barefoot eventing Archives - Lessons from Nelipot Cottage

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.

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

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.

Cal 2016 — 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.

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.

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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The Journey of a Thousand Miles; Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

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.

Clumpy hoof boots — 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.

Can you jump in Scoot Boots?

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 top of track — 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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Article also available as a podcast

https://soundcloud.com/fran-mcnicol/journey-of-a-thousand-miles

The First Step- Keeping the Ridden Horse Barefoot

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.

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

https://forageplus.co.uk/nitrate-toxicity-in-horse-hay-haylage/

Feed Clean

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.

https://prepareforchange.net/2018/10/23/bayer-stock-crashes-after-monsanto-cancer-verdict-upheld-by-judge-analyst-estimates-800-billion-in-future-liability/

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/28/wilding-isabella-tree-review-farm-return-nature

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/veganism-intensively-farmed-meat-dairy-soya-maize

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/15/the-magical-wilderness-farm-raising-cows-among-the-weeds-at-knepp

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

Albrecht and the agronomist

How much grass do horses need?

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.

Salt is crucial,

https://www.gravelproofhoof.org/salt

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.

Keeping Ridden Horses barefoot- the good the bad and the ugly

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.

http://equinethermography.co.uk/galleries/horse_hoof_thermal_gallery.php

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.

Overly tight shoes also lead to impaired circulation. We know this from our own experience; why would horses be different?

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.

http://www.healthyhoof.com/articles/concussion_study.php

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

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/03/flare-deviation-and-does-it-really.html

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

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2017/10/ask-how-and-why-and-dont-be-afraid-to.html

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

Feet First by Nic Barker and Sarah Braithwaite

Barefoot Horse Keeping-the Integrated Horse by Anni Stonebridge & Jane Cumberlidge

This article is also available as a podcast

https://soundcloud.com/fran-mcnicol/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

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Turn out versus living out

Or show us your mud rugs!

Another phrase that should have made me a millionaire;

“my horse could never live out, he loves his stable. He’s always begging to come in at night.”

Apart from the fact that this begging is a learned behaviour, because horses live for routine, we also need to understand the difference between providing ‘turn out’ versus providing adequate facilities for them to live out full time in a suitable environment.

Now don’t get me wrong: I would much rather horses spent a measly hour turned out than no time out at all. But we have to acknowledge that horses are movement, and the more they can move the happier and healthier they are. And that all our husbandry practises are a compromise chosen by humans between cost, practicality and ease of use of the animal. Turn out versus living out is a good example of a human chosen compromise.

I tolerate thick mud on my horses from November through to March, and many other days in between.

Other than competition days, I only groom to ride. I only wash a tail or pull a mane to compete. And I am comfortable with those choices. You won’t shame me into bathing my horse in winter- he needs his greasy coat for waterproofing. Likewise his feathers stay full all winter. And I very rarely brush his legs- layers of super dry mud wellies are the best protection against mud fever.

Mud wellies and ice baubles in fetlocks- natural insulation

Many people mistakenly believe that how a horse behaves in a turn out situation will determine how prepared that horse is to live out full time.

But there is a huge difference between turn out versus living out.

To understand why, we need to know more about the behaviour of the wild horse.

Horses much prefer to be too cold than too hot. They can warm themselves up, by increasing their activity, or by eating plenty of forage that then gets fermented in the caecum a.k.a. hindgut, producing heat. Effectively horses have their very own central heating system, and as long as they have adequate access to forage, will keep fermenting that forage and keep warm.

Horses left in their natural state will grow a fabulous winter coat. This has at least two layers, an underneath fluffy insulating layer and a longer coarser protective layer on top. If you have ever turned your horse out naked in the rain you may have noticed the herringbone pattern that the dried in rain has left?

Gorgeous herringbone courtesy of Sarah Oliver

This is no accident. The herringbone acts like a guttering system, allowing the water to run off the top of the coat while keeping the fluff underneath dry.

