Month: December 2016

Horse needs shoes and pads

Your horse needs shoes and pads….or does it?

Cal right fore Sept 2016

Cal left fore Sept 2016
These are Cal’s x-rays from the end of summer. He was sore on stoney ground, stopping when jumping, a bit stuffy generally. He was 100% sound on grass, soft ground and smooth tarmac in all 3 gaits. He had some white line separation, and long toes that seemed to take off forwards within a day or two of being trimmed. He didn’t have prominent event lines.

The vet who did the x-rays said “your horse needs shoes and pads” to increase sole thickness, and a rest from work while the feet grew. He also recommended taking the toe back.

Now as we know I am not the sort of person who gratuituously ignores experts, but I do want to know what benefits they expect to see with their recommended interventions. “Your horse needs shoes and pads”

Why shoes? and why pads? and do the two need to go together?

Lesson 1 from our barefoot experience- a hoof needs stimulus to grow. Stimulus requires movement.

Lesson 2- horses need movement to thrive.

Lesson 3- a stabled horse is a compromised horse.

What sort of rest? My version of rest is as much movement as is comfortable and safe. Walking around a field grazing is essentially rest for a horse. Anything involving less freedom is confinement and therefore not particularly restful. Please don’t get me wrong, confinement might be required if weightbearing or walking is to be prevented but that clearly wasn’t the case here.

Cal lives out 24/7.

“Your horse needs shoes and pads”

So what were the pads for?

The function of the pads is to provide constant sole stimulus to which the horse’s foot will respond by growing more sole. I consulted both farriers and barefoot trimmers and all agreed on the effectiveness of this intervention.

Do pads need to go under shoes or is there another effective way of padding soles? Did he really need shoes?

Pads can also go in hoof boots. The most time-efficient solution was 24/7 padding to grow sole as quickly as possible. Shoes are obviously a 24/7 solution. There are all sorts of shoes that can apply padding- from full steel to cyber plastic Eponas. I didn’t want to put nails in feet we have spent 3 years getting strong out of shoes. And glue-ons apparently aren’t a great solution in our wet UK climate. So really we needed hoof boots that could be worn 24/7.

Until I found Scoot Boots this would have been impossible for us- the draught feet are limited in the boots available and the previous clunky canvas boots would have rubbed or got lost. However Scoots are light, made of flexible rubber that doesn’t rub, drain well, don’t seem to trap stones or dirt, and so far have stayed put in all but the roughest horse play in silly mud.

Cal has worn his Scoot boots for 3 months, mostly. He had a couple of weeks off when the mud got very deep and then another week off recently when waiting for new pads. He had a few days off work but was so comfortable in his boots that we just went for it- the only way to ensure horses do decent mileage is to do some of it with them. The best barefoot performance feet are always those that do 20-30miles a week, ideally on bouncy tarmac to stimulate growth.

I haven’t jumped him since I saw those x-rays, but we have walked, trotted and cantered in our Scoot boots all over Delamere and Cheshire, and schooled diligently doing our Classical Riding homework.

It seems that Cal is determined to make me complete the journey to training a finished dressage horse, without pesky eventing distractions.

He is also determined to teach me to trim- those toes need weekly attention to keep them back there under control. But that is another story.

Cal right fore Dec 2016

Cal left fore Dec 2016
Now I will confess I was nervous when Cal went back for these X-rays. Had I wasted 3 months being stubborn? Should I just have had him shod?

I knew he was no worse, and in many ways he was much better, boucing around on tarmac, cruising slowly over stones, but I wanted to see a better toe angle and a thicker sole to give me the confidence to persevere with our alternative plan.

Thankfully the evidence is clear- our strategy is working. I’ll carry on with the regimen, and the journey, and the not jumping…for now (!). Next X-rays in another 12 weeks- in time for the start of the season.

So my horse didn’t need shoes, but he did need pads.

Educate yourselves, question everything, learn about alternatives.

The vet wasn’t wrong, he just has a huge experience of traditional remedial farriery methods and very little experience of alternative barefoot rehab. I’m sure they had no idea that this positive effect could be achieved without shoes “for support”, and how could they learn any different if they always recommend shoes.

We are delighted, but not smug. I’m just glad it’s working, and happy to spend the time putting the slow miles in and not leaving the ground too often…..for now!

horse doesn't need shoes and pads
Cal at Berriewood
Posted for inspiration for 2017 :-p

My motto for 2017

My motto for 2017, thanks to a Facebook friend I have not yet met: it is to “Shout Louder in my Own Space”.

