Tag: cross country

Of Course the Environment Matters- keeping the ridden horse barefoot

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!

img_2242
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

Like what you’ve read?

Nelipot Cottage is a Pay as you Feel Endeavour- if you have enjoyed reading this article and/or found it useful then please consider making a small donation towards ad-free hosting costs. Thank you

£1.50

 

Naming your horse

Naming your horse can be a real challenge. Choosing passport names can be great fun, but I’m starting to wonder if naming a horse is a prophetic process or even if they help you find the perfect name?

Paddy arrived with a stable name but no passport. He needed a good name for Eventing so after much deliberation I called him Wise Words.

This name did turn out to be prophetic- Paddy taught me lots, over the years. His most important lesson was to teach me to listen to horses.

I’ll never forget the relief in his whole demeanour when we took his shoes off for the last time. Suddenly the trimmer was his favourite person, whereas the Farriers had always been the enemy.

And his jumping improved no end once he could feel his feet and adjust himself.

He always had an opinion though, especially about ditches. Classic quote from the commentary box- Fran McNicol getting some wise words from her horse at the ditch.

His last event was the unaffiliated 3 day at Longleat- some clown had put decorative little wooden lizards and alligators in the ditch. I’ll never forget him back-paddling in mid air over the part A skinny like a cartoon character when he spotted those.

He was the greatest on his good days though – I have some wonderful memories when our wise words were in tune 😀

Cal arrived with a green passport, a microchip and no name. He was bought to be the fabulous cross county horse so I named him Cloud Warrior.

Surprisingly he’s turned out to be a bit of a dressage diva, who offered Pesade very early on. I wonder if I might have a secret Airs horse in the making- I need another few years for that Naming to come true.

He also loves posing

In the meantime at Shelford this year we had an average dressage, a surprise stop in the show jumping but he was storming around the cross country, with speeding penalties, when the commentator struck again. “Cloud Warrior- this horse is very well named, not had the best day in the other phases but he’s storming across the country. Good name for a good cross country horse!”

Rocky’s real name is Royal Magic.

I have no idea yet how that name will come to be true!!

Do you have any funny stories to tell about naming your horse?

How much grass do horses need?

How much grass do horses need?

As some of you may know, I have just come back from Mongolia, the original land of the horse. I was fortunate to be part of a scientific expedition to a mountainous region in the West of Outer Mongolia.

You can read the official trip report here

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/the-mongolian-baatar-expedition-2018/

Horses were our main form of transport, and our expedition team included a zoologist, a botanist, and an archeologist as well as the herdsman and grooms who looked after us and our trusty steeds. Amongst other lessons, this was a unique opportunity to learn about the incredibly bio-diverse plants of Mongolia, in the context of fodder for the sturdy little mountain horses.

How much grass do horses need?

When you look out across the steppes, mountains and plains of Western Mongolia, it all looks really green.

However, when you get closer to the green, it’s actually sandy, rocky, shaley soil, with a patchy smattering of plants; mostly succulents. This part of the country is really arid, with very little ground moisture, so succulents and hardy herbs and weeds do best. The plants were often tiny, yet with really complex, swollen, almost tuber-like root systems.

Trees were a rarity, growing only by oases or rivers.  Winter had been late this year, so the flowers weren’t really out when we arrived, but did start to appear later in the trip when there had been some rain. We flew into and out of Khovd, the small domestic airport that serves Western Mongolia, and we could see a definite difference in the green cover between arriving and leaving, 2 weeks apart.

There are over 3,000 plant species described in Mongolia, with over 975 having a use in traditional medicine. On the lower slopes of the Altai mountains, our botanist told we should expect to find 14-18 different species of plant within a metre square. None of these would be species that you and I would recognise as grass. There were lots of varieties from the pea family, a Mongolian thistle, Mongolian chives (delicious as a snack when travelling),  bellflowers, Iris, Ephedra, and Artemesia or wormseed. My olfactory memory of our trip will be a perfume made up of Artemesia, DEET, leather and horse sweat- a heady combination indeed!

The horses were tough little buggers; approximately 13-14hh. They were all barefoot, obviously. None of the horses are trained to pick their feet up and none of the herdsman owned a rasp, so they are all self trimming. Feet varied in shape; although the majority were very similar to the mustang hoof we see in the Pete Ramey and Jaime Jackson books, there were some with flares, and slightly longer toes. The feet were all incredibly tough, and highly functional.

