program for level 1.  This is the link to our store Holistic HorseWorks Store

Along with our DVD’s there are the Holistic HorseWorks free video’s  April’s free video’s