Hi everyone!

I have a coming 2 year old that has very deep collateral grooves, especially on his front hooves.  I can bury my hoof pick almost completely into his grooves.  He's been trimmed 3 times and has never been shoed.  Do I need to look for a different farrier to fix this problem or is this a conformation fault that I'll always be dealing with?  BTW, not sure if this is related (I'm guessing it is), but he popped 2 abscesses out of his back feet this winter.  One on each foot within about a week.  I'm wondering if his deep grooves caused this, although I've read that it is a myth that gravel can actually travel up the hoof and pop out the coronet band.  Any thoughts from the community?  Thanks, Natalee

This is what I read......Their depth is a guide to the position of the pedal bone within the hoof. If the collateral groove is very shallow it indicates that the pedal bone is sitting low in the hoof.

Collateral Grooves- The "seam" between the sole and frog (also known as frog/sole juncture). They are a significant landmark, because their distance from the external surface to the corium surrounding the coffin bone and the lateral cartilages is consistently around 1/2 inch [except in the rare case of a previous subsolar abscess of frog and sole corium, which can push them farther away]. Given the concaved shape of the coffin bone and lateral cartilages, the higher the collateral grooves are lifted off the ground by the outer perimeter of sole, the more sole there is under this outer perimeter. They can accurately be used to judge sole thickness anywhere in the outer perimeter of sole adjacent to the white line by visualizing how high this outer perimeter of sole would lift the collateral grooves above a flat ground surface.

If it were me, I'd talk to my vet first. Ask your farrier to talk to him/her as well. You say he has been trimmed 3 times and he is a coming 2 year old? Why only 3 times?