Some friendships are based on words, on letters, on knowledge, on a turn of phrase, the choice of reading, the furious discussion over ideas or theories or ideals. Other friendships require different sustenance; the chance drinking partner, tuned into the familiar rhythm of the regulars in the bar, the life-strong friendship forged on the end of a rope, or from falling backwards over the side of a boat, bubbles racing the mess of flood tide, eyes wide, fingers round in a big OK, torch playing over the bottom of the alien underwater world.
There are intellectual sparring partners, action friends in constant motion, there are friendships forged through fire, ice, adversity, heartbreak. Our particular friendship has elements of all of these but was truly sealed in that visceral sweet spot between speakers, the booming bass reverberating through our ribs, at 120 beats per minute, arms in the air, smiling with strangers, in the happy clappy dance crazy warehouses of the 90s.
My favourite memory is the time I drove down South, to the crazy commuter town that lived for the wild, wild weekends. I pulled up outside your house and you grabbed me out of the car and tipped a glass of champagne straight down my throat. The quaint little house was already pounding, literally shaking with deep bass, you ran me a bath and washed my back, all the while administering the perfect cocktail of alcohol, nicotine and caffeine as we got dressed for the night. Standing in the queue for Clockwork Orange, surrounded by the beautiful people, I felt like a right Hicksville special. The bouncers were choosey but something about our motley crew must have shone with the devotion to dance and we were picked out and ushered through.
Then that moment, the best moment of the night, the moment I still crave in my dreams, when you step through the door and are stopped in your tracks by the wall of heat and light and music, pulsing so loud that it’s palpable. The flashing lights and the smiles and the shapes all coalesce into one enormous adrenaline rush as you step out onto the floor, morphing into the tribe, hips starting, feet sliding, smile growing, until you feel the beat in your heart and that little background buzz turns into a full on high, just endorphins and anticipation, and your hands go up for sheer joy.
You danced on the podium and the dragon on your back, the amazing dragon, based on the line drawings from the Hobbit, the beautiful greys and blacks and blues, danced with the sway of your hips. There was our motley crowd, the gambler, the gardener, the geek, open-mouthed, eyes wide, arms waving, following the dragon, they were our tribe, our family, and our soul mates. House music took us around the country; Clockwork at theCross, the Honeycomb, Cream at Nation, Renaissance, the Hacienda, Heaven at the Arches, Sex at Garlands, but for me it was always back to Cream. Dance was our church, where we found redemption and release from the mundane confines of daily life, breaking out from the gilded cage.
I don’t go out dancing often any more, but there are other sorts of hedonism, many other ways of recapturing that bliss. The body is an instrument, use it every way you can, and when you tune it and play it and learn to exalt in it, life can no longer grind you down.
Rock dancing, the perfection of pulling through a move that looked implausible, as feet push and arms strain and tendons scream and all the while the heart is slow and the breathing centred, as you pull down and live again.
Snow dancing, putting down a perfect set of tracks in powder, knees popping, thighs burning, floating on the edge of control.
Cloud dancing, skipping along Crib Goch on an inverted winter’s day, the horseshoe spread before you, smoke from friends houses tangy in the air.
Or the nearest feeling, on those rare days when running is easy, when legs and heart and arms and lungs all pump in time, when the ground falls away and trees glide past, when effort becomes meditation and every fibre of your being resonates with your heartbeat, that is the closest feeling to dancing.
And in those moments of hedonistic bliss, I can still catch your eye, thousands of miles away across the world, I feel your smile as the tempo rises higher and we step it up a beat, and I am once again dancing with the dragon girl.
copyright Dec 2009
For Annie- I wrote this for you in my head yesterday, yomping over Elidir Fawr with the whole of Wales spread out beneath my feet….. I miss you sweetie!!!
Trust is a two way street. For trust to exist in a relationship it has to be felt both ways. ‘How does this relate to horses’ I hear you cry?
Simple really. We expect our horses to trust us, but do we trust them?
Those of you who have had the delightful pleasure of sharing a lesson with me and the Rockstar will know I have racked up quite a few air miles this summer. Highlights were winning the “most spectacular dismount” rosette at camp (there were 3 episodes that could have qualified), and a splat at the end of one of Neil’s bouncy grids- Rocky was getting more and more extravagant in an upward direction, and just minutes after me saying those immortal words ‘at least I’m still on’ his back end flicked up even higher as we turned and I wasn’t.
He had just dumped me again before this photo was. taken-
I’ve been resetting the counter on the 1st day of the month. It’s the only way to stay sane. And I’ve said out loud on several occasions that I’m not sure if I’ll ever ride him without a back protector.
Then something very peculiar happened. Over the last few weeks I’ve been hopping on Cal bareback to take the two of them down to the field. And after a few days I started getting this really strong urge to hop on Rocky instead of Cal.
Which I initially dismissed as madness and stupidity.
After all, I can barely steer this young horse in a bridle. I can’t remember May’s total of involuntary dismounts but there was a score, June was a 4 point month and July a 2 pointer.
But the urge kept occurring.
If we believe in the whoo whoo stuff, maybe it was Rocky himself putting the idea in my head.
August has not been a month of perfect behaviour. I’m still on 0 points but that’s more about luck than skill- I’ve had a couple of hilariously spicey in hand sessions.
So I have no idea why I got on the big baby warmblood, him in a head collar, me in Crocs with no hat (don’t judge me) and no body armour, to take him and Cal down to the field.
It took me about 3 goes to line them up to the mounting block and actually get on. Then there was some milling about in all 4 dimensions while I got them both pointing the same way in the yard. I’ve ridden Cal quite a bit in a head collar and done some neck reining stuff like Garrocha work- (note to self- too much even- that inadvertent indirect rein aid needs sorting) Rocky however had no idea as yet what a neck rein aid might be.
Once we were lined up it was a relatively straightforward exercise. They know the way, obviously.
There is something very special about riding your horse bareback. You are connected to the horse, muscle to muscle, back to back, in a way that you just can’t feel in a saddle. I giggled, and I praised him, and I found my inner child to jolly him along.
We got there, I slid off carefully because of the Irish safety boots and I thanked him properly, scratching his chin and looking him straight in the eye. And I felt something shift between us.
Me trusting him enough to get on in that playful kid like way has changed our relationship. And if it was him asking me to trust him and just get on, then that is the first loud and clear request that I have had from him, and I listened. And every creature loves a good listening to!!
I really hope that was his thought I heard because if so, it was delightfully clear- we always say ‘if only they could talk…’
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m sure the points tally will continue to rise. And I’m sure he will test me in ways Cal hasn’t even dreamed of. But he has taught me a very important lesson: that trust is a two way street. And if I want him to trust me; then in a partnership of equals, I have to offer him the same courtesy.
Cal has long known my every thought- however inconvenient a truth that may be.
You might not think of riding and training as a partnership of equals. That’s fine. In my humble opinion horses are the best mirror out there- what you receive is what you asked for. And what you offer will come back amplified a hundred times.
I’ve shared this picture before but it is my mantra for this year
Charlie Mackesey
and the wonderful Charlie Mackesey has got his book sorted – it is now available for pre Order on Amazon.
I’ll tack the link below when I am on my laptop rather than phone.
When I google “stuck in a training rut”, pages and pages of stuff comes up, mostly about running or weight training, or weight loss. This pre-occupation with fitness and appearance tells us more about the over-arching consumerism of the internet rather than the obsessions of the rest of non horsey humanity…. hopefully…
Getting stuck in a training rut is a phenomenon that happens in any past-time that requires discipline to develop skill. The easy gains are all found at the beginning of the journey, mastery comes from sustained application. And somewhere in that process of sustained application there will bad days, and weeks, and months. Bad because they are frustrating, bad because they are boring, bad because nothing seems to be getting any easier, bad because it seems unfair to do all the work and still not be quite where we want to be.
