Chuck Potter

Founder and laminitis are among the most heartbreaking words a horse owner can hear. As the sensitive laminae fail and the coffin bone begins to rotate, a sound horse can be reduced to a painful, hesitant shuffle in a matter of days. The Hoof Cinch™, invented by farrier Chuck Potter, was built to answer that misery with something practical: a safe, affordable, effective brace that relieves the pain quickly and helps the hoof grow its way back to health.

What is The Hoof Cinch™ and how does it relieve founder?

The Hoof Cinch™ is a bracing device that mounts to the outside of the hoof capsule. As the horse bears weight, it reduces the stress carried by the compromised laminae by acting as a brace on the capsule itself—so the foot can take weight again without the same grinding pain. Because the coffin bone cannot simply be pushed back into place, the design works with the hoof rather than against it: it redirects the new growth of the hoof capsule back toward the coffin bone for a pain-free correction over the course of roughly 16 to 20 weeks. The relief, owners report, often comes far sooner than the correction—many horses are visibly more comfortable shortly after application.

One of the reasons the system has caught on with farriers is that it is easy to apply, with no pain involved in the installation. The Hoof Cinch™ works with or without shoes and fits any hoof from a miniature pony to a draft horse, with sizing that runs from Mini/Pony through Standard to the Big Boy range. It is not, however, a stand-alone fix. The makers are emphatic that the underlying cause of the founder or laminitis must be identified and treated—blood work to screen for metabolic conditions is recommended, and severe cases may still need corrective shoeing, heel elevation, or to have the soles cleared of ground pressure. The right first move is simple: call your farrier and veterinarian immediately, and apply the Hoof Cinch™ promptly. Used alongside proper treatment of the cause, the company reports roughly a 95% success rate.

The Hoof Cinch™ is the work of Chuck Potter, a farrier who began developing the device in 2012 to solve the founder problem he kept meeting under horses' feet. He first tested the idea on a single miniature horse, saw promising results, and expanded the trial to sixty horses in all. Of the thirty foundered horses in that group, twenty-nine recovered fully, while sound horses wearing the devices showed no damage or lameness across the year of testing. Encouraged by the outcome, Potter patented the design and built a team to bring it to market alongside his wife, Krista Potter, and veterinarian Dr. Jan Doelle. A year later he added a companion product, The Lift, engineered to address navicular cases. Potter also tells the larger story in his book, Founder: Only a Pit Stop.

— Dr. Jan M. Doelle, DVM, Fountain City, WI

— Erik Schuberg, Farrier, Mackinac Island, MI

— Lisa Judd, Dakota, MN