My motto for 2017 is a reaction to recent online experiences. We have all been subject to the effects of the Echo Chamber recently. Modern media allows us to connect with people with similar interests all over the world. I have barefoot and Classical Dressage friends all over the planet now with whom to discuss issues and ask for advice.

A peculiar phenomenon has occurred. Humans like to belong, so we naturally select friends with views and interests similar to our own, and although we feel very connected, we may actually be isolating ourselves in a virtual bunker where everyone agrees.  This is not good for learning, or for discussion. To expand our consciousness and knowledge we need challenge, not reassurance.

It was  a great surprise to me when Hilary Clinton won the Democrat nomination my US friends all supported Bernie Sanders. It was a terrible shock when Trump won; from my Facebook feed that seemed inconceivable, as did Brexit prevailing in the UK referendum.

Facebook groups are a funny beast. There can be such great discussions, and also such emotive howling between people who disagree. I have been personally attacked, belittled, stalked and ridiculed for disagreeing with eminent media commentators who frankly should have better things to do with their time. I regretfully left one Classical Dressage Facebook site when it became apparent that the “owner” of the page had views diametrically opposed to my own experience and learning. It seemed rude to be on their page constantly questioning their ‘expert’ opinion. Unfortunately the person in question only intreacts on their own site so there is no way to have a rational discussion in a neutral space where questioning their views in a friendly and enquiring and educating way would seem less disrespectful.

And therein lies the rub- how do we discuss without dissing, how do we discuss training and husbandry in a non combative way when people insist on taking different viewpoints as personal attacks and seeing criticism when questioned?

Maybe I need to learn to ask better questions?

Or maybe I need to save my energy for furthering my own knowledge, concentrate on my own learning, and listen most intently to those that never lie; the horses themselves.

Classical training as a journey is about so much more than just dancing horses. The mindset required is one we might recognise more as a martial art: absolute humility,  self-control, responsibility for oneself and an understanding that every action has consequences. We cannot choose how others react to us, we can only control how we react to others. Each challenge is an opportunity, from every difficulty comes the chance to change.

Hence my motto for 2017- Shout Louder in my Own Space.

The purpose of this blog is not to preach, or to bang about how great barefoot is for horses and how Classical Training is the only way. The purpose of this blog is to share my journey, and that of our horses, abscesses, warts and challenges and all.

When we arrived at out what was our last livery yard before we got our own space, we were the odd ones out. Our horses were barefoot, on a funny diet, and we were training with a strange foreign lady no one had heard of, who didn’t compete anymore, and who had us doing strange self lunging exercises at the slowest trot imaginable. We were learning about biomechanics, and the correct seat, and had inadvertently enrolled on a 4 year programme that I now liken to a Master’s degree in Classical Equitation and Dressage Training.

We didn’t preach, or gush, or bore, we just quietly did the do. The old black horse should have been crippled with arthritis, but looked better and better as each month passed and his crooked body blossomed with the application therapeutic gymnastic training. The grey horse went from nearly having kissing spines to eventing up to BE100 and filling his draft frame with the appropriate muscle. And the baby bay horse got the best start as a riding horse that one could wish for.

It hasn’t all been easy.

Cal the grey has continued to be plagued by difficult feet syndrome. He has X-rays due tomorrow I hope to report on vast improvements in his sole thickness with targeted consistent boot use. He is sounder on tough surfaces but the pictures will tell the unadulterated truth.

The baby bay had me on the floor a couple of times and went through a mild napping stage. A week treating his hindgut and a saddle fitting seemed to sort that out. He hacked out beautifully on his own on walk and trot on our last jolly a week ago. He’s now on a growing break and I can’t wait to get him into work again once the nights get a bit lighter.

However Gary’s new horse Beat the ex -racer responded quickly to a short lesson on rein aids and working on the connection forward to the bit. The relaxations and improvements in his walk achieved in two short lessons illustrated yet again how quickly correct training works, and how beneficial it is to the horse’s body and mind.

So this blog will be my effort to live out my motto for 2017. I will shout loudly in my own space, about our problems, challenges and solutions, doing my best for my horses in the best way I can do now, on every new day, with what I have learned to date. I will continue to learn and to study and to seek and to question, and if the answers I find can help any single one of you to solve a conundrum on your journey with your horses, or your life outside of horses, then that will be worth it.

Whatever else happens, let’s have some fun doing it too, because horses are meant to be fun. They are such noble and sentient beings that they should bring out the best in us, if we could just stop to listen and learn, and not allow ourselves to get caught up in competition and ego and ambition.

So thanks to Max for my motto for 2017.

Not the best photo at the end but look at the changes in his balance…