I’d like to reassure you ; everyone who ever got good at anything had a period where they felt like they were stuck in a training rut.
I’ve just moved my piano from one friend’s house to another (long story; pianos need a 5′ wall with no extremes of temperature). Once the removal men had gone, I sat down and had a little test. I can’t remember any of my party pieces now but I can remember all the scales and arpeggios (arpeggi to be absolutely correct) that made playing those pieces possible. I spent hours, on the piano and on the baroque recorder, practising scales and arpeggi, making sure the precise fingering was nailed, working on tone, fast, slow, even, syncopated, syncopated the other way….so that when the solo comes up in the concerto, the basics were there.
In sport it is the same. Athletes work daily on form, on flow, on strength and suppleness, on power and endurance, they don’t just practise their main event every day.
Self Discipline is the key when stuck in a training rut
Getting stuck in a training rut with horses is different, because there are two of you. First of all, let’s note that it is unlikely that the horse himself has any idea we are stuck in a rut, because they have no idea where they are meant to be going, or in fact, where they used to be.
The horse won’t say to you that their half pass felt more brilliant yesterday compared to today. They are however peerless at delivering instant feedback.
What you are receiving is exactly what you are aiding, to the best of the ability of that body, on that day.
A couple of ground rules here.
I do not believe that any horses are deliberately naughty.
They are reactive, in the moment.
They also have the capacity to associate, if not truly remember.
They can process experiences and learning. I believe we should appeal more to their intellect, rather than labelling them stupid.
They are communicating all the time, but mostly in a whisper.
And good therapeutic schooling work should effect a body change that feels good to them and which they then choose to repeat, having learned from the feel.
So your horse doesn’t know he’s stuck in a rut. Unless you start drilling a particular exercise, ignoring the feedback from his body and it stops feeling good for him. Unless you get cross and tense and start playing crazy pretzel demon on top of him to get results; then he feels anxious and his body stops feeling good.
When stuck in a training rut, do your best not to let your frustration transmit to your horse
Remember, the first aid is your mind.
When I got stuck on a scale or a sequence, I would mix it up. Play it backwards, play it really slowly, play it in opposite rhythms Dee da Dee da Dee da then da Dee da Dee da Dee.
We can do the same with our horses. Go back to walk. If it’s a trot exercise, how slow can you make the trot? The power comes from the slow stuff anyway. Is there another way in; counter bend on the other rein for example? Are you mixing up circles and squares and straight lines? Are you paying enough attention to the crucial details? Are you doing enough transitions? (no never none of us)
And most importantly, are you using your everyday vocabulary of training; your scales and arpeggios; every day, every gait, every bend, every length of rein, every length of stride. The emphasis might change but the basic ingredients need to be there every day. And I include jumping and galloping as gaits to be included regularly, and hacking out on uneven and challenging surfaces as part of that foundation for every length of stride.
So yes, go out on the farm ride, freshen yourselves up. Yes, go hacking and break up the arena routine. Definitely jump or do poles, if you can, incorporate them into the regular work. But when you school, remember that the precision of the ingredients is what leads to brilliance.
Bodies take time to build. No one learned to dance Swan Lake overnight, nor to play Rachmaninov on the piano, or even to run 100m in under 10 seconds. These things take targeted and dedicated practise. We need to be accurate to be efficient- practise alone doesn’t make perfect, Perfect practise makes perfect
But it is allowed to be fun too. And the most frustrating stage is usually just before the next big breakthrough.
When your normally quite careful horse finds his inner dragon- breakthroughs often come after plateaus or training ruts
So don’t be despondent when you get stuck in a training rut.
First, remember to giggle with your horse. They are always doing their best to do what you ask, so we must make sure we ask well.
Second, enlist the help of a friend. Go play out, jump some fences, book a trip to the gallops, borrow a garrocha pole. Try crossing the reins, or Fillis hold, or no reins at all…
I don’t know the lady pictured here but what a lovely piaffe- Goals!
Third, check your basics. Saddle, teeth, bodywork; are they all up to date? Have you done the human self care stuff too? Has your ownback man been recently? Do you need a trip out? Too often the horses get stellar care while we work all hours to provide it.
Four- revisit the basics. Work on your equitation. Work on your equitation some more.
Can you and your horse do a 20m circle in all gaits with even contact through both reins, even balance between the four feet, even bend from tail to poll, and a smooth transition at the exit point?
If your answer to that last question is yes then congratulations!! You have got stuck in a training rut at the most advanced level and you are invited to be my next guest blogger!
So there you have it. Training ruts are part of training process. The big lasting progress will come from daily attention to the discipline of detail. But your horse is mostly just a body…so have fun while you practise, dance, play, mess around. The arena is your dance floor, or your playground. The horses will always tell you what’s working for them.
Charlie kindly gave me permission to share his beautiful drawings from time to time; When I am stuck in a training rut, beauty is a source of inspiration
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I deserve to be….happy…fulfilled….loved….adored…treated with respect….fill in your own word in the space.
Or, as I was challenged to today, just look at those four little words on their own and say them out loud….
I deserve to be…
or simply
I deserve to be me
How does that make you feel? Can you honestly say you feel completely comfortable saying those words out loud?
I know I don’t always.
Do I deserve to be up on stage sharing my story with 1000 people at our company’s annual event? Why would they be interested in my story? There are so many in that room who are “better” at the business than me, further along, have bigger teams, have gathered more clients, are making more money, helping more people, why would they want to hear from me?
Yet that’s where I was today, up on stage, with new friends, sharing our stories. And from the kind and warm reception we got, and the number of folk who sought me out afterwards to have a chat and say thanks for sharing, I know that I helped them by sharing my story.
But do I believe that I deserve to be there? I’m still not sure…
Our wishes command our reality; it is up to us to ensure that we build our best possible dreams and not our worst nightmare.
I have only recently realised the importance of this simple statement.
Whatever you say to yourself will become the truth; whether you realise it or not.
That is simultaneously immensely exciting and immensely terrifying.
I was pondering away in the car on the way home. I have a half written book, partly in my head, partly on a lost pen drive (please bring that USB stick back to me somehow, universe), and partly re written on my laptop. I started the book in 2008: I had just written a 60,000 word thesis and so thought a book was about the same number of words but might be more fun, and possibly more lucrative. It’s a love story, based in the eccentric world of polo, drawn from the grooming jobs worked over university summer holidays, enjoying crazy ponies, fast cars, and furious fun.
I wrote the bulk of the book when I was on call at a small district general hospital- we did whole 3 day weekends but nothing ever happened. Being on call was a bit like I imagine prison: unlimited hot water, regular meals, satellite TV, a small square stuffy room and hours of inactivity. The devil makes work for idle hands…..I had a lovely pen pal who helped me while away the hours and encouraged me to write.
But in retrospect, the book was going to tell the classic lie we are all sold as girls…the tall, dark, powerful, handsome stranger is abrupt, unavailable and yet charismatic and alluring. It’s all drama and angst and passion and fury. Somehow he is won over, and despite his hardened exterior, turns out to have a heart that can be redeemed by the selfless love of the heroine. She blossoms, safe and cherished and protected and possessed.
It’s a bullshit ending, to a bullshit story. I didn’t finish writing the book but I did have a damned good go at living it.
To the casual observer, I had it all. A great career as a consultant surgeon, a gorgeous house in the country, a fast car, and a handsome husband with whom I shared my two main passions, climbing and horse riding. All my dreams had come true.
The white half of the semi was my dream home
Except it turns out that I was missing some key details from my dreams.
