Tag Archives: horse shoes

Cytek vs Rimshoe, its all about support!

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Today, i want to look at the fundamental differences between a Cytek shoe, versus a rim shoe.

A Cytek Sole support Shoe

A Standard rim shoe

Take a few minutes to look at both images. Have a look at the width of the shoe, take notice of the amount of metal used in each shoe.

At a glance – which shoe do you think gives more support? The Cytek, or the rim shoe?

The first introduction I ever had to cytek shoes was when my soon to be farrier threw one on the ground infront of me, along with a rim shoe, and directed me to put my left foot on one, and right foot on the other.

Wow.

Have you ever done that? If so – we probably have the same farrier 🙂 But seriously, I thoroughly recommend this for ANYONE who gets the opportunity to do it. put one foot on a cytek, and the other on a rim shoe. Feel what your horses feel.

Your foot will fall through the bottom of the rim shoe, whereas your foot will feel more stable in a cytek shoe. Its something that you won’t get until you experience it.

What has a Cytek shoe got, that a rim shoe doesn’t? 

Put simply?

Sole support.

The Cytek shoe takes a foot with a balanced trim and short toe, and gives it support. There is nothing magical about these shoes. They are not therapudic, they are not remedial, they are not corrective (don’t get me started on corrective shoeing), they are common sense shoeing, the way it used to be done. Get the toe back, support the foot. Its that simple.

What is the major difference between a Cytek shoe and a rim shoe? 

The distribution of load.

The Cytek shoe (owing to its width and placement on the foot) takes the reactive load of a horse in movement, and distributes it evenly over the foot, and subsequently through the skeletal system of the horse.

A Rim shoe, (owing to its lack of width and placement on the foot), takes the reactive load of a horse in movement and channels it all on the wall of the horse. Go back and have a look at the two images. Can you see it now? A rim shoe works on the fallacy that the wall was designed to take the full load of the horse. As discussed in my earlier post, this is not true. There is nothing on the bottom of a horses foot that wasn’t designed to take load. Once you can get your head around that concept – seeing the fundamental differences in the loading principles of each shoe is pretty obvious, don’t you think?

The rim shoe loads the wall.

The Cytek shoe, loads the foot.

Why is the placement of the shoe so important? 

The Rim shoe, is designed to fit to the wall of the horses foot, because of the design of the shoe, the constraints on where it is attached, a great deal of wall length is required in order for the shoe to be fitted correctly. As we now know – length creates leverage. The more length, the more leverage!

The Cytek shoe is designed to locate under the pedal bone (sole support), as such it sits back further on the foot, breakover is bought back, making the horses gaits smoother, and more efficient, the pedal bone is supported – taking away any pain caused by previous lack of support.

But, don’t they both nail through the wall? 

Yes, both shoes do. However, its the size / design of the shoe that denotes distribution of load, not where the shoe is nailed. The bigger the surface area of the shoe, the bigger the distribution of load.

How long have Cytek’s / Rim shoes been around? 

Now, this will shock you. Most people regard Cytek shoes as “new” technology. But its not. Rim shoes are the new technology.

A simple google search of “horse shoes” leads us here:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Horse_shoes_and_horse_shoeing:_their_origin,_history,_uses,_and_abuses/Chapter_IV

You don’t have to read the article if you don’t want to – just look at the pictures! Have a look at the size of those shoes! Look familiar?? Cytek’s are so old, they’re new again. Cytek’s, in one form or another, have been around since the earliest records of horse shoeing. Rim shoes exist as a cost cutting exercise – It cost far less both in man power and monetary terms to churn out rim shoes, than the comparative cytek’s. Take a look at the first two images on this post. Which do you think is harder to produce? Which has the more metal?  How many horses shod in the days of the above article experienced laminitis? Navicular, ringbone? This very concept is a separate blogpost all of its own!

For now – if you know someone who would benefit from this article – send it on

Interesting reading wouldn’t you agree?

Don’t you agree – Length Creates Leverage?

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Toe length…

Thoroughbred with long toes. There is no doubt this horse would have some degree of lameness, probably forges. Note the crack in the hoof, caused by long toes.

Probably the singularly most overlooked cause of hoof problems in the equine world. And ironically, the absolute most important factor. If horses had correct toe length, there is no doubt in my mind that 95% the lameness issues the average horse owner dealt with – wouldn’t exist.

Lets have a look:

  • Toe Cracks
  • Wall Cracks
  • Forging
  • Stumbling
  • Chronic Lameness

And these are just the manifestations of long toes in the FOOT! You then have to deal with the manifestations within the body / mind

  • No topline
  • Grumpy / Aggressive horse
  • Constant back soreness or “saddlefit issues”
  • Horse that rushes on trails

So lets talk about these issues, how and why they are cause & effect of long toes:

Toe Cracks

You’ve probably been told that toe cracks are due to the fact that your horse has “bad feet” or “bad breeding”, some farriers might have even told you its because of your horses breed: “Its a thoroughbred, not much you can do really”.

But that’s not really true. Toe Cracks are the consequence of incorrect shoeing / trimming. Try this experiment: Using the longest fingernail you have, flick it repeatedly over the edge of a benchtop or similar flat object with a sharp edge. Do this for 30 seconds. How long do you think it will take before you fingernail starts to tear, chip and bleed.

What you are experiencing is a “lever moment” (as the engineers among us would say), Where the effect at the attachment point is magnified incredibly, due to the distance from attachment point to the application of the force.

