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Suggested fitting instructions for The Natural Balance Shoe.

The following suggestions and guidelines have been found to service the needs of the equine foot well.

 If followed, these guidelines together with Natutal Balance design shoes have been beneficially used to maintain soundness and allow horses to move more freely.

fig 1.

Foot Trimming suggestions :

We suggest that the foot be prepared so that the trimmed heel terminates close to the widest part of the frog fig1.  

This generally requires removing the heel so that the hoof wall at the heel is approximately 1/8 of an inch 3mm above the live sole at the heel. The live sole can be found by carefully removing the powdery sole just inside the white line, ahead of the heels down to the waxy sole layer fig2.

fig 2.

 Trim forwards on this level. It is necessary to maintain full sole thickness ahead of the frog apex. The sole in this area needs a thick callous to protect the tip of P3.

 

Shoe Placement :

The distance from the frog apex to the inside border of the shoe should be as fig3.

fig 3 . pic 1.

Imperial Dimensions (inches)

NBS Shoe

Width

Distance from frog apex

1

4 3/4

1/8 - 1/4

2

5

1/8 - 1/4

3

5 1/4

1/4 - 3/8

4

5 1/2

1/4 - 3/8

5

5 3/4

3/8 -1/2

6

6

3/8 -1/2

Metric Dimensions (mm)

NBS Shoe

Width

Distance from frog apex

1

120

3 - 6

2

127

3 - 6

3

133

6 - 9

4

140

6 - 9

5

146

9 - 12

6

152

9 - 12

When finishing the foot, only remove the flares that are obvious and undercut the remaining hoof left over the shoe fig4. ( It is inadvisable to rasp the dorsal wall back to the shoe ). This will give the appearance of the naturally worn hoof. It may be important to mention this to your customers if questions arise.

fig 4.

Dimensions and technical specifications