Morrison “Roller Motion” Shoe
Series I Configuration with “Thin Plate”
The “Roller Motion” Shoe is a therapeutic design developed by Dr. Morrison of the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Scott Morrison finds this shoe versatile and beneficial in the treatment of some chronic forms of laminitis, heel pain, certain forms of navicular disease, rebalancing the adult club foot and improving sole depth. It is used to successfully rehabilitate many different conditions of the foot and to manage various diseases of the hoof in performance, pasture and breeding horses. The design of the shoe helps relieve stress on the hoof capsule and related suspensory structures.
The original shoe shape is wedged with the ground surface (shown on right) designed to provide a landing ramp at the heel, a weight bearing center section and a progressive ramp or break-over leading toward the toe.
Scott Morrison’s original design machined these shoes from a fixed plate dimension (~5/8 in. thick) and held the final heel and toe dimensions constant on all shoe sizes. The varying length for each size means that the wedge angle of the shoes is not constant and is more severe in the smaller sizes.
Sound Horse made the Morrison “Roller Motion” horseshoe available in 2004 in a Series I cuffed configuration (shown on left). Size 4-10 are stocked.
The “Roller Motion” horseshoe is machined from a 6061 aluminum alloy with a T-6 temper. This is hard temper and the thick, wedged heel branches (shown on right) combined with the strong alloy makes the cold-shaping process difficult.
Note: The traditional version (nail-on) of this shoe (not sold by Sound Horse) continues to be made by machining a full wedge profile from an aluminum alloy plate.
Sound Horse has modified the metal shoe used to build the “Roller Motion” shoe in our Series I cuffed configuration to reduce the cold-shaping problem while maintaining the wedged shoe performance characteristic and Morrison’s original ground surface design and overall dimensions.
We machined a 3/8 inch flat “Thin Plate” using the same 6061 aluminum alloy and can now generate the exact original wedge dimensions by adding urethane at the heel. The result is a Sound Horse Series I “Roller Motion” horseshoe that is:
- 15% lighter,
- Easier to cold shape
- Retains all dimensions and performance features designed into the original shoe.