We travelled across boulder fields, up and down stony mountain tracks, across steep scree slopes, as well as across the green(ish) foothills and the more gravelly steppes, and the little horses picked their way confidently over all terrain, for 20-30 kms a day, and were still keen to charge into camp at the end of the day.

We gave them a day off after a few tough days, and then an easy day on the last day which the herdsman must have cursed us for, as it took them two hours to round them all up for their night-time trip back over the hills for their next clients. Even in hobbles, some of them could move pretty fast!

They were lean, but very fit. During the day, they got a snack at lunchtime, grazing around in hobbles while we ate our little picnic boxes of pasta or cracked wheat with chewy beef, and they were sure to drink copiously from every stream we crossed.

At night, the bits were slipped from their mouths,  although the rawhide bridles were left on, and they were hobbled and turned loose around the campsite. In the morning the herdsman would jump on the nearest horse and go and round up the others, ready for action.

How much grass do horses need?

Not much, apparently, in the high mountain country. The herdsman and the botanist knew which plants contained the minerals and vitamins the animals needed for good health, and the horses self selected at every opportunity. At stream crossings, while waiting their turn, they took the chance to grab mouthfuls of more lush reeds and grasses. If we stopped to take photographs of a new variety of herb or plant, the horses also checked out what we had found and had a quick munch.

In Hustain, back in the East and South of Ulan Bataar, there is a reserve where the Przewalski horses thrive in the wild. Here, at lower altitudes, the plains were greener and lusher, but we still counted 18-25 species within a square metre, and over 90 varieties of plant just in the small valley where our campsite was situated. There were more grasses here, as well as numerous wildflowers and herbs.

The Takhi, or Przewalski, were very plump, but they get a very short summer and a long harsh winter, so presumably were layering up fat for the cold, None of them seemed to have pathological or sore feet.

Back home.. I looked at a few scattered metre squares in our field. I got up to 9 species of plant in the best one, and have about 20 species of plants altogether if I count the hedgerows and the low hanging tree branches. We have this little lovely- Prunella Vulgaris or Selfheal. What a useful weed! 😍

Below is a bouquet of grass flowers from our re-wilding area,

https://www.nelipotcottage.com/grow-your-own/

over-seeded with gifts from a friend, who inadvertently bought one of the last remaining areas of Upland Hay Meadow in the UK with his retirement cottage.

So how much grass do horses need? The answer seems to be, not much grass at all actually. As long as they have access to a wide variety of plants including grasses, herbs, weeds and trees they should be able to meet all their nutritional needs. The key to whole horse health is surely preserving the biodiversity of the fields they graze in, and also their own hindgut micro-biome?

The Mongolian horses were very skilled at self selection.

In human nutrition, we know that almost everything in moderation is good, while anything to excess can be bad, even celery!

Why would horses be any different?

We “know” that bracken is poisonous to horses. But bracken contains an insulin like compound. Eaten to excess (12kg, the research says) then yes, too much insulin like compound would be toxic. But in Spring, when the lush grass comes through, a little bit of bracken can help the horse cope with the sugar- rich grass flush and protect them against laminitis.

Likewise, oak trees are supposedly poisonous to horses. But oaks contain tannins, which have an anti – helminthic effect. Our horses choose to browse the low hanging oak branches in the field, and love to drink out of the tea- coloured stream that runs through the peat bog in the forest. Are they doing their own worm control regime?

Or even better, their own pro-biotic? I’m now buying EM1- Effective Micro-organisms, a suspended culture of live bacteria for hind gut health. Drinking from a muddy puddle may well provide the same bacteria, in a handy suspension, at no cost?

Maybe, when horses gorge on acorns, escape from fields or break into feed rooms, it’s because they don’t have sufficient to meet their needs? Was their paddock bare, had the haynet run out, or are they craving a vital nutrient that cannot be obtained from grass alone?

Our horses only break into the middle grass, off the track, if the Haylage feeders run dry and there isn’t enough on the track to interest them. Last Friday, the Haylage finished overnight but the hedgerow is chock full of fun stuff like blackberries and fresh hawthorn, and the track is now covered in tiny bits of green- they didn’t beak through the electric despite the battery being low.

So much grass do horses need?

I guess it all depends on the quality of your meadow-

Maybe a better question would be how many grasses do horses need?

