Healthy Hooves, Plastic-Shod

Farrier Andrew Poynton is quite literally in the very heart of Malmesbury’s community, for his ‘Town Forge’ blacksmith’s shop is sited in the High Street, centre of this bustling Wiltshire

market town. That his ancient craft as farrier and blacksmith is even in demand is strange to contemplate in a world of computers and silicon chips.  But demand there is without doubt, enough to keep him and an assistant continuously busy over a six-day week.

However, in a modern twist to his traditional skills, he has come up with an invention that means horses and ponies are now able to put their worst feet forward.  Andrew who had run his business in the centre of the Wiltshire town since 1991, has developed special therapeutic plastic “shoes” that are proving to be invaluable where owners and vets are faced with acute lameness, damaged feet, laminitis, or orthopaedic problems in foals and young stock.  Andrew who developed his idea in conjunction with local vets group, George Equine Practise, is finding his creation so successful, folk from the equine world up and down the country are in hotfoot pursuit of his animal-saving brainwave.

Great reaction

A fellow of The Worshipful Company of Farriers and smithy to Prince Charles’s rare breed of Suffolk Punch heavy horses, Andrew is delighted with the reaction he is receiving from his invention. “It really all came about because I was sad to see so many animals having to be put down through leg and foot injuries, where conventional heavy shoes were impossible to fit without making the problem worse or causing more pain to the horse.  I started thinking how this could be overcome and after many hours burning the midnight oil and waking at three in the morning with ideas going around my mind, I finally came up with the idea of using thermo-plastic materials to create a foot-friendly shoe.”……

Once the correct size of shoe is chosen, grooves are cut into the side of the hoof.  The selected plastic shoe is then immersed in boiling water and while still malleable, fashioned into the pre-cut grooves then freeze-cooled onto the hoof, using special adhesive at the same time to seal the horn to the hoof.  The time from hot water to fitting is just three minutes – the gain is no pain to the animal and a foot that can be put to the ground…..”In any condition where the fitting of conventional shoes becomes difficult for the farrier of painful for the animal – the plastic shoes come into their own.

“The response has been tremendous, there is growing interest from the horse racing bloodstock industry, coupled with demand from the hunting and equestrian field, so much so that we have now introduced courses to teach vets and farriers the fitting techniques for the plastic shoes.

Dr Peter Clegg, senior clinician with the prestigious Liverpool University Animal Hospital, is now using this system in conjunction with a resident farrier to resolve equine foot and leg problems….