Mud herringbones for a cold night- Rocky's mum Willow in Weymouth

As long as the fluff has enough air in between the hairs it acts as an amazing insulation layer.

It used to amaze me, coming home after work to ride and pulling a naked horse in from the field, how dry the horses’ backs actually were most of the time.

Mud herringbones- dry underneath- Willow again

And all horses can grow a good coat if left to adapt. Paddy is 7/8 thoroughbred, thin skinned with a very fine coat, so I thought. The first year, we moved to Delamere from livery in March so all the horses were rugged. The second year we just didn’t rug.

I trace clipped Cal to allow me to work him, but with a shallow trace clip, he still didn’t need a rug. He’s half Irish Draught so grows the most beautiful fluffy winter coat, and thrives on fresh air.

Incidentally I also never dried him off after riding- I had to walk him back to the field from the house so he cooled off a bit; then the first thing he would do when turned out was roll in the cool sandy mud, good for his coat and his body temperature.

When it did snow, the horses loved rolling in the snow- it was like a spa day.

Insulation properties of snow- Sarah Oliver

Snow is also strangely insulating- the horses all wore snow rugs when they could, and their backs were toasty warm underneath!

Snow rugged pony in North Wales- Jo Ellis’ Rockstar

Snow pony in the Cumbrian fells- Sarah Oliver

Rolling is also a bonding activity I discovered. I took a book down to the field one summer day to sunbathe. I was flat on my back reading and enjoying the damp grass on my sweaty back when all 3 horses came over to join me for a rolling session. That was a pretty cool moment.

Rolling is a bonding activity – my 3 in Delamere

Paddy grew a good enough coat year 2, although he still looked a bit poorer than I would have liked coming into spring. Year 3, a really cold, wet year , he grew the most amazing triple layered pelt and wintered really well.

Environment is key though. Our horses had a field shelter, which they rarely used, but also had really good hawthorn hedges all around the field perimeter, good tree cover in the bottom corner, and most importantly the field had dips and hollows that offered varying natural windbreaks.

Their favourite spot was down in the dip in the bottom corner of the field. Eddisbury Hill formed a high level wind break, the hollow has quite deep sides and is south facing. I used to think they had all escaped as you literally couldn’t see them until you were on top of them, sun bathing down out of the wind.

Each part of the field served a different purpose. The sandy area near the field shelter was the sand rolling area. The steeper side of the slope below the field shelter was the mud rolling area.

The horses were very particular in their personal grooming routine. They would do a very thorough sand roll every morning after breakfast. The mud roll occurred in the afternoon generally, coating themselves up with extra insulation for the night.

Fluff and mud- super high tech thermal protection – Lyddy Putt’s ponies in North Wales

The Pzrewalski horses in Mongolia coated themselves in mud in the morning to keep the midges away but our field didn’t have good mud in summer. I could always tell when a cold night was due though- they would be coated in mud from eyelash to fetlock.

And the undisputed winner is- Lyddy’s Tawela

They never got rain scald- the twice daily self grooming regime works much better than the human version.

When it rained, they might occasionally hide in the field shelter for a half an hour break if it was really relentless. More often, they would be found grazing down in the dip, or browsing huddled under the hedge. Once there was a lull in the weather, they would charge around a bit to warm themselves up, then get back to the serious business of grazing.

They would graze for a couple of hours, then nap, then have some haylage, roll or groom, then go for a wander around the perimeter and stop for a drink. I used to love to spend the hours watching them just being horses.

So if your horse is “begging” to come in at night, ask yourself

1) have you trained that behaviour (yes obviously) and

2) what is missing from that turnout environment that would make your horse less keen to come in?

Does he have #friendsforagefreedom

Tearing themselves away from the hedgerow for a fuss

Is there enough forage? Enough stimulation?

A place to hide from the sun? A place to shelter? A place to roll? Room to get up some speed and play?