In English, this means, the longer the toe, the worse the “reaction” at the attachment point.. the attachment point being – the hoof wall. The hoof wall, is the weakest attatchement point, and WILL CRACK because of the leverage caused by long toes.

Forging

Or the action of the horses back foot interfering with the front – usually meaning the horse clips the heels of his front feet, with his back feet – again – due to the fact that the horses feet are too long. Do you remember when you were young, at the beach, or the pool, running in flippers? Or, trying to run in flippers. Never a very successful exercise was it..

Forging is no different – the horses natural action is being interfered with by its long toes. These horses are labelled lazy, or clumsy – but they aren’t – they are trying to walk with toes that interfere with their natural movement, this of course, leads us to..

Stumbling:

A horse who forges, or stumbles in a walk / trot etc, is often accused of being lazy or clumsy. Again, this is usually not the horses fault. Using the flipper analogy again, do you remember how hard it was to run in flippers? Why should it be any easier for your horse? Horses with long toes, run in flippers every day! This of course leads us to..

Chronic Lameness

And can you blame the horse? A horse with long toes is probably using muscles he never even knew existed, in order to “get over” his long toes. Horses that chonically pull up sore after a ride are not athleticising correctly, and the issue more often than not, starts in the foot, His natural action is exaggerated to compensate for the toes, he’s using way to many muscles to do the simplest of gaits, and expending way to much energy, of course he is going to be sore.

So, then, lets take a look at the associated issues of excessive toe length in a horse: No topline, grumpy / aggressive horse / backsoreness / horse that rushes.

These can all be attributed to consequences of foot pain.

The horse that “braces” in order to cope with pain in his feet, will have back pain which most people mistake for saddlesoreness. Its usually due to the feet. A horse who braces against pain cannot develop topline, because he isn’t using his topline muscles! This creates a sore horse, who isn’t resting well of a night because he can’t achieve an optimum resting stance due to his long toes. The horse is now not sleeping well, and is beginning to associate riding or groundwork with pain in his feet – Of course he is going to be grumpy or saddle aggressive. Finally, you might even find your horse rushes out on the trails. Why? Because he’s not stupid. Firstly, the quicker he moves, the quicker he gets home and the pain stops. And secondly, the quicker he moves, the quicker the pain caused by excess leverage  acting at the hoof wall – is transferred from one foot to the other.

There is nothing on the bottom of a horses foot that wasn’t designed to bare weight

I’ll say it again.

There is nothing on the bottom of a horses foot, that isn’t designed to bare weight.

Was the hoof wall ever meant to take the full load of a 500kg horse at full speed? No.
Was the frog ever meant to take the full load of a 500kg horse at full speed? No.
What about the sole? No!

But were these three separate elements designed to  take the SHARED load of a 500kg horse at full speed? Absolutely!

The hoof “UNIT”, takes the reactive force of a horse moving at speed over ground, and shares it over the entire hoof mechanism. Read again “mechanism”. Each individual element acts together in order to disperse that massive load, evenly over the entire foot and up the leg, into the larger musculoskeletal system.

And what do we do?

We load the peripheral edge of the wall…. keep the toes long to tack a rim shoe on, which serves NO purpose but to weaken the integrity of the toe to laminae attachment, by forcing the full load a horse in movement, to be absorbed purely by the long toes!

If you take nothing else away from this blogpost, remember this one thing: Length creates leverage. This is a simply rule of statics / physics, which doesn’t change just because it involves horses.

Length creates leverage. The longer the toes, the more leverage.

Its as simple as that.

Welcome to Cytek Revolution

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Hi all,

This blog is the result of an idea I had the other night – After referring a few friends to Cytek shoes, and telling them to research them, I received comments stating that they actually couldn’t find anything positive on the internet about Cytek Shoes. Unless you went to the Cytek website, there was very very little positive media on Cytek (unless you knew where to look).

Quite frankly this annoys me, because it appears that people who only know half truths about the shoe, or have heard from someone, who heard from someone else, who knew of someone who once used the shoe, that they were evil, and completely unworkable – then get on the internet and factually inform others that the shoe is no good, going as far as to criticize and insult those of us who have actually gone out and given them a go. I hate that people who are trying to research the shoe, get turned off them, simply because the forums are filled with complete fiction.

The fact of the matter is – the Cytek shoeing system causes every farrier, every trimmer, every person who has ever confessed to being a professional hoof care provider, to question just what the hell it is they have been doing to horses feet for the last God knows how many years.

Not many people are prepared to sit there and admit “Gee, we could have been going about this the wrong way!”

How many horses suffering from Navicular, Ringbone, Laminitis, Wall cracks and Pedal bone rotations have you seen with heart bar shoes, and elaborate braces and putty or filler designed to pull the foot together? How many horses have you heard that have actually lost their lives because the owner has been told “there is nothing more you can do for this horse?”

The simple answer is – 99% of these horses died unnecessarily. There is a 100% garuanteed cure for every single one of the afflictions listed above.

And its this: Short toes and sole support. Get the toe off, support the foot, It doesn’t get easier than that. I will put money on the fact that most of a horses foot problems are due to long toes and an unbalanced trim.

My intention with this blog is to post success stories that I receive, with photos and in depth information – a positive and honest reflection of the Cytek Shoe and everything it has to offer.

If you are using the shoe, please send me your story. If you are considering using the shoe, then please stick around.