Laminitis (or, “founder”, as it is often called) is, justifiably, one of the most feared medical and lameness conditions of the horse. I’ve been thinking about it a lot mostly because I just started taking care of two horses with chronic laminitis, and I’m hoping that I can bring them some comfort, even if I can’t get them all the way back to normal (which isn’t likely). So, I thought I’d share some thoughts.
First, off, some word history. Laminitis has been recognized as a bad condition foir horses for a long, long time. Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” (in the Canterbury Tales, c. 1392 CE) describes a horse with founder. The word “founder” comes from Old French fondrer “collapse; submerge, sink, fall to the bottom” (the Modern French very is fondrier), which comes from the Latin word fundus (“bottom, foundation”). And, when you think about it, the word is pretty apt, because in the worst cases, the bone inside the hoof sinks – in the worst cases, it sinks all of the way out of the bottom of the hoof.
To continue this analogy, let’s say that you’re taking the paper off the peanut butter cup. If you just pull back an edge a little bit, you can put the paper back and nothing is really the worse for wear. Pull the paper off the cup and you’re not going to get the paper back on – it’s not going to go back to it’s packaged “normal.” The hoof is like that, too. A little bit of damage to the laminae may not be that big a deal – too much damage and you’re, well, sunk.

Laminitis poster boy
Another thing about laminitis – and this is really important – is that it’s not a single condition. Rather, laminitis is the end result of many different disease conditions of the horse, from diarrhea to PPID (Cushing’s disease), from shipping fever to uterine infections, to dietary causes, to intestinal disease, and on and on. Laminitis can result from a horse bearing too much weight on one leg (as happened in the case of the Thoroughbred race horse Barbaro), or from excessive trauma to the foot, as might occur if a horse were to go too hard and too long on ground that was too firm. The many unrelated causes can end up with a single effect: laminitis.
Because of there are so many causes, and because the presentation can be so variable (some peanut butter cups have had more paper pulled off than others, as it were), when it comes to treating the condition, it’s important to keep several things in mind.
ASIDE: One of my favorite sayings – and I have no idea where I heard it or who said it – is, “Experts don’t know either, but at a higher level.” Keep that in mind when it comes to treating laminitis.
That said, there are many different approaches to trying to help horses recover from laminitis, and it’s a good idea to know about many of them. Something that helps one horse may not help another – and some horses can’t be helped. CLICK HERE to learn more about rehabilitating a horse with laminitis.
Bottom line: If anyone tells you that they have THE cure for laminitis, feel comfortable about showing them THE door.

A wise man
3. Benjamin Franklin was right, and particularly so when it comes to laminitis. When it comes to laminitis, an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure. But even here, for example, in an older horse with PPID, even your best efforts aren’t going to be enough. CLICK HERE to learn more about preventing laminitis.
Fortunately, many cases of laminitis take care of themselves. Last time I checked, it was about 50% of the horses. That doesn’t mean that an individual horse has a 50% chance of recovery – it means that about 50% of the horses that get laminitis will get better on their own because their problem was not as serious as in some horses. Ponies seem to be particularly good at getting over the problem without a whole lot of help. Of course, when treatment is prescribed for a horse that’s going to get better anyway, the treatment usually gets the credit, which is why so many different approaches to the condition can claim, “Success!”
And keep some peanut butter cups around – they usually help with a lot of things.