A place to look out over the surrounding area?

Now we are back at livery my 3 wait by the gate at 3pm, expecting to come in.

Before we moved back to livery, they used to wait by the gate of the big field at 6pm for evening feeds. But they weren’t asking to come in. They would eat their dinner, say thank you and then wander off down the field to the water trough and the haylage feeders.

Now they know their new routine – they are coming into a stable for dinner, and the turnout, although lovely, isn’t an environment good enough to support happily living out. They have adapted back to overnight confinement, for now.

But when we find our next dream Nelipot, I’m determined that I’m going to need a school dinner bell to call them down off the big wooded hill 😎😎

Because even happy healthy filthy horses should work occasionally 😜

buy the book- “Bare Hooves and Open Hearts”

If you have enjoyed this blog then please consider buying an author signed paperback copy of my recent book. It contains more of my philosophy on husbandry and training, based on my experience, research and learning. Price includes 2nd class postage to anywhere in Europe. Other regions may cost more- email me and we can always arrange.

£13.99

Another self trimming horse

After owning Cal for 7 years I am very proud and pleased to announce that I have another self trimming horse!!

And once again, now it’s a reality, I’m wondering why it took me so long to understand that even funny feet Cal could be a self trimming horse.

For any self respecting hoof nerd, a self trimming horse is the ultimate aim. The self trimming horse has a perfect balance between wear and growth, balances his own feet through work to the shape that suits him, and is sound in the work he does.

I never thought Cal could be a self trimming horse, until my barefoot life seemed to come full circle.

I’ve written previously about how my barefoot journey began

Barefoot Brain-ache

And about my trials and tribulations with funny feet Cal

Horse needs shoes and pads

Including the point where we thought we had really cracked it.

Barefoot Breakthrough

but all along, I was operating from within a false paradigm, despite hoof geeking obsessively all these years!

I thought a horse’s hooves had to be good before he could become a self trimming horse.

Barefoot beginnings

Now, I started my barefoot journey thanks to Sarah of Forageplus. Sarah wrote a book with Nic Barker (of Rockley Farm rehab fame) called Feet First

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feet-First-Barefoot-Performance-Rehabilitation/dp/0851319602

which was the original barefoot bible for those brave souls bucking the trend in the late 90’s!

Diet

It was early days- barefoot horse owners were considered eccentric freaks. Sarah drove around the county to trim clients horses with a huge tub of magnesium oxide in the back of her jeep and a set of scales. Who knows what the police would have made of her white powder delivery round?

We didn’t know as much about best nutrition for healthy feet as we do now, although we knew diet was the key.

As was work.

Exercise

When I transitioned Paddy he was being looked after by Mel the polo groom. He did at least 5 miles daily plus whatever I did with him in the evenings and weekends. And luckily, due to the facilities locally, he was able to do that comfortably from the first day his shoes came off. Glass smooth tarmac really is the best surface for conditioning rock crunching feet!!

Hoof boots were really hard to buy, really clumpy and mostly imported from America and made for little horses with dainty feet. I didn’t bother for Paddy- he never needed them.

Then along came Cal. He arrived from Ireland in the most horrific set of shoes. Looking back I’m really not sure how I didn’t spot the really funny feet.

I can’t find any early feet photos but believe me the whole of the hoof capsule sat in front of a line dropped down the cannon bone!!

This photo is from about 18months after I bought him. In that time he had fractured a carpal bone (in shoes) tripping over that toe, and was about a year into his barefoot rehab.

Now you would never say that foot could belong to a self trimming horse would you?

Environment

Shortly after this photo was taken we bought our own place and started applying everything we knew about creating the perfect feet. We had our six acre field which we proudly put a track around, our very own #paddockparadise

I mineral balanced to our now steady supply of late cut meadow hay, and then later Haylage.

We soil tested and actually applied the chemicals as recommended by the Albrecht protocol.

Grow your own….

