Fig. 58.
Tips are short shoes protecting only the foremost half of the foot. Upon grass or soft roads tips are quite sufficient to prevent undue wear of the hoof. Even upon hard roads tips will protect the hoof in dry weather, but in wet seasons the horn becomes softened, and then that part coming in contact with hard road-surfaces wears rapidly and lameness may follow. Tips require more care in use than shoes because they protect from wear only the toe, and when retained on the foot too long a time cause the hoof to become very disproportionately long at the toe. In fitting a tip care must be taken to afford the horse a level surface to bear on. The unprotected horn at the back of the foot must take a bearing on the ground level with the ground-surface of the tip. If there is sufficient horn on the foot this can be easily effected by only removing the overgrown wall to just the length the tip extends and leaving the horn behind untouched. Where there is not sufficient superfluous horn this method cannot be used, and we apply a tip gradually thinned off towards its hinder extremities. If a little horn can be removed obliquely from the front half of the foot by a few strokes of the rasp this "thinned" tip is more easily fitted so as to get a level surface on the ground. When a horse has worn this form for a month it is generally possible to bring a tip, of even thickness throughout, into the same line of bearing as the horn at the heels.
Fig. 59.—Foot prepared for a tip.
Fig. 60.—An ordinary and a "thinned" tip.
Tips do not give a good foot-hold on grass, but they afford greater security of tread on hard smooth roads and on ice than long shoes. The great advantages of tips are two-fold—they are light, and they permit the greatest freedom of movement and action in the posterior part of the foot. In some cases of chronic foot lameness the use of tips and regular work will effect soundness when every other method of treatment has failed.