Here’s a challenge– how about you go and measure a rough metre square in your grazing and count how many different species of plant grow there?

here are some links to other accounts of the trip

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeenshire/1538375/adventure-seeking-castle-keeper-takes-trip-of-a-lifetime-with-mongolian-horseback-expedition/

https://www.caymancompass.com/2018/08/12/cayman-resident-explores-the-steppes-of-mongolia/

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2018/08/18/rare-sights-for-mongolia-team-led-by-jersey-adventurer/

Winter is coming…

Winter is coming…whether we like it or not. For the traditional horse keepers amongst you, this means months of mucking out in the dark, clipping, changing sodden rugs, riding for fitness in the dark or paying for indoor arenas.

Winter is coming, and the winter preparation for track kept horses is slightly different. Our field is about 6 acres. We have a summer track around the edge, a hard standing area for giant hay feeders and the middle is split into 3 paddocks. This summer, one paddock has been grazed by Gary’s TB, who needed extra weight and needed to be segregated from the others because they bullied him horribly. It turns out he has had Kissing Spines, and now his back has been injected, and he is moving better, he is allowed into the herd; presumable he doesn’t look like the weakest link anymore. That’s another story for another day though.

Winter is coming, which means the grass will finally be safe for the grass sensitive Cal to eat without going footsore. The other two paddocks have been left long to act as standing hay for winter. Our grass doesn’t really turn onto foggage as our weather generally is not cold or dry enough, but we had great success last year introducing them to the long grass one paddock at a time, until they had access to the whole 6 acres for the worst part of winter. Allowing wider access reduced the footfall in any one area, and thereby reduced the mud damage. A couple of the gateway gaps were trashed by spring but they have recovered really well over the summer. And the gravelled feed area proved a life saver last year: the feeders were easy to fill, the horses didn’t get mud fever, their feet were brilliant from standing and loafing on pea gravel. I’ve made a road from haylage store to feed area from old stable mats, eventually this will be stoned too.

The horses made their own gateways last year. This year the electric tape is staying up and electrified for now, but if they start barging through willy-nilly again, it will get unstrung and put away for winter. I’m not sure how well the solar energiser will work over winter!

Winter is coming, and it’s a good time to take stock.

Gary and I have had the most excellent year. We have continued the brilliant monthly clinic lessons with Patrice- Cal is getting stronger and more established in his work, Rocky got through his teenage tantrums, although we had a bit of outside help with that, and Beat settled in lovely and will be the most fabulous event horse if his KS come right. Cal and I have been to 2 British Riding Club Championships, both team trips with friends from the Exceptionally Cool Riding Club. The East Clwyd Riding Club is most excellent, and has been rightly shortlisted for the NAF Riding Club of the Year Award- Please vote here

The Horse Trials Championships were obviously the most fun; bonus was we had a season best dressage and a lovely double clear.

Previously known as sicknote, Cal managed to remain sound for a whole summer. I got really brave and took him down to the Dovecote Stables for 2 ridden lessons with the legendary Charles de Kunffy. Now I will admit, in my dreams I wanted it to be a breakthrough clinic where we got to clean changes. However, Charles is a genius at getting to THE thing; and the breakthrough turned out to be that there is no point doing all the funky stuff until his body submission issues are completely sorted. Many people who know him think Cal is an angel; he’s not hot, he doesn’t dance or jig or bronc, but he does just do this tiny brace in his neck, and fractionally lock his jaw, and he doesn’t ever yield his brain. So the Charles lessons turned out to be all about ensuring we get a good topline, with a lifted back, swinging shoulders and a soft lumbar back. And that’s OK, because when I take that horse to the harder work, that works much better too! Except for trot/canter transitions…if Cal can’t brace we can’t yet do them on demand…..more practise.

We have done 6 ODEs, including an unaffiliated 90 at Eland. Not bad for a full time surgeon! And finally we finished our summer season with the FOTH qualifier at Berriewood- first out on course for individual 3rd and a team win. It was at 80 level again, rather than the planned 90, but this last month has been mad busy so I didn’t feel ready to step up.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, this was all done without shoes. With 24/7 turnout on a track system.

Cal Foth Berriewood 2017

Naughty turned out leg in the showjumping photo- much winter homework required!

Cal XC Berriewood Fotj 2017

Winter is coming, and the horses are getting furry. The working horses will get a shallow trace clip when they get really furry, just to enable us to ride them. I think the TB will need a rug, depending on how much coat he grows, but based on last year’s experience, the others won’t need a rug.