We tried to do our rock crunching milage around the fabulous #Delamereforest and surrounding area.

Trim

and we kept looking for the perfect trim that would finally turn that peculiar set of feet into something functional. I went through a posse of trimmers over the first few years. Sarah wasn’t trimming much as her business grew, so we needed an alternative. My first choice wasn’t flexible enough to fit in around my hectic work schedule. The next was lovely but then got poorly and needed a couple of operations. I went back to a UKHNCP trimmer for an alternative view. The alternative then moved down south! I sought a couple of second opinions, one of whom did a really radical trim which left him sore for weeks. Then I eventually met Emma Bailey, who is a good listener, really knows her nutrition and is always keen to discuss with and learn from all horses and clients. She is also good friends with Nick Hill and Ralitsa, the holistic vet, so we got 3 heads to scratch.

We went through gentle trims, more invasive trims, leaving the flares, taking the flare off, trim the bars, leave the bars, attack the toe, swipe the heels… yet no matter what we tried, the feet improved a bit month by month yet remained stubbornly slipper like

With thin soles, shallow collateral grooves and little heel height.

He was surprisingly functional over the years, despite the feet looking flat and poor, he has worked hard on all surfaces except stones and we have had some great fun

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL55sjNB8nhYVHUrASlthXCJkdGsqql_RF

Then Emma went on a workshop with Nic Barker and my barefoot life came full circle.

Any self respecting hoof nerd will know of Nic’s seminal blog piece ‘Celery’

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-even-think-of-touching-that-hoof.html

And in the most recent blog follow up on that theme, not much in her learning and experience has changed

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2018/09/put-down-rasp-and-pick-up-celery.html

Now I always have believed in self trimming horses! Paddy was essentially self trimming apart from a check every 3 months, and a touch up for trips out, and Rocky looks like he will go the same way, but for some reason, it had never occurred to me with Cal. How could those pathological feet possibly become healthier without help?

Luckily Emma is a good listener. She cane back from the workshop and basically waved a rasp at all 3 horses. And told me to get out there and work them and see what occurs.

There’s been a sub solar abscess or something funky by my hand on this foot- there’s a load of false sole and a chip out of the bar

And guess what?

Cal’s finally growing the feet he needs.

Yes -there is lots of bar- he obviously needs it.

Yes -theoretically you could tighten the foot up to the white line…but it opens up again more or less straight away.

Yes -there looks like some flare from the top but from the bottom they are actually not too bad.

And yes- that toe can still come back, and it does, a few gentle swipes every time I ride.

And best of all- look at the depth of those collateral grooves!! That is new and special and exciting!

Now I’m not saying he’ll never get trimmed again. Those toes need touching up, as do any cracks and chips.

But the more we trimmed, the more hoof he grew, but exactly the same foot! Now we are not trimming so persistently, the foot is growing more slowly but is also building itself up, from the inside.

And so I’ve come full circle, back to celery – in a healthy horse, barefoot is never all about the trim.

I think I finally have a healthy horse- that’s been another journey, getting the diet right, and now we have stopped messing around ‘fixing’ his feet, we seem to have acquired another self trimming horse.

I’ll leave you with the Rockley rehabs for inspiration. The feet in this barefoot ‘hoof porn’ film are all self trimming, and all incredibly functional.

N.B. Until you’ve seen a horse move and the hoof land you cannot judge the level of function.

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/p/barefoot-in-slow-motion.html

Is your horse self trimming?

Does it land heel first?

If not, have you ever thought that less could be more?

Online dressage competition

I’ve been meaning to try an online dressage competition for ages, so when our blogging support group got an offer for free entries in return for blogging about the experience, I accepted with alacrity.

We were approached by Melissa of Dressage Riders Online.

http://www.dressageridersonline.co.uk

I chose to do a novice test- this month’s allocation was N24, a test I have ridden once before.

Now, the first advantage of doing an online dressage competition is that no plaiting is required- as Cal has enough mane for 2 horses.

