Balancing and Shoeing Trotting and Pacing Horses

by William J. Moore

VIII. KNEE AND ARM HITTING.

This has been a great worry to “the smart set,” “the know it alls” for many years, as to what causes it, and what to do to help or prevent it. Winging in is caused sometimes by a deformity, or by contracted muscles or ligaments stronger on one side of the leg than on the other; sometimes deformed feet, or a badly contracted inside quarter will be the cause of some of this trouble, because the weight of the horse at the ankle drops over the inside heel instead of coming down in the middle of the foot. A contracted inside quarter and a high or long outside toe are dangerous weapons for a horse to be carrying, one of these at a time is bad enough, but when a foot is troubled with both it is very bad. If your knee or arm hitter has a contracted quarter on a front foot, the first thing to do is to get a hoof expander and expand the contracted quarter. This will be an important step towards getting the leg in the middle of the foot. In all my experience with knee and arm hitters I have found the offending foot too high on the outside, with the most of the foot from the center of the frog on the outside of the leg. With height and width of foot on the outside of the leg, it is just contrary to science. To straighten the line of action this needs to be reversed; edge up the outside edge of the foot from the outside toe to the point at quarters as much as it will stand, do it at every shoeing and you will be getting the leg closer to the middle of the foot. If you can get a little more of the foot on the inside of the leg than is on the outside, it will be a benefit to a bad knee and arm hitter. Another thing, the shorter the toe or angle of a knee hitter the easier he can leave the ground and the less he will wing in, and the lighter will be the blow if he hits. The knee hitter should be shod as lightly as he will go at speed, balanced. The lighter the weight he is carrying the lighter the blow if he strikes. The best kind of a shoe for a knee hitter is a side weight shoe with the heavy side on the inside of the foot; good results are obtained with heel and toe calks, the toe calks well set back on the toe of the shoe.

These calks on the shoe of a knee and arm hitter should be a little thin so as to catch hold of the ground as the foot goes to twist before he picks it up; they will prevent a certain amount of twisting while the body of the animal is gliding over the weight-bearing portion of the leg as the foot leaves the ground. They will have a tendency to make him break over squarer and not so hard on the outside toe as the foot is leaving the ground. Now if your knee hitter wears a toe weight attach it towards the inside toe as far as possible but not far enough to the inside so as he will strike the opposite leg with it. When the feet of a knee hitter have been gotten in the shape as described herein and shod accordingly; why, the horse will think that he has been baptized and born over again. A perfect foot is rare, but with good judgment, a good eye and a little patience and perseverance a lot can be accomplished that will surprise some of those that think they know it all. In a knee hitter, also in an arm hitter, the bones of the foot and leg do not work true in their sockets, clear up to the knee, even the joint at the knee does not work true, the knee joint has a faulty motion, instead of breaking straight forward, it breaks out sideways as the rest of the leg starts to wing in. By building the foot mostly to the inside of the leg and having width and height of foot on the inside you are taking some of the power away that causes the winging in, and the breaking outward of the knee. It is something strange, but I have known knee and shin and arm hitters to be turned out with their shoes on in paddocks, and you would seldom see them hurt themselves, but put the harness on, hitch them up, and start them at speed and take a pull of 75 or 100 pounds on their lower jaw and the trouble would begin. The directions in this article for fixing the foot for knee and arm hitting are also the surest remedy for horses that toe out badly, a fault that is so objectionable to all horsemen. If you use a sideweight shoe on a front foot to prevent shin, knee and arm hitting, the heavy part of shoe should be on the inside of foot, but if you leave the outside of the foot one-sixteenth or one-eighth of an inch higher than the inside, you will be working against the results you are looking for.

It looks strange to many people that an outside weight shoe to a front foot has a tendency to make a horse wing in, and the same shoe applied to a hind foot will widen the hind action, with the foot fixed for that purpose. If you can fix the foot properly to control the line of action that you want, you will surely accomplish something. You should know what angle suits the action best. The foot should be symmetrical in shape to conform with the coffin bone, have no more foot on one side of the frog than on the other side, and the bearing surface to hang so as the foot will land on and leave the ground as square or level as possible.