Winter is coming. I was musing the other day that we need to work out how much of what we traditionally do over winter is done for our human convenience, and how much is done for the horse’s benefit. Shoes exist for human convenience. Horses don’t need shoes, they need good feet. And good feet don’t come easily once they are brought into the sphere of human influence. Stables exist only for human convenience. Stables don’t make good feet. Clips are for humans really- people want to use their horses over winter and are taught they can’t do so unless the horse is clipped. Clips lead to rugs, and lead to stables being required. Horses can easily deal with temperatures from -5 to 25 degrees Celsius, if they have adequate forage, shelter and hair. As well as friends. Friends are crucial. When it rains, our horses huddle behind the hedge, or in the dip, taking it in turns to be on the outside. When it stops, they go for a mad 10 minutes play, get warmed up and then get back to eating. Forage ferments in the equine caecum, providing their own central heating system. They eat for about 16 hours a day, to trickle feed their caecum. Their fur can stand up, fluff out, the dense layers of unclipped fur resist rain beautifully and they are often completely dry underneath the herringbone pattern the rain forms in the long top hair. Mud is a great insulator, as is snow and ice if we get a proper cold spell. Our horses only really use the field shelters if it’s wet and windy, or nights like tonight, persistently wet with their full winter coat not quite through yet.

So our choice is to let them deal with winter as naturally as possible. We still ride regularly, with fluffy numnahs to prevent damp hair rubbing. We hack and school and jump and drag-hunt and do farm rides. I’m careful not to work them so hard that they overheat on warmer winter days. The horses cool themselves off perfectly mooching around the field after being worked. We feed ad lib unlimited haylage and grass, along with one hard feed a day. They have ample shelter and they have each other. And the natural lifestyle keeps them fit, in mind and body. It’s not always easy. It’s certainly not always convenient. But it is a valid choice, and our horses are the better for it.

And all we have to do is pooh pick and knock off the odd bit of mud.

Winter is coming. So what? Horses have been doing winter for millions of years, without us as well as with us. Here’s to winter training!

Barefoot Brain-ache

Barefoot brain-ache is an annoying condition, well-known to the owner of the barefoot horse. Barefoot brain-ache occurs when the answer to a supposedly simple question is no longer simple because certain dogmas are no longer taken as truth.

My barefoot brain-ache is caused, again, by the fact that Cal the gorgeous grey is completely stomping-around sound on a surface, on grass, and on smooth tarmac but not on stoney surfaces. In the last fourteen days he has stormed around the farm ride at Somerford, jumping everything, raced around the Stafford Horse Trials at 80(T) level, competed in the Delamere Forest XC jump training at 90cm, had a day of SJ and XC training organised by Equine Adventures at Somerford and done about 25 miles hacking around Delamere Forest.


Yet had you been there watching me walk him onto the truck for any of those days out you would have pulled him off the lorry and put him back in his stable (oops he doesn’t have one). Our Tarmac is quite rough from the paddock gate to the truck parking place and he tiptoes across it. The yard at Crossmere Livery where we had the SJ training is hard-core- he teetered into the arena and then jumped like a pro. The landings at Somerford XC are gravelled and prepared, none of those bother him but we have to walk down to the XC course on the grass verge because the hard-core track is too rough for him. Although to be fair he would walk on the stones now, but very slowly and carefully like an old man. His ears are still pricked, he doesn’t wear a pain face when he’s creeping down the gravel road, he just really takes his time and care. Then he steps onto the grass and sets off like a pocket rocket. He was jumping out of his skin the other day; so much so we are now on the waiting list for Skipton BE90.


So if any other barefooters out there have any tips or tricks to share, I would love to hear them.
Barefoot brain ache answers to date:

We are building a hard-core feed area in the field to counteract the winter mud; hopefully this will help to toughen up his feet and get him used to rougher surfaces.

These symptoms can reflect low-grade laminitis: the laminar connection at the coronary band and the top inch of hoof always looks good and tight but by the time the hoof wall hits the ground, the white line is a bit stretched and the toes are a bit like slippers. I can counteract the slipper tendency by light trimming with a radius rasp every couple of weeks, so his feet look very good most of the time now. I have tested for all forms of metabolic compromise, he has never been positive for insulin resistance, his ACTH was borderline for Cushing’s once but a trial of treatment with Agnus Castis,  Freestep Superfix and then Pergolide for 3 months didn’t make much difference so we have now stopped.

