White Line Disease

STEVE: White line disease is essentially, we’re not having a really good example of it here, but the white line is the area between the wall and the sole here, and usually you would see it right here. And it is usually in a freshly trimmed foot, it’s actually a white line. What happens is, is that typically a fungus will migrate up in between this area and go into the wall itself, and what we will see is, we will see a big hollow cavity up the wall itself, where you can actually see deterioration or separation of the wall here. You can actually see, probably a little bit better, this would be more indicative of the white line here. You’re not seeing it very good here, but here it is, right there.

What ends up happening is that this fungus will grow up in here and separate the actual lamina from the wall, from the dorsal lamina, and eventually, it creates a big hollow area in the wall itself, and it could create, obviously, quite a bit of soreness, loss of support of the wall, and eventually, contribute to potential lameness, and other difficulties, or deterioration of the wall itself. So what we tend to do is, we use things like Kerotex, things like this to go ahead and kill off the fungus and/or treat that by going in there and cauterizing it, and dissecting it out, and doing what they call a wall resection. With fairly high success, they work out fairly well. Where it grows out and it’s gone.

ALEX: Yeah, we’ve had more than a few on the racetrack, and it’s very manageable. I think, then, you work with a good blacksmith to cut that hoof wall away, it is manageable. I think it’s important to note if that horse is sound. If they’re not, then obviously you need to stop for a while to make sure their problem is corrected.