Sizes and Shapes

Diverse Shapes and Sizes of Horseshoes: Finding the Perfect Fit for Your Horse

For functional hoof protection, precise fit is a crucial criterion. On this page, you will find all the information regarding the correct shape and size for your horse's hooves. Our horseshoes are sold individually, allowing you complete flexibility in the composition of your order.

Choosing the Right Shape

Duplo Horseshoes are not only available in numerous sizes but also in different shapes.

Take a look at the sole as a whole and decide whether it is rather round or oval. The oval models are mostly made for hind hooves; the round, STS and open-toed shoes generally fit the front hooves. As always, the exception prooves the rule.

What Makes the STS Shape Special?

Horseshoes with a slightly straightened toe area, our so-called Straight Toe Shoes (STS), enable you to place the horseshoe further backwards and thus to facilitate breakover. The decision to use an STS shoe is therefore based not only on the shape of the hoof, but also on the horse's individual gait mechanics.

If you choose an STS model with quarter clips, those are positioned further backwards compared to our regular round horseshoes.

Choosing the Right Shoe Size

The size of our composite or pure urethane horseshoes is always measured at their widest point. The smallest horseshoe is currently 50mm wide, the largest one is 198mm. The interval between sizes is 4mm (8mm from size 182mm on) — you will therefore find models of 110mm and 114mm but nothing in-between. If your horse needs an in-between size, you can easily adjust a slightly too large horseshoe with an angle grinder.

In order to determine the correct size for your horse, it should be unshoed. The hoof should be correctly trimmed so that a new horseshoe could be applied. If you measure an untrimmed or shoed hoof, you might not get the desirable exact results.

Use a measuring tape or a ruler to measure the widest point of the hoof's bottom surface which usually is to be found at a short distance behind the frog apex.

With these two results — the hoof width in millimeters and the hoof shape — you can choose your favorite model in your horse's size. For further information on the perfect fit of the horseshoe please have a look at FAQ → Instructions.

Our Templates

With our free templates, choosing a correctly sized horseshoe gets even easier.

There's one template for round horseshoes, one template for oval horseshoes and one template for STS horseshoes available. Every template consists of two pages in an A4 format that you can print and glue together. You can use the template in various ways:

• You place the hoof on an empty sheet of paper and trace the hoof shape. Then you cut the shape out and place it on the printed template.
• You can place the printed template directly on the hoof (or place hoof on the template) and trace the hoof shape.
• You can glue the printed template on a cardboard to make it more solid, and then trace the hoof shape.
• You can print the template more than once and cut out the sizes that probably come into consideration. Then, you place the cut-out shapes directly on the hoof. This is the most time-consuming option, but probably also the most reliable one.

Please note: The templates fit our models with quarter clips. The shape of the un-clipped horseshoes varies minimally; however, you can also use the templates for these horseshoes.

Please use the small scale on the templates in order to check your printer settings.