Cal showing off his double mane at dinner

This grows at top speed, no matter how much I pull and tidy, I have resigned myself to sewing in 19-21 plaits for any competitive outing.

19 Plaits looking a bit flat after overnight attack of the Lycra hood

No plaits is therefore a huge treat for me, although Cal quite likes looking smart.

The other advantage of online dressage competition is that you get to use your own familiar arena, without any diesel costs.

We don’t have our own arena. My lovely neighbour has a fabulous arena that I am fortunate to be allowed to use regularly- it’s secluded and peaceful, more or less next door, I hack there and I quite often have the place to myself. Cal generally goes beautifully there.

Until we needed to mark out a 20m x 40m space. I enlisted Gary’s help as arena builder and camera man and he, being a perfectionist, brought his massive tape measure to make sure it was marked out correctly. So as I was working in, we had slithery snake-like metallic tape measure and moving poles to contend with. It was also quite windy so the hedge monsters were out in force and the new patio umbrellas were waving gently.

Cal kept it together remarkably well and was working nicely so we decided to go for the first take. I stopped at C to pass the phone over the fence to Gary, who had to crawl through the electric tape to take it off me, and Zap!!! He got a proper shock!

Gary yelled and jumped, Cal jumped and then decided that C was obviously a really dangerous place to be! Another 10minutes of working in at that end, I eventually convinced him that it might be safe to approach the fence as usual.

After 3 takes we had a test I thought might be worth sending in. Just as well, it was the last possible filming day of the month- I’m a bit of a deadline queen.

I’m not the only blogger who benefited from the free trial of online dressage competition-

A Perfect Storm https://m.facebook.com/aperfectstormx/

was quicker on the posting trigger and even managed to share a clip of her test video, showing stretching on a circle.

‘Uh oh’ I thought, ‘I’m pretty sure there’s no stretching on a circle on my video?’

Sure enough there wasn’t- whoops!

With no judge to beep when I’d gone off course, I had merrily missed out a whole movement!

Too late- month over, video gone in.

On the Tuesday evening as I was heading towards Mostyn for an evening show jumping lesson, Melissa messaged me to say my WeTransfer link wasn’t opening properly, she was off to work and could I send my test to the judge directly? As I was headed into deepest darkest Wales on my own in the truck, this wasn’t the best news!

I had a couple more tries on arrival at Mostyn but I really could not get the WeTransfer app to work correctly from my phone.

I finally managed to send a link to my YouTube channel (get me- total technophobe dunce- YouTube??), when I got home at 930pm, convinced I would be too late.

But no, the judge was lovely and kind and accepted my video.

And we came 2nd!!!

The test sheet and the rosette arrived a couple of days later.

Gorgeous rossie 😀

Helen Copeland is a list 5 BD judge from the North East. The comments were really positive and helpful, with none of the usual meaningless phrases

(‘could be rounder’, and ‘needs to be more over the back’ in particular being two phrases that are guaranteed to send the test sheet into the bin without me reading further)

and I thought the marks more than fair for our rather challenging day at home.

The marks would have been even better was there not a big fat 0 in the stretchy circle box!

And I love Haribos!

So would I do it again?

Definitely.

I feel it is important to ride tests occasionally, in order to identify the challenges in the work and the next areas of focus required in the training. Along with the discipline of doing a particular movement at the marker as well as when the right moment arrives.

We’ve taped the marker spots on the neighbour’s arena fence so set up next time should be quicker.

My limiting factor will always be finding someone to video, preferably without electrocuting themselves first, but now I’ve got the technology sorted, actually submitting the video should be easier.

And most importantly, this is the the first judge for ages who has put useful specific comments that seem to demonstrate an understanding of correct training.

Because we train our horses classically, which to me means as ethically, and as biomechanically correctly as possible, the modern obsession with over tempo horses and false roundness in front, no matter what else is occurring, has actually properly put me off formal dressage competition. Obviously when Eventing we have to do a test so we can get onto the XC course.