By the time I was aware of my surroundings as a child my parents were fighting, verbally and physically, quite bitterly. Soon after this my mother scooped me up and we left Germany to live in London. My father didn’t visit for months; I’m pretty sure she didn’t allow it. In the same way we instantly stopped talking German at home. I have struggled to learn German since, despite having a natural ear for every other language I have been exposed to, including the complexities of Hebrew. I’m sure there is a buried fear of speaking German left over from that transition time.
I somehow learned that I must cry for my father quietly and alone, because there would be reprisal rather than comfort. I went everywhere with my mother, out of necessity, but I learned to be quiet and well behaved, and to entertain myself. I learned to read almost as soon as I could talk, and books became my entertainment and my refuge.
As long as I had a book in my hand, I was entirely self reliant, self sufficient and utterly self contained.
My mother provided for my physical and educational needs; I never wanted for the basics- clothes, food or shelter, and was treated to the full Renaissance range of extra curricular activities, school sports, music lessons, judo, basketball, figure skating. I wasn’t allowed to watch seditious TV programmes like Grange Hill, go out to parties or to meet any boys.
I was never told I was loved, never told that I was precious. I don’t remember hugs or cuddles. When I achieved a grade, or passed a test, the focus was always on the missing points, not the success.
And there was a lot of anger under the surface, pure rage, simmering away.
Little wonder I left as soon as I could. I went to Israel and Australia for a gap year, working with polo ponies, and then to St Andrews for university. And did my best never to go ‘home’. As a junior doctor I worked every single Christmas, and partied wildly every New Year.
And I had a disastrous time with boys/men. I had no idea how to stand in my own power, build a relationship, no idea that love wasn’t actually meant to be transactional.
I didn’t love myself. No one had ever showed me what love looked like, so I couldn’t love myself either. I smoked from my teens all the way through to my 40s; every single cigarette I lit was a metaphorical middle finger to my mother’s ultra controlling sanctimony.
When you have no close family, your friends become your life support system. Medicine and especially surgery, is a tough life; it’s impossible to explain to those who aren’t living it how it feels when the ultimate responsibility weighs heavy. I do have fabulous friends; loyal, fierce and honest.
Now don’t get me wrong- I know I’m lucky. I’m slim, fit, strong, incredibly bright, I read about 300 words a minute, I have a great memory and can multi task like a fiend. I have a high threshold for pain, and fear, and like many cortisol babies, I thrive on adrenaline. I have good hand eye coordination and learn fine motor skills quickly.
I know all these things. But I know them as facts. They are not feelings. I don’t feel special. I don’t feel like I deserve to be loved.
The marriage didn’t stand a chance really. If I didn’t love myself, didn’t feel like I deserved to be loved, how could I accept love from anyone else? Let alone find anything remotely resembling healthy, nurturing love.
I picked the dark, handsome, brooding charismatic stranger. Like in the stupid fairytales.
Yes I picked him….based on all the wrong criteria but I picked him. That’s another piece of work.
I did what I thought was love- I made a home, I provided, I cooked and organised and made life run smoothly. I throw the most amazing parties (just take the most eclectic mix of people you can think of and add plenty of food and alcohol). And we had lots of adventures, through climbing.
And I remained positive, upbeat, independent and self sufficient emotionally, for a long time. Until I was nearly broken.
I didn’t feel the need to address my doubts and fears. Previously I had always dealt with them on my own, or with my friends. Dealt with or mostly buried, ignored, brushed aside. I actively avoided any self knowledge or contemplation. While my cousin was espousing the benefits of Vaipassana, I knew very clearly that I was not ready to tackle the contents of my head.
I did share them though. Share them!!! I wear them on my sleeve, even now, I’m sure. The predators who are tuned in to this stuff can spot the damaged human a mile off. And actively seek us out, the cortisol babies. Naively I didn’t realise that these wounds I hadn’t dealt with could be weaponised against me. But I was so very good at living a full and happy life as long as I didn’t look too deep under the surface.
Because I am so naturally positive, and a pathological people pleaser, it took me a long time to realise that my wide open world was gradually being curtailed. Once I got better and stronger at climbing, got up a few good hard routes, even some he hadn’t done, suddenly we stopped lead and trad climbing (my forte) and seemed to do a lot more bouldering (his speciality, my weakness). This did nothing for my confidence and fitness, and meant that when I did manage to persuade him to tie onto a rope for me to lead something, we then had a disastrous day. I tried climbing with other people, but then got shit for not spending time with him.
The Chere Couloir followed by the Vallee Blanche- my best ever days on the hill. He wasn’t there.
He learned to ride, team chased and loved farm rides, but once his foray into OTTTB rehab failed and he realised getting good at the foundational stuff really isn’t easy, he stopped helping and supporting me with my horses. I then had to do nearly all of the husbandry, organise all the management, and do most of the riding. If I was competing I went eventing on my own, which was actually much less stressful, but the amount of time horses require was all time that we were not spending together.
He was actually the one to sign us up to this fabulous network marketing business, but like other new hobbies, once the shine wore off, he stopped trying, and was pretty negative, to put me off and stop me succeeding at it.
I’m a completer-finisher, so I carried on, with the horses, and with the business.
I was never not ‘allowed’ to go out and have fun with the doctor crowd, or with other friends, but I got so much shit the next day that it became easier not to go. He wouldn’t come out with me, citing boredom with medic talk or girls chat, but would make sure that all the fun was sucked out of the event post haste. If we went away climbing for the weekend, he would chat to everyone else in the pub except me. Ignored, instead ofcherished, rejected instead of wanted.
I went on expedition to Mongolia as a medic, and was welcomed back with a cold shoulder and barely afforded any airtime in company when friends dared to ask about my amazing experiences upon my return.
And my response to this gradualdiminution was to try harder, to be the perfect wife, to selflessly predict and fulfil all his needs, because I thought I loved him and because that’s what girls should do. Even kick ass consultant surgeon girls with a high flying career and a punishing on call rota should still look after their house and their man. And because if I didn’t do it, it just didn’t occur.
It all started to take a toll. I was spinning plates, treading water, just about keeping it all together. I was barely coping. I didn’t notice I was unhappy. It takes a lot to wear me down. Work wasn’t as much fun, the immersive meditation of operating became stressful, competing the horses wasn’t as rewarding, I wasn’t pushing myself physically or mentally, I wasn’t stretching myself. I was constantly feeling a vague background fear!
Looking back now I cannot believe how close I was to crumbling.
It all sounds very indulgent. I know I lead a privileged life. I have worked really hard to create that life.
It’s really hard to put the feelings into words. It’s really hard to explain; the attrition was very subtle. I wasn’t physically abused. But neglect and emotional abuse cuts pretty deep too. I still don’t quite understand how I allowed it to happen for so long.
It’s like the volume of my song was being gradually turned down.
I wake up every day smiling. I smile as easily as I breathe, and you have to work quite hard to wipe that smile off my face. I love my work (mostly), and my dog, and my horses, and I absolutely loved where we lived. I had enough good stuff going on in my life to keep me happy, and I knew that no one else had the power to control my mood. Influence it strongly maybe; I am an empath it would seem, but I knew, even back then, that I could filter my thoughts and my reactions.
I can allow myself to be unhappy, fearful, anxious….but no one else can do that to me.
That’s a kind of power.
One day I had an epiphany. It was literally like a fluourescent light flicking on and illuminating the room. He kept pouring me wine while we had a “chat” about our relationship; which basically involved him talking. There never were any spaces for me to speak in. I had allowed him to completely silence my voice.
He looked me straight in the eyes to gauge my reaction and said that we should never have got married, that he didn’t love me anymore and that he wanted to be on his own.
