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.
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.
Tracker study of feral horses in Australia
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.
Click here to see endurance horse photo
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.
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.
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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Article also available as a podcast
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