So I’m encouraged to try online dressage competition again, hopefully with Cal in a calmer frame of mind next time, and see if we can improve our test riding. And hopefully see some progression in our scores as he improves.

So a huge thank to Melissa from Dressage Riders Online for the chance to try out online dressage competition.

You have hooked me in as a regular customer from now on in.

Here’s the link again

http://www.dressageridersonline.co.uk/

I thoroughly recommend this lovely site for friendly help and ease of use. If I can manage the technical video sending bit then honestly, anyone else will be fine.

Thanks to Gary for filming – please note no Garys were harmed in the production of this movie 😂😂, and to Stacey for being the best horsey neighbour ever.

And to Cal, for simply being the best teacher one could wish for 😍😍

Cal after Shelford UA ODE- his back looks amazing these days

Big fit horses in reasonable work can get laminitis too…

Laminitis is not just a disease for small natives: big, fit horses in medium work can get laminitis too, as I discovered to my chagrin a few weeks ago.

I was chatting about our recent troubles at the area 20 qualifiers yesterday and the lady I was chatting too said “Oh, he’s a big horse, we forget they can get laminitis too” as if this was rare?

It had never occurred to me that laminitis was mainly a disease of small ponies, although I do associate it mostly with good doers. Cal is a good doer, but he is also a big, fit horse in medium level work and had been eventing the week before he showed that big fit horses in reasonable work can get laminitis too.

The causes of laminitis are now known to be metabolic, either associated with Equine Metabolic Syndrome ( a sort of type II Diabetes for horses) or Equine PID, more commonly known as Cushing’s disease. Metabolic causes means that laminitis is a disease of the whole horse, the cause and the treatment are not limited to the foot.

I’m pretty sure Cal has EMS, although I’ve never tested him properly. How do I know this? Because he has been such a tricky barefooter over the years. For those of you who do not fully embrace the barefoot concept, let me share with you my paradigm.

Any horse with the correct diet, environment, exercise and trim should be able to go barefoot and work hard barefoot.

Those 4 simple sounding words are not simple things to achieve in the U.K. Cal is an Irish Spirts horse, so he is half Irish Draught, and he looks like he got quite a lot of Connemara in the mix, so a dose of Spanish blood too. He didn’t get much TB in his phenotype, that’s for sure.

Diet- Cal is finely tuned to survive in the Irish peat bogs, or possibly also in Spanish scrubland. He doesn’t get much green grass, a sniff makes him footsore so a good bellyfull would probably kill him. He is the main reason our horses are track dwellers, and his story is partly why we bought our house and land, because traditional livery yards simply could not cater for his needs. This horse loves fresh thistles, bashes down nettles to let them wilt, eats a bit of bracken for the insulin like compound, goes for ivy, again for the sugar busting properties. He is pretty good at managing his own condition, as long as he is offered the variety of herbs and plants he needs to offset the green posion. He gets a small bucket feed which contains salt, Phytorigin GI, a hindgut balancer ained at feeding the good bacteria, Phytolean plus, a plant based supplement with lots of anti-oxidants designed to support the immune system and homeostasis of tricky metabolic horses.

Environment: he on a track system or paddock paradise. His main needs #friendsforagefreedom are met as best we can. He lives out 24/7, in a stable herd with his mates, to groom, play, commune with and boss around. They have access to constant ad lib forage, and are safe from stress. As he is pretty dominant he is the safest of all from stress, especially as Paddy is the lookout.

Exercise: he’s my main horse. He lives on a track so does about 5 miles a day mooching around on there, he also gets ridden 3-4 times a week, a mixture of hacking, schooling, jumping and fast work every 10 days or so. Of course he could do more, if I had more time.