We changed the haylage to organic with a much better mineral analysis profile, as described in a previous post, and the foot sensitivity definitely improved but hasn’t vanished. Other parameters are vastly improved after the haylage change though; muscle tone, coat quality, general well-being.

His sole is thickening up nicely- he shed a load of sole at the end of winter but still has a good toe callous. He does have some minimal thrush around his frogs but nothing too horrible, and this goes altogether when the ground is dry.

So continues the barefoot brain ache: is Cal lame? What does lame mean?

Definition from Wikiepedia

“Lameness is an abnormal gait or stance of an animal that is the result of dysfunction of the locomotor system. In the horse, it is most commonly caused by pain, but can be due to neurologic or mechanical dysfunction.”

So he does have an abnormal gait that is likely caused by pain but this only occurs on a very specific surface and resolves immediately when the surface changes with no lasting effects. It can also be prevented by wearing boots.

When is a horse lame?

So to be lame, I would guess the change has to be persistent, occur on different surfaces, and I suppose on both reins because we all know now that uncorrected crookedness can look like lameness on one side on particular, and in fact used to be called “bridle lameness” before slow motion film made this dysfunction really obvious in Olympic dressage horses.

When Paddy and I were doing our tour of polo yards with Mel, one place we were at had an arena where they had simply scraped the grass off the top and left the soil as the surface. This “arena” grew stones every time they harrowed it. Now Paddy has always been a rock cruncher but if he stepped on a big rock whilst schooling he would hop off it and carry on. Our host, a vet and barefoot sceptic, used to say he was always lame…but the mis-step was a protective mechanism and only lasted for a stride; is that really lame or just sensible?

“A sound horse is a one who has no lameness or illness.”

So a rock crunching barefoot horse is most definitely sound, because if we accept that the feet are the barometer of whole horse health, (no foot no horse) and if they are functioning correctly, the rest of the horse must be pretty healthy too.

So is a gimping barefoot horse sound?

“The horse is sound for the service intended by the owner or rider. By sound, I mean the horse is comfortable: He’s not going lame from performing his job (barring accident or acute injury).”

Said Phillip Dutton in a fab article “What is Serviceably Sound? “

http://practicalhorsemanmag.com/article/what-is-serviceably-sound-11664

Cal is definitely serviceable sound. For what I want to do (eventing on mostly grass), his feet are good enough. He is not going lame from performing his job.

If we wanted to do endurance we would have to boot, but that’s fine, many of the winning horses in the Tevis Cup are booted. Unfortunately Renegades aren’t made big enough for half Irish bog ponies. We have had two pairs of Old Macs in 5 years, although these have had a tendency to fly off at speed. I’m currently road testing a pair of Cavallo Trecs- they flap around a bit but stayed on cantering around the hayfields last night.

So my conclusion to the barefoot brain ache is that Cal is serviceably sound, and in fact is perfectly sound, according to those definitions I have found.

Would he pass a vetting?

Only if the lungeing on a circle on the hard was done on super smooth tarmac.

How then do you vet a barefoot horse?

 

 

“My horse won’t cope barefoot..”

“My horse won’t cope barefoot”…I would like a pound for every time I have heard this statement. I’m sure every horse can cope barefoot, and indeed I personally am running out of reasons why I might ever put a metal shoe on a horse, but I know not every owner can cope barefoot.

Barefoot can be a hard choice. It would have been very easy with Cal for me to believe that my horse won’t cope barefoot. It’s been incredibly hard for me to keep looking for the metabolic issue, to get to the diagnosis of the systemic problem that is stopping him from being a good rock crunching barefooter. It would have been so easy for me to slap shoes on it and just carry on but then I would have missed the ulcers, had even less warning about the COPD and would never have treated the boderline Cushings, luckily getting his ACTH levels down with herbal supplements. It is difficult for someone who hasn’t read about barefoot properly or thought to question the status quo to understand that everything they know about horse husbandry is designed to wreck the healthy hoof. Most of the ways that we choose to look after horses are for our convenience and not for the horse’s health. I know this, I have been there. I had the “best” looked after polo ponies within the M25 when I was grooming all those years ago. I hated some of the Argie methods but I learned a huge amount from the polo itinerants, and from other horseman in Australia, Scotland, Germany.  I have continued to listen and learn ever since, with a completely open mind. And I have checked the science, the research and the evidence, as I would for my human cancer patients. We should be in a Golden Age of horsemanship. We have rigorous scientific methods, amazing equipment and skills to analyse and interpret data. We are in a position to test every aspect of horse care and the effects on the horse’s health and mental wellbeing. Unfortunately much of the science is paid for by those with vested interests, and those who belive they know horses the best don’t feel the need to question their knowledge.

