Effect of Rim shoe on palmar foot pain in polo ponies

Abstract

Polo ponies are used to perform the high-performance sport. Therefore, hooves are an essential component of a movement. The normal gait cycle begins with landing on the palmar digital foot, a crucial part of the hoof mechanism for stopping and supporting the limb. Therefore, polo horses need specific shoes to help improve their performance. The inner rim shoe was primarily used in polo ponies, including a higher inner rim for more effortless medial/lateral movements and a convex radius inner rim for optimal traction and reduced weight. This research aimed to compare the lameness improvement before and after wearing the rim shoe in polo ponies with suspected palmar digital foot pain using subjective and objective lameness evaluation. The most painful forelimb was selected to perform a palmar digital nerve block to determine palmar foot pain. The screening results showed that 24 of 30 polo ponies (80%) had forelimb lameness. Seven polo ponies (21%) responded positively to the palmar digital nerve block. After that, seven horses had selected for the main study. Before shoeing, the polo ponies were lameness evaluated by trotting and repeated in 1 hour and 1 day after shoeing. Three polo ponies had lameness improvement one hour after shoeing. Four polo ponies showed improvement the next day. As forelimb lameness in polo ponies had a high prevalence, there were an exciting number of polo ponies with a positive palmar digital nerve block. Besides, rim shoes had no significant relation to improving lameness after shoeing for I hour (p-value = 0.7) and I day (p-value = 0.5) in polo ponies with a positive palmar digital nerve block.