The next day he denied that conversation had ever taken place, but I will never forget the look in his eyes. It was so cold. He knew exactly what he was saying. I realised in that moment that it wasn’t up to me to make him happy. No matter how hard I tried, him being happy was nothing to do with what I might do or not do. And I realised that no mater what I did, it would never be good enough. And that he would destroy me if I allowed him to.
I left two weeks later. Flitting with 3 horses, a dog and a cat to a secret location took a little work.
Now all I need to learn to do is recover. The further I get from the situation, the more clearly I see how close I came to a breakdown. I have been immeasurably better every day since I left. The lack wasn’t in me. Although I was complicit in allowing him to hold that power over me.
I am turning back into my old self, happy, self sufficient, shining bright. I have a lot of work to do to make sure the compulsion to repeat doesn’t get me again. I need to learn to truly believe in my selfworth, and to listen to myself closely enough to make sure I feed myself the good positive self talk.
And I finally just need to crack on and do the deep work to make sure that I love myself enough to make only good choices for myself. And then the next guy that I might fall for can be someone who loves me for the good strong bits, not a narc looking to take advantage of the old buried wounds.
But actually, mostly, what I need to do is learn to stand in my own power. The rest may or may not follow….
I deserve to be……me.
I deserve to be the best possible version of me.
And I deserve to spend the time to work on that best possible version of me, every day.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”
This article is the best other description I have found of my previous situations
Dedicated to all the Charles Angels- thank you for inspiring me.
June 2019
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The perfect barefoot trim is a bit like rocking horse pooh. The perfect barefoot trim is an elusive and illusory premise. There is a very good reason why Trim is part 4 of “Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot”.
I have previously described the 4 pillars of barefoot performance- they are Diet, Exercise, Environment and now finally I’m going to talk about Trim. The perfect barefoot trim.
Time for another disclaimer. I am not a trained hoof care professional. I am pretty handy with a rasp by necessity. I do trim my two working horses as required, and then get some muscle (sorry trimming expert) in to do a check up every few months.
Call landing confidently a good way round the 80 at Eland Lodge
Over the years I have been the responsible human for a few barefoot horses, doing all sorts of work, both in Europe and in Australia, some a long time before the barefoot movement was even a thing! And one of the more recent horses has turned out to be a very tricky barefooter- through whom I have met more hoofcare professionals than I ever thought possible!
When I look back over the years, I have always known horses that didn’t need shoes. And back in my youth, I don’t remember the horses that didn’t wear shoes needing a special trimmer.
But in my youth I’d never known so many horses shod back to back literally for years without a break. I’d never seen 3 year olds shod as soon as they started work. We had really fast polo ponies in Australia that didn’t wear shoes. And some really classy show jumpers. Looking back I don’t think I ever met a farrier in Australia, despite working as a full time groom for a year. My sister and her friends have trekked hundreds of miles around the forests of Germany in unshod horses. The Argie polo grooms, the Australian farmers and the German happy hackers all had rasps in their grooming kit to tidy up any cracks or splits in the hooves.
The reason I saved “Trim” until last is because if the Diet, Exercise and Environment are right, then radical trimming can become unnecessary. We can split hairs (or hooves) about the definition of a self trimming (or self maintaining) horse but life is pretty sweet when we achieve this; for the horse and the human
And if the diet or environment aren’t good enough, then specialist or remedial trimming may be necessary to compensate or alleviate pathology to some degree; for example, navicular can be really successfully rehabbed barefooot
but I’m still not sure whether this approach is feasible for the majority of horse owners. The tracks at Rockley Farm are pretty unique, as is the rough Exmoor grass in between.
Over recent years trying to get Cal’s feet right I have met trimmers trained under all umbrellas: the UKNHCP, the EPA, trimmers who trained with Jaime Jackson (Mr Paddock Paradise) himself, others who followed KC La Pierre, and a couple of farriers, including one who practises under ‘grandfather’ rights. I spent years looking for the magic solution, the one person who would be able to make Cal’s weird feet look like nice round hooves and function better.
They never look pretty, but they do now work
I drove myself, and many trimmers and hoof care professionals to distraction.
When I met Emma Bailey, I found someone I could have an ongoing conversation with. We tried every approach; super radical trims every 2-3 weeks, trying to model the hoof into a specific shape, we let the hoof wall get long to act like a natural version of rim shoes, we tried keeping the toes super short, controlling the flare, leaving the heels, balancing the heels, rasping the heels, taking down the bars, leaving the bars…..
Can I tell you a secret?
No matter what we did, the hoof always looked the same two weeks later….
Just like the horse grows enough foot to keep up with the wear created by work, the more you trim a hoof, the more exuberantly it grows!
The more you trim a particular flare, the more it responds, with more flare.
And you can’t force a pathological hoof to change to a healthy shape, until you remove the pathological stimulus. Sort the diet, correct the movement with training and bodywork, and then the foot will reflect the change inside and above.
Cal did grow better feet, eventually. Once I had the inflammatory conditions damped down with a diet that is starch and sugar free, organic, and varied with plentiful anti oxidants. Once I knew to avoid combination wormers, fertilised forage and processed food. Once I understood the importance of hind gut health, and the role of the biome in driving or controlling inflammation, his feet improved immensely.
Cal storming the XC st Eland Lodge
The perfect barefoot husbandry regime leaves your horse sound, functional, comfortable, balanced and landing heel first confidently on most terrain.
True rock crunchers are a joy to behold, but not all horses will get there whilst living in England’s pleasant pastures and mountains green, particularly now rye grass, fertilisers, and pesticides are so ubiquitous.
My long and painful journey to get Cal to a point where his hooves are functional is the whole purpose of this blog- I hope by sharing the knowledge I have acquired I can save some of you either time, tears or money.
This was a lightbulb photo – this is a not just a funny shape it a sub clinical laminitic hoof- curved hair line, subtle event rings.
So here are my hard won words of wisdom:
Hooves reflect what is going on in the physiology of the horse. If the horse is footsore, sensitive, tentative on challenging surfaces, there is an issue with the metabolism that has not been addressed. The short version is that there is inflammation somewhere in the body. The foot is quite possibly showing signs of sub clinical laminitis.
Laminitis is a systemic disease- the horse’s feet are the affected end organ, like a diabetic foot in humans. It is not cured by focusing on the foot.
The inflammation may require a holistic approach to damp it down. Putting shoes on a sore horse is like putting a sticking plaster on a pressure sore; it hides the wound but doesn’t address the problem.
Inflammation can be addressed from the hindgut first; the more I learn about the biome, the more convinced I am that the answers to many diseases, both horse and human, are to be found in the micro-biome.
Once the horse is healthy, GUT first remember, and there is no inflammation, then the feet reflect the biomechanics of the horse. This can be improved, by careful attention and good, classical gymnastic training.
In the meantime you can trim those flares as much as you need to but until the loading pattern from above is altered, the wear pattern will persist and the flares will keep coming back. This stage is a bit chicken and egg; you may need to keep the flares under control to allow correct loading of the limb while the horse develops and changes.
So to summarise: trim, as much as you need to, and as little as you can get away with. Take frequent photos and video. And if the feet aren’t performing, don’t just keep blaming the trim, sort out the rest of the horse first. SERIOUSLY. That particular nugget of truth has taken me 6 years to understand, accept, and completely internalise as a guide to keeping my horse well. Save yourselves the pain and learn from my journey.
If you do shoe your horse, please be aware that you miss many of the early warning signs that he is only just coping with our even warmer, wet weather giving us increasingly more lethal green, lush, rich British pastures.
And give him a shoeing break- this photo is the most scary I have ever seen
This is a diagram from a book by Bracy Clark (1771-1860), an English Veterinary surgeon, who specialised in the hoof and wrote extensively about the harm caused by shoeing
There is no perfect barefoot trim. But once the Diet, Exercise and Environment are in balance, then the hoof will be healthy and we should be able to trim as little as possible and as rarely as required.
