78 AMERICAN FARRIERS JOURNAL www.americanfarriers.com April, 2010 By Steve Teichman, CJF I ’d like to share a step-by-step quarter crack repair method that we have adopted at Chester County Farrier Associates. For 37 years, we have been seeing poor quarter-crack repair jobs, infections resulting in lame horses and repair failure. We needed to come up with a simple, easy-to-apply system. This is not be an article on how to shoe these horses. I would like to assume some base knowledge that the horse is well-balanced and fit with the appropriate shoe. In 2009, we repaired over 20 quarter cracks. All of the horses involved remained in work and had no compli- cations as a result of this method. It is also designed to be simple for an owner to maintain, as the repair is meant to be self-cleaning. Of the conventional crack-repair methods, we most often see the stitch method. Though somewhat effective in stabilizing the hoof, it is plagued by failure, even when applied by the most skilled. Some of these patches are nice looking, but lack function. Poor design leads to failure in several areas, including: Un-weighting the heel area: This is a bad move — unless you want to keep coming back to “patch.” This is a sure way to make this an uphill fight. Patches that create areas that may lead to infection. Patch separa- tions that lead to small pockets, which can trap water and dirt, are more of a problem when you apply adhesives over wire stitching. The adhesive may come loose and the wire remains attached. Other complications may be caused be repairing over live tissue, even when you think you are not close to sensitive tissue. Complicated and improper drain placement is another area where infection can bite you Drilling errors. Let me tell you, you need to have many hours of prac- tice before you are halfway qualified to attempt this. More often then not, hoof horn is too easily damaged along the leading edge of a crack. That damage leads to a loss of strength and sets up a nice place for infection to set in. A patch shape that fails along leading and trailing edges. You would think by now that this would not be such an issue. This problem was identified in wartime ship repair. Naval engineers figured that placing a heavy patch along damage in the hull of a ship would make the damaged area as strong or stronger then the original material. Wrong! Instead they found that the patch would fail along its edges. You need to have a repair that closely matches the strength and flexibility of the original material. Matching the form of the structure is also critical. These issues make many repair methods not practical or worth the risk when there are much simpler and more effective methods available. This method dramatically lowers the skill level needed to successfully repair any quarter crack. Depending on the crack and the horse’s occupation, these patches will stay tight for up to 3 months. They are easy to trim out. As they grow down you can cut or rasp through your repair easily. The average time to apply one is about 30 minutes. The sample hoofs were all shod with some form of a heart bar shoe with significant frog pressure. None of the quarter crack is un-weighted. One Farrier’s Simple Quarter-Crack Repair Method Pennsylvania shoer says this technique is effective and much easier to apply than others The tools I use for this include the Dremel (above) bits and fiberglass (left). The fi- berglass is cut up and mixed with the repair material. I generally use Equibond brand of adhesive for all repairs FARRIER HOW-TO p78-81_Quarter-Crack_0410.indd 78 3/22/10 9:23:40 AM