The perfect barefoot trim; Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

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.

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

Another self trimming horse

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

Navicular rehab at Rockley Farm

as can laminitis be treated and avoided

Laminitis- prevention first

Nic Barker at Rockley Farm has not trimmed any of her horses for about 9 years

The famous celery post

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.

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.

The perfect barefoot husbandry regime leaves your horse sound, functional, comfortable, balanced and landing heel first confidently on most terrain.

Barefoot Hoof poetry in slow motion

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.

So here are my hard won words of wisdom:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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

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.