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Of course the environment matters for keeping the ridden horse barefoot successfully. By environment, I mean all the places your horse works plays and relaxes in.
Ask yourself- Where does he spend most of his hours? And how helpful is that particular environment for building high performance barefoot hooves?
How many hours does he spend in a stable? That’s x number of hours he’s not moving. It’s also x number of hours that’s he’s standing in/on bedding mixed with urine and faeces. And what is he eating while he’s standing there?
If your horses are the fortunate ones that get plenty of turnout, how many hours is that? What sort of surface are they turned out on? What are they eating while turned out? Are they on a track system or in a small individual paddock square? How many miles do they move while turned out? How far do they have to move for their food and water? And all that is before we consider whether their social and behavioural needs are met.
We know that the horses with healthiest barefoot hooves are found in the feral horse populations.
#friendsforagefreedom – the Carneddau ponies have the perfect life
In our part of the UK our nearest feral population are the Carneddau ponies of North Wales. This ancient herd of ponies are truly wild, and have frequented this mountain range in Snowdonia for thousands of years. Their numbers are controlled but other than that they are not managed in any way.
Photo by Hannah_morrellt find her on Instagram
A recent segment in a wildlife programme featured a stallion in his prime chasing off a usurper- both ponies cantering effortlessly over the rough stony ground. The Mongolian ponies had similar skills.
Photo by Nasta, zoologist on our SES expedition to Mongolia July 2018
Could you canter over rough ground in your bare feet without any training or conditioning? I know I couldn’t: not straight away. I do spend a lot of my time barefoot, and when I was travelling through Israel and Australia and shoes were mostly optional, I could run miles barefoot on packed dirt and tarmac. But it did take some time to toughen feet up, human and horse. And these days they are soft and ouchy again LOL.
If your horse spends most of his time standing in a field of soft mud or working in a soft arena, of course he don’t be able to march briskly down a stony track. Just like muscles, bones and tendons, feet need conditioning.
A good diet sets the barefoot horse up for success (see part 1), while the miles will build and shape the feet (see part 2) but at the end of the day the feet will perform best on the surface to which they have become most accustomed.
If you want your horse to be rock crunching, then he will have to crunch some rocks!! He can be exposed to gravelly then rocky surfaces, bit by bit, building tough feet incrementally.
Photo Jason Davies
So yes of course the environment matters. Track systems in summer are great because they encourage movement, limit grass intake and tend to pack down into hard dirt. You can enrich sections; with pea gravel or hard core, best done on the horses’ route to a favourite spot so they traverse the surface regularly.
Google earth snap of the first Nelipot track
Be realistic out hacking. Build up the exposure to challenging surfaces gradually, initially at slow speeds, possibly hop off for a challenging section. Let the horse pick his way, slowly if required. One of the major benefits of keeping your ridden horse barefoot is the increase in proprioception and the way that allows him to choose his balance over challenging terrain and protect his joints- give him the time to learn the skills.
if you only ever work on a beautiful level surface, be that grass, dirt or arena footing, how will your horse learn to dodge tree roots, deal with camber or adapt to undulating terrain? It’s like the difference between road running and cross country running- in human terms it’s a different sport!
Hannah_morrellt
So of course the environment matters for keeping the ridden horse barefoot. It matters for both physical and mental health.
The way we keep horses is profoundly unnatural, even when we are doing our best by them. Low level stress and gut dysfunction are often contributors to poor hoof performance- as well as the physical, you could think of the hooves as the most sensitive barometer of your horses mental and psychological health.
So does the environment your keep your horse in meet all his needs? And I don’t mean shelter feeds and water here- that’s the minimum to keep the RSPCA away; I mean his species specific needs for mental and psychological health. Is he living a full and satisfying life in horse terms?
Another by Hannah_morrellt
#friendsforagefreedom
Or is he being kept alive and functional purely for human use?
That’s a whole new dilemma!
My name is Fran McNicol and I am an amateur equestrienne living in Cheshire, UK. I am a doctor, specialising in colorectal surgery, and my MD research thesis was on inflammation and sepsis. Through my day job, I understand and fix the human digestive system, and I know a huge amount about inflammation and the human animal, but the most useful thing about becoming a “Doctor Doctor Miss Miss” (MBChB, MD, MRCS, FRCS) is that I have learned how to read other people’s research, evaluate the evidence and then critically test apparently good theory on my own horses. My writing is therefore my opinion, and current state of learning, from 25 years of full-time doctoring, a few years working as a polo groom around the world and many years of keeping my own horses. I love training young horses, and focus on riding the sport horse both classically and holistically. I compete regularly in all disciplines at our local riding club especially one day eventing. I started blogging as a way to share the experience gained from taking a selection of horses barefoot and working towards the dream barefoot property. I blog regularly at www.nelipotcottage.com
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And in order for us to achieve immaculate equitation, sitting pretty is much easier when the saddle fits, both the horse and the rider.
I used to really hate saddle shopping. I reckon every ridden horse in the UK must have at least 3 saddles to their name, gathering dust in tack rooms or circulating endlessly through the second hand tack forums. Paddy was a nightmare to fit, with his razor-like withers and a wither pocket that never filled out, even once I understood the difference between constructive saddle fitting and more conventional saddle fitting.
You need to find a saddler who not only checks on the difference between fitting the standing horse and the horse in motion, but also understands the importance of allowing room for the horse that you are building up with correct work, not the horse you currently have.
Essentially, constructive saddle fitting is fitting a saddle to the dynamic shape of a horse’s back in a way that allows the muscles to inflate and therefore develop i.e. get bigger as the good gymnastic work progresses. Horse should develop fabulous top-line all the way from tail to poll, and young horses will get both taller and quite a lot wider with good work. The constructively fitted saddle will allow this incremental change, and ideally be adjustable as the tiny increments build into multiple inches.
Conventional saddle fitting is based on a template of the horse’s back in a static position; a saddle fitted snugly to this static shape will not necessarily allow lift through the shoulder sling or expansion of the trapezius and splenius muscles.
Then the saddle has to fit the rider. I have a very long thigh bone. I also have very stiff hip flexors. This combination puts me at a disadvantage in most dressage saddles; the blocks force my legs back beyond the flexibility my hip sockets will allow and I compensate by arching my back. Once my back is arched, the horse mirrors this and hollows himself too. I could lengthen my stirrups, to get my knees behind the blocks, but then I lose the elasticity in my knee and ankle joints which are part of the spring mechanism required to absorb the horse’s movement, and even more importantly, the proprioception that helps me find my balance to the ground.
Then I bought a baby warmblood, with huge movement and enormous mobile shoulders, who seemed to change shape every week.
Rocky in a relatively good phase of growth
So we needed a saddle that fitted me i.e. allowed me to sit in a classically correct equitation position, whilst allowing the enormous shoulders to float freely…and ideally was fully adjustable for a growing horse.
I initially backed rode Rocky in a WOW saddle, which I loved but he didn’t seem to love the way it sat.
Then we tried an Ava Pro-Jump for Rocky’s first ‘own’ saddle. The stirrup bar placement is correct enough that even though it is a “jumping” saddle I am able to get my legs underneath me with postural integrity. It allows free movement of his enormous shoulders, and sits stable enough on his back to cope with baby horse shenanigans. It has velcro knee blocks for added adjustability. But the rails were quite narrow.
The Ava saddles are fully adjustable, with foam and air panels, and the option to adjust the tree if required. The gullets are wide, and the panels have a large load bearing surface area, for maximum horse comfort. Their fitting approach is more constructive than conventional, and she will always fit and balance the saddle to the moving horse.