Horses are designed to move, 12-15-20 miles a day in the wild. Horses are built to trickle feed on a variety of poor grasses. They would choose outdoor life in stable social groups with a reassuring hierarchy and plenty of  space to get away from the dominant bully. They are not meant to stand overnight in shavings soaked in their own urine and faeces, eat too much sugary starchy food, go out for a few hours a day in an individual turnout paddock, deprived of crucial contact and rituals such as mutual grooming, stuff themselves full of lush grass and work for only a few hours a week.

A friend today told me how their half TB horse won’t cope barefoot because she has typical thoroughbred rubbish feet. I understand where she’s coming from- I used to feel the same way. Paddy had the worst feet in Cheshire: despite industrial amounts of farriers formula, he could never hold shoes and his hoof wall was thin and crumbly. Plenty of other people have felt the same way, watching their horse with his unconditioned hooves gimping across the yard when he loses a shoe. You would gimp in exactly the same way if I took your shoes off and asked to  you to walk on hardcore or gravel straightaway.

When I took Paddy’s shoes off, many people, including the vet and the farrier told me that I would find that my horse won’t cope barefoot. However, Paddy forced me to try barefoot, by nearly killing several farriers, including the horse whispering blacksmith, and what I found was that his hooves and his brain improved immeasurably. He became sure-footed, confident and healthier. He stopped rushing his fences and I could feel him balancing his body underneath me. It took time; in Paddy’s case about three months, to get him to rock-crunching go-anywhere status. Now at 20 he is sound and still going strong. He had four fantastic seasons eventing barefoot, then taught my husband Gary to ride, hunt and team chase and is now giving my step-daughter Lizzie the confidence to explore the forest.

Paddy is 7/8 TB; it’s nothing to do with TB genes. There is actually no significant genetic difference between all the modern horses around the world. Traits, yes, genetic alteration, no. The only exception is the recessive Hoof Wall Separation Syndrome in Connemaras, a recessive syndrome. This tragic syndrome would cause early death in the wild and therefore the aberrant gene would be weeded out as it is a disadvantage to survival.

The reason thoroughbreds are thought to have rubbish feet is that they are kept confined from a young age, fed starchy food and shod regularly  from the age of two. The hoof doesn’t finish developing until the horse is about 6; if it is compromised from an early age of course it will be sub-standard. Alois Podhajsky recommends that mares and foals  move daily from night pasture to day pasture a couple of miles down a rocky track to help the foals’ limbs and feet develop. In the wild foals hit the ground, stand up, suckle and immediately start travelling with the herd, quickly averaging 12 miles a day in their early lives. There are trainers successfully racing thoroughbreds barefoot

http://www.simonearleracing.com/how_we_train_our_horses.html

and many stories of off the track thoroughbreds being successfully rehabilitated to new lives barefoot.

http://blog.easycareinc.com/blog/notes-from-the-field/off-the-track-thoroughbreds-all-with-beautiful-rehabilitated-feet

Stacey, my neighbour, http://www.forestholidaycottages.co.uk/ put it beautifully today. She said “what we call footy, a person who didn’t understand barefoot would call lame.”

Better qualified people than me have answered the same question

http://www.unshod.co.uk/articles/guide_healthy_hooves.php

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1715697055340441&set=a.1715697018673778.1073741985.100007004891239&type=3&theater

So Con today was great on smooth tarmac, striding out beautifully on fine gravel and small stones but picked his way carefully and a bit more slowly over larger stones and hardcore. His ears never went back, he never made a pain face, if his foot landed on a sharp stone he hopped off it like a sensible pony and occasionally he chose to use the soft ground at the side of the path on the very challenging ground. Some might say that this means my horse can’t cope barefoot. We hacked for 45 minutes around Delamere and had a couple of good trots and a short canter. Once we turned for home he positively marched back to the house. Is he lame???

Which then leads me to more questions-

how do we define lameness?

how do we do a full five stage vetting on a barefoot horse?