We’ve had great fun fitting Rocky. We have had to laugh and shrug a lot. He was very slowly started as a big gangly youngster, and his behaviour could be a bit feral. Horses never stick to a human timetable. At the time of the first fitting, just 4 years old, he wasn’t yet cantering willingly on the lunge or under saddle.
Rocky at his first saddle fitting. Claire’s photos are not good for sales adverts LOL
By the time the saddle I had ordered was made and ready he was trotting under saddle and cantering on the lunge, so we did get a bit of a better idea. But then by the time his 2 month check was due he had become a little cold backed and was occasionally bucking when asked to go forward. It was a worrying time, but a huge bonus to be able to exclude the saddle from the list of possible causes- because we knew that it had been checked and adjusted and that it fitted beautifully.
A few months later Rocky was diagnosed with mild kissing spine disease
I treated him, on veterinary and physio advice, with injection, muscle relaxants, a few months rest and then in hand rehab. When the time came for Rocky to go off to be re-started (by Stuart Ross who specialises in pre race training of young thoroughbreds) Claire kindly stopped by and we checked the fit and balance, ready for him to go off to boarding school.
Rising trot can be a bit oomph-y
STOP PRESS- Rocky has now worked solo in the big spooky arena, and walked, trotted and cantered over a cross pole without misdemeanour. Those friends who know Rocky and have been following our journey will understand how truly momentous this news is. And how it suggests that his back is feeling fabulous, and that work is much more fun when the saddle fits.
Rocky concentrating very hard
Another saddler who fits beautifully is another Claire of Plateau Holistic Equine. She is the Northern UK fitter for Peter Horobin’s fabulous Stride Free saddles. When I first rode Cal in the SF his shoulders opened up and floated down the long side – he was definitely buying.
The SF tree is uniquely flexible to allow the horse shoulder freedom, the rails expand and the gullet is super wide and super soft .
The saddles are fully adjustable on site – as befits their Australian origin. Everything can de done in one visit Ruth no need to take the saddle away. Cleverly, the headplate jacks in or out and the flocking points are open to allow easy re- flocking or re balancing.
The SF Classique is a beautifully open headed dressage saddle with a flat seat and minimal blocks to allow horse and rider to move naturally. It’s beautiful to sit in and gorgeous to look at.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” Lao Tzu
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
This should be the anthem of all barefoot horses, because, in the absence of pathology and assuming the diet is sufficient, good strong hooves are grown in response to work.
In my previous blog posts I mention the four pillars of barefoot performance, namely Diet, Exercise, Environment and Trim. I wrote about diet previously Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot- the First Step;in this post I will address Exercise.
Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
It is important at this stage to differentiate between barefoot transition i.e. taking the shoes off, barefoot rehab i.e. taking the shoes off as a strategy to treat or compensate for pathology, and barefoot maintenance i.e. working a horse that either has never been shod or has been barefoot for so long that they are an established functional barefoot performance horse.
Strictly speaking even a barefoot transition will require some rehab philosophy- remember that steel horseshoes are inherently bad for hoof function.
This is a diagram from a book by Bracy Clark (1771-1860), an English Veterinary surgeon, who specialised in the hoof and wrote extensively about the harm caused by shoeing
Their needs will be broadly similar; a good diet, and as much work as they can tolerate, but how we embark on the journey of a thousand miles might differ slightly in each scenario.
How far do horses travel in a day?
Tracking studies have shown that, in the wild, horses will travel an average of 15-20 kilometres a day just going about their usual daily business, and will travel up to 55km over 12 hours to get to a watering hole in arid living conditions.
The average horse walks out at 6km/h, so daily that’s the equivalent of 2.5 hours of brisk walking as a baseline. Your average livery horse in its individual little square paddock with good grass on tap will not be walking that distance; even on an imaginative and well enhanced grass track system, I’m not sure they would need to go that far.
How far do horses travel when ridden? An hour’s work might include 20minutes of trot at 15km/h , maximum 10 minutes of controlled cantering and some walking; I would say a generous estimate of an hour’s work in the life of the average leisure horse is probably about 7 km, half the distance they would do in the wild on their own, and this level of work generally doesn’t occur every day.
Use your phone as tracker to see how far you really ride on a given day; I know I was disappointed LOL.
The best hooves are those that work the hardest. Hooves grow in response to stimulus, the more stimulus to grow, the more they will grow. Hooves grow in response to wear. A horse that does many miles of tarmac every week will have established a growth cycle sufficient to keep up with the wear; if the workload is suddenly reduced these horses are commonly reported to need trimming every few days until the hoof adapts to the reduced work load. The more work the horse does, the better the blood circulation around the foot, the quicker the hoof grows and the better the quality of both horn and sole.
Hence why so many top endurance horses do well barefoot- they do enough miles to grow good hooves and then get the double benefit of self maintaining hooves and reduced concussion on the joints due to the hydrostatic absorption system contained within the hoof itself.
It is important that we don’t force an uncomfortable horse to move; that is obviously counter productive. A sound horse freshly out of shoes should be able to move comfortably on a good artificial surface, soft turf and on super smooth tarmac. If they can’t do this then my experience suggests that there must be undetected pathology, either in the foot itself or higher up the leg. These horses might need investigating for sub-clinical laminitis or other problems.
Remember Ralitsa’s photo
Some surfaces are surprising; sand with variable hard chunks in it can be a very disconcerting surface; examples of this near us would be the red quarried sand walkways at Kelsall and the winter farm ride at Somerford; Cal hates both of these as they give unpredictably until the sole hits an unyielding stone. I always boot up for the winter farm ride now.Yet he will eat up the miles on grass, super smooth tarmac, and very fine crushed stone.
So initially we might have to find creative ways to get the miles in and the feet started on the journey of a thousand miles. Removing the weight of the rider is surprisingly effective in allowing the horse to work in comfort on a less than perfect surface. Groundwork is also an invaluable rehabilitation tool; long lining and working in hand allows us to observe and to influence how the horse uses his body.
When I transitioned Paddy, my first barefooter, we were on polo livery near Oulton Park. The roads in that area were that scary glass-like tarmac- there were routes with inclines that I actively avoided when he was shod- suddenly these routes were all open to us and turned out to be the perfect surface for barefoot hoof conditioning. The main canter track around the local common was sand, again a great surface to work on comfortably with the added advantage of exfoliation and thrush elimination. Within 3 months Paddy was not only sound on the easy surfaces but trotted without hesitation at full speed up the limestone hardcore driveway. And he was super fit.
If the horse really can’t move freely then foot protection should be considered.
Hoof boots have come on a huge amount over the last few years. When I transitioned Cal the only boots that fitted his enormous Irish feet were Old Macs- they were super tough and effective for allowing movement but also heavy and clumsy. They were great for general work but tended to fly off at canter and never felt like they fitted well enough for us to do any proper jumping in them. We then tried Cavallo Trek; much easier to get on and off but also tended to twist around at speed and didn’t feel secure enough for jumping.
Old style clumpy hoof boots were never very satisfactory
Then along came Scoots- these were a revelation. Cal is in the size 8, and they don’t quite go on his feet towards the end of a trim cycle, but once on they fit well enough to gallop and jump which means we can hack around the challenging stone tracks in the forest to get to all the good jumping logs and canter areas tucked away in the back corners. I don’t seem to have any photos of Cal in his Scoots- we must move too fast LOL. I found a good photo of someone else proving the point though.
Another way to increase movement is to make sure the horse does work without you. A track system in the field will increase the miles traveled compared to a square paddock, particularly if the water and the hay feeder are at opposite ends of the tracked area.
I’m not massively keen on horse walkers because we cannot influence how the horse moves; it is literally just about achieving forward motion for a set time. However my trimmer tells me about a set of horses she trims that go on the walker regularly; they have great hooves, suggesting that any movement is good for developing good strong feet, even if it is not done in best posture.
So to summarise, movement is key for healthy barefoot feet, as well as for healthy brains and bodies.
The journey of a thousand miles should take you to a set of super duper barefoot hooves, assuming 1) the diet is good enough for that horse and 2) there is no underlying pathology or metabolic challenge.
Achieve movement in as many different ways as possible; turnout, ridden work, ground work, in hand work, even the use of a horse walker; all these can all help you get to an adequate mileage.
Cal and Rocky at the top end of our grass track. I think it’s spring or early summer judging by the state of the grass; the track turned to bare sand by mid summer.
If hoof protection is required, then by all means use it to help you get the mileage up. By hoof protection I mean hoof boots and pads, Hoof Armour looks interesting, as do some of the clip on plastic shoes, but I do not include steel horse shoes in that category. Anything that impairs the natural physiological function of the hoof can not be called protective.
And please remember to have fun with your horses. The journey of a thousand miles is a long way, and a long time; best have some fun along the way.
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The first step to keeping your ridden horse barefoot, successfully, at a high level of performance, has nothing to do with taking the shoes off. If transitioning to barefoot from shoes, the first step is to clean up the diet. If your horse is not performing as well as he could barefoot, the first step should be to go back and examine the diet. Success in barefoot performance or barefoot rehabilitation is determined by four factors; Diet, Environment, Exercise and Trim. Those well meaning naysayers who fail at the barefoot experiment have invariably just taken the horse’s shoes off and expected instant success, without taking the first step and making husbandry and lifestyle changes.
Now please note, I have no formal nutritional qualifications. I am a human doctor, specialising in colorectal surgery, and my MD research thesis was on inflammation and sepsis. Through my day job, I understand and fix the human digestive system, and I know a huge amount about inflammation and the human animal, but the most useful thing about becoming a “Doctor Doctor Miss Miss” (MBChB, MD, MRCS, FRCS) is that I have learned how to read other people’s research, evaluate the evidence and then critically test apparently good theory on my own horses. What follows is therefore my opinion, and current learning, from 25 years of full-time human doctoring and professional polo grooming around the world as well as amateur horse keeping.
Forage Based Diet
The first step is that the horse’s diet should be mainly forage based. They are trickle feeders; in the wild they will browse, forage and graze for 16 hours a day. A forage base diet doesn’t mean they should be standing in a lush green paddock of rye grass, stuffing their faces, or being surrounded by free choice ad lib rye based hay.
Typical horse country in the USA- not a blade of green grass to be seen
Trickle feeding a forage based diet means they should have to work quite for their forage but it also that it should be available more or less non stop. Unless you are going to drive around the field all day with them dispensing wedges of different forage at regular intervals, this means for true species specific husbandry we have to get creative. Track systems encourage natural movement. But the grass on track systems tend to get stressed, so they must have free access to other stuff, hay or haylage, trees and natural hedgerows, with a variety of weeds, and herbs.
Our horses on the summer track system
Cal, my grey horse, has had breathing problems in the past, so I feed organic, late cut,meadow “Haylage” that is more like wrapped hay. It has to be organic, I found that out the hard way. Fertilised forage causes all sorts of strange toxic effects
When we first moved to our new field, we bought gorgeous looking meadow hay off the farmer next door. It smelt lovely, tested OK for sugar and starch, and was available in the right quantity at the right price. But the horses just didn’t look quite right on it. We switched to organic and they bloomed.
I also believe everything we should feed horses should be non GMO. Not because genetic modification doesn’t occur every time we breed an animal, or cultivate a plant, but because humans have mostly used GMO technology to increase plants’ resistance to chemicals so we can then use ever more toxic chemicals on the crop to increase yield. So organic, nitrate free, glyphosate free and GMO are unlikely to occur in the same space.
Round up is the commonest glyphosate:
“Glyphosate is an herbicide. It is applied to the leaves of plants to kill both broadleaf plants and grasses. The sodium salt form of glyphosate is used to regulate plant growth and ripen fruit. Glyphosate was first registered for use in the U.S. in 1974.”
Glyphosate is used as a desiccant; if it is applied to wheat just before harvest, the wheat dies by going to seed, thereby increasing the yield from the harvest.
Would you knowingly eat cereal that had been sprayed with poisonous weedkiller just before it was harvested? Would you like your horse to?
Speaking of Grass
The rest of the barefoot horse’s diet, once you get your forage right, is relatively easy. They shouldn’t need much else. If your forage is good quality and they have good varied grazing with access to a variety of herbs and weeds, they shouldn’t need much else.
I say that with my tongue in my cheek. Rewilding is a relatively new name for an ancient concept- living in harmony and balance with nature. The story of Knepp is the recent high profile example of this concept in action.
It took 3 years of hard work to get my supposedly horse friendly grass field in Cheshire up to a paltry 8 species per m2… more of that story in these two posts
Remember that our main crop is horses, not grass. If your field, like most of Cheshire, has only one or two plant species per m2, then you may need to supplement vitamins and minerals. The carrier feed for the supplement should be organic, non GMO, low sugar, and low starch. I would suggest feeding straights, then you know exactly what you are feeding. If you must feed processed feed in nice shiny bags, then be sure to avoid anything that contains oatmeal or wheatmeal (industrial floor sweepings), soya oil or meal, (the balance or omega 3,6,9 is completely wrong and actually predisposes to inflammation, and molasses flavouring.
Good brands of feed that I have used include Agrobs, St Hippolyt, Simple Systems.
Read your labels. And don’t believe marketing ploys like the Laminitis Trust badge or friendly sounding names like healthy hooves: read the labels again and do your own research.
Avoid overfeeding. Fat predisposes to insulin resistance, and also has a pro-inflammatory effect on the body. In humans, obesity is a strong independent predictor for cancer, diabetes and heart problems, because fat itself excretes damaging inflammatory signalling chemicals called cytokines.
Vitamins and Minerals
In terms of the mineral supplement content, magnesium oxide is really useful in the early transition days. Magnesium is deficient in most Western soils and diets. Horses and humans all very rarely test deficient in magnesium because levels are so tightly regulated in the blood and serum, but supplementing it has been shown anecdotally to have positive effects, for health and well being, as well as for barefoot transition. Magnesium also has an analgesic (painkilling) effect, helping horses to use their hooves better in the early stages.
as are copper and zinc, to balance out the iron in our soils. I feed a 25ml scoop of table salt every day, and more in summer if they are working hard. If you can buy sea salt by the 25kg bag that’s probably better for them, but I’ve chosen ease over quality here.
There are many good all round balancers on the market to ease transition. I would only go with a British barefoot brand; these people have done their homework, their horses have travelled the miles, and they have developed a product based on the needs of the barefoot equine that they have identified from their own experience. A barefoot horse will tell you categorically if the husbandry is good enough, by developing rock crunching high mileage hooves.
So there you have it; the first step to taking the ridden horse barefoot is to forensically examine and perhaps change what you feed. Good hard working feet rely on good clean healthy nutrition, and it’s important to set yourself up for success with this crucial first step.
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Every now and then I come across a new horsey friend who doesn’t know and understand why I am such a keen advocate for keeping ridden horses barefoot.
At these times, I find myself re-telling the story that has got me and my horses to this point, and I think I should do a blog summary of the advantages and pitfalls of keeping ridden horses barefoot.
The good
The best thing, and I mean simply the best thing, about keeping ridden horses barefoot, and eventing said barefoot horses, is never having to worry about studs ever again.
Not only do I eliminate hours of prep, cleaning out stud holes, tapping stud holes, packing stud holes, putting in studs, searching for studs in the long grass, chasing the foot around with the tap still in the hole and all the other nightmares associated with the logistics of studding a razzed up horse, I don’t have to worry about what size of stud to use, nor the possible damage done to foot and forelimb by the unnatural stress and shear force transmitted to the horse from a studded foot.
You know how footballers are always fracturing their tarsal bones? This is due to the foot gripping suddenly at speed and all that kinetic energy getting transmitted to the bones of the foot at an angle and intensity those bones are not meant to withstand. Horse’s feet are meant to flex, in order to absorb the concussion of landing, and are also designed to slide a little before gripping, to protect the bones of the foot and the more precious bones and ligaments above.
And without shoes and studs, I get the benefit of the horse’s own natural gripping mechanism. The horse’s hoof is beautifully designed to function on all surfaces when healthy. A concave sole with a pointed toe allows the foot to dig in for extra lift. The fully developed spongy frog provides grip, slows the sliding and acts as a cushion shock absorber, a bit like Nike Airs, that also helps to pump blood back up the limb. The bars and quarters act like the cleats in a pair of football boots.
Keeping ridden horses barefoot also ensures that they have the benefit of optimal proprioception when we humans are on board. Proprioception is ‘the perception of awareness of the position and movement of the body’, and a key component of the information required fir the horse, or any animal, is the ability to feel the ground beneath their feet. The ability to access and use that information to adjust to uneven or challenging terrain is an essential part of balance and of healthy movement. Our human shoes are mostly supple and flex with our feet; horseshoes generally are not. I often think be by shod must feel like being permanently stuck in winter mountaineering boots with crampons- these have a completely rigid sole that does not flex at all; can you imagine trying to walk any distance in your ski boots? You have to do the funky chicken in the joints above to make up for the fact the foot doesn’t flex as it was meant to.
And can you remember how cold your feet get in ski boots, or even in wellies, in winter? That feeling when your feet are like blocks of ice, solid lumps with no fine touch sensation and it’s difficult to wriggle your toes? And you feel like you are walking on chunks of solid flesh rather than a fully functioning foot? That feeling is caused by impaired circulation; in the cold the blood flow to our extremities is reduced to prevent us losing excessive heat from those areas. The foot goes numb, and is less functional.
Thermal imaging allows us to compare the temperature difference, and therefore blood flow, between a shod foot and a barefoot hoof.
Immobility leads to impaired circulation. When your feet are cold you wiggle your toes to get the blood going; likewise a functioning equid foot flexes and contracts as it contacts the ground, pushing the blood around the hoof and limb.
The horn is still a living substance, more solid than our foot but certainly not rigid as we are led to believe.
What do steel horseshoes do? The rigidity of the steel limits the natural flexion of the foot, converting a conformable, dynamic structure into a fixed, immobilised structure. The nails and the tightness of the shoe impair circulation; even if the shoes are beautifully fitted to the hoof on day one of the shoeing cycle, as the hoof grows, the shoe and the nails become restrictive. Just observe how much the hoof grows out of shoes during your winter shoeing break compare to how slowly it grows in between shoeing cycles.
The impaired circulation from restrictive shoeing mimics chilled toes; the horse therefore suffers from impaired proprioception, both from cold feet and from being deprived of crucial mechanical contact between the sole of the foot and the ground.
In a healthy foot, the frogs act as extra pumps, moving blood around the foot and back up the limb, and also acting as a hydrostatic shock absorption mechanism. A cadaver model has actually shown that a barefoot hoof absorbs nearly ALL the concussion created by landing the limb, and therefore very little force is transmitted further up the limb, minimising damage and wear on the rest of the joints.
Another interesting fact is that steel horseshoes vibrate at the exact same frequency that causes the industrial injury “vibration white finger” in humans. It’s a frequency that causes necrosis or tissue death. Not all shoes do this- Cytek and other plastic shoes don’t have this effect, nor do aluminium racing plates. But steel horseshoes do.
The Bad
What are the disadvantages of keeping ridden horses barefoot? The main problem that I have observed is that we get instant feedback about how fit, well and sound our horses are.
Photo courtesy of V&T equine services
The motto above may not be an easy motto to live by, but it is the truth. Keeping ridden horses barefoot gives us really accurate information about our horse’s fitness to work.
Lucinda Green tells a great story about a racing trainer friend who has recently started legging up his horses barefoot. He is noticing fewer early season injuries, and much better longevity from his charges. Why?
Because shoeing had previously allowed him to work the horses harder than their bones, joints and tendons were ready for. By building up the work barefoot, he could only increase the intensity of work at the rate the feet were conditioned for; which accurately reflected the conditioning of the limbs above.
When keeping the ridden horse barefoot, we also get instant feedback about our horse’s general health. Event lines in the horn of the hoof document times of metabolic challenge. You will see a line for each dose of wormer, each vaccination, every flush of grass. If you’ve moved yards, or if your horse has had an injury, or another reason for a period of stress, there will be a ripple visible.
Is the horse footy on stones? Mostly it will have had too much sugar in its diet, or have a pro- inflammatory process going on. I am now ashamed that it took me a good few years to twig that Cal’s funny feet were actually borderline laminitic.
Laminitis is a funny disease- it’s much more akin to diabetes, a disorder of sugar metabolism that affects the whole body, than a disease limited to the foot. The horse’s foot is the end organ most often damaged by the systemic disturbance, a bit like diabetic foot injuries in humans. Cal had terrible airway inflammation, low level laminitic feet, probable ulcers and some very peculiar skin lumps- all of these are manifestations of systemic inflammation. Once I listened to the story his feet were telling me I found the answer to all his ailments.
The solution- strictly organic, low sugar low starch diet with wrapped late cut meadow hay and Phytorigins amazing supplements for hindgut health, maximum anti oxidant support and optimal digestive efficiency.
the results speak for themselves
So the main disadvantage of keeping ridden horses barefoot is that you will inevitably become much more in tune with your horse’s body. Once you start listening and observing, I warn you now, not all the information is welcome. You may have to adjust your plans and ambitions to fit in with the horse’s schedule, their current capabilities. Your ego may have to step aside. You may have to train at their rate. You may have to learn new skills, such as a little light hoof trimming. You may have to become a feed geek, or a grass geek 😜, or get a whole degree’s worth of knowledge from bitter experience!!
I say it’s worth it.
The ugly
My friend the vet said to me many years ago – “you do see some really odd shaped feet on barefoot horses”
He said this as if it was a problem, as if the trimming was at fault, or those misshapen hooves were dangerous to the horse’s long- term soundness. He was almost offended by the lack of symmetry, and that someone could allow it to persist.
My current level of understanding is that feet reflect both what’s going on inside the horse and also above in the musculoskeletal system.
Nic of Rockley Farm wrote a brilliant blog back in 2013 about flares and deviation; it’s probably the single most useful blog post I have ever read
If the horse has funny looking feet, it’s likely because it needs funny looking feet, or because, at this moment, it can only grow funny looking feet. Fix the diet, treat the whole horse,allow and correct the movement, and beautiful feet will grow.
Simples
Nic writes from years of solid experience and is always a source of comfort and inspiration and power on badass barefoot days
Asking How? and Why? of any horse care professional is your right, and your duty as guardian of your horse.
if you are not yet ready to not shoe, do please burn this image on your brain. And give those feet a good long shoeing break every year, to keep the feet looking more like the healthy foot on the left of the picture than the right.
Educate yourself. Turn into a hoof geek. And a horse health geek. Ask questions. Be honest with yourself- what do you see when you look at your horse’s feet?
And remember- no foot no horse
A couple of book recommendations to get you started on your barefoot journey
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