Trim: trim has always been tricky. But that’s mainly because Cal has been tricky. The more I learn about feet, the more I think there difference between a good trim and a bad trim is a bit like a clip: two weeks!! Bad feet are impossible to trim into a healthy shape and function, and good healthy working feet are really hard to trim into bad shape because they just wear themselves correct again with work and movement. Cal has been footy on stones for his entire barefoot career. We use nice little euphemisms but make no mistake, a slightly sore foot is a slightly weak or a pathological foot. That’s why I would never call a horse sound unless it was truly sound without shoes: if the horse is sore when you take the shoes off, the shoes are disguising a problem. It took me a few years of looking at hoof photos to realise that Cal was a sub-clinical laminitic.

When I bought him his feet ran so far forward the whole foot sat in front on his legs, but he was sound as a pound in shoes! When he broke his carpal bone and we took the shoes off it took 3 full years to get a hoof that actually had hoof under the leg bones, and 4 years to get the heel bulbs in line with the middle of his cannon bones. The under run heels, the slipper like toes, the occasional growth ring, these were all subtle laminitic stigmata. Yet he had worked hard, team chased, hunted, evented, with the only sign of challenge being on very stony ground. So many people said I should just shoe him, as if that would solve all our problems, and that advice even came from some barefoot trimmers and vets.

Had he been shod, I might not have spotted the mild attack of laminitis until it was a full blown disaster.

I had brought him down to the house ready to compete at the weekend. I had ridden him in the school, bathed, cleaned tack and left him in the stable at the house for an early start. Normally when at the house they get Horsehage HiFi Haylage,

but our local shop had run out so I had bought some West Lancs Haylage instead. I gave him a good feed and a good big section of Haylage to last him overnight. The next day he was pointing a foot at me, and shifting around behind.

It took me a few days to twig what was going on: because one foot seemed to be worse I thought abscess first of all. And I was still feeding the West Lancs Haylage. It was only when I realised it was pure Ryegrass Haylage that I put two and two together. After a few days at the house no abscess had appeared and he wasn’t actually a welfare case so I moved him back to the field. He got better there but after 10days was still not looking rideable. He had palpable pulses in all 4 legs and was moving very slowly and appeared miserable.

I got the vet out, who agreed with me that it was laminitis, but very mild, to the extent that, I quote, “a lot of owners wouldn’t have noticed there was anything wrong”. He gave Cal a shot of i.v. analgesia which allowed me to get hoof boots on his front feet so he was comfortable enough to walk back to the house, and then to march him up the big hill. I kept him at the house, rationing every mouthful: no grass at all, a section of Hifi or a tiny feed very 4 hours and walking up the hill once or twice daily. All this strict diet and exercise was aimed to sharpen his insulin response again. He had Phytorigins Rescue Remedy which is a 5 day course, double dose PhytoGI, double dose Phytolean Plus for maximum antioxidants and a sachet Danilone twice daily.

http://phytorigins.co.uk/Phyto-Rescue-Remedy

After 4 days he was much improved, back to hacking out and schooling again at 10days. He went back to the now very dry sandy grass free track (thanks weather) on about day 5 (more to do with work than precise symptoms).

The vet offered to do a glucose stimulation test to see if it was definitely EMS- I have declined this. The blood test says it’s not Cushings, there is no really effective treatment for EMS other than really tight management which we do already, and there is a significant risk of laminitis from the stimulation test.

I now know that every mouthful counts, that I will never switch Haylage again for my own convenience, and that this horse needs to work every week, no matter how busy I am with my job.

It’s been a bad spring. I have another medical friend whose horse got laminitis because she was a bit busy with work and didn’t ride for a week: nothing else changed. And I have heard local tales of other big, fit horses in reasonable work who have succombed to the condition after a seemingly innocent change in diet or management. The grass this spring has been bonkers, wet and warm and then sunny is a great combination for really rich Cheshire cow grass. Our track looks totally bare now but it’s the scorching sun that has killed the green stuff the last couple of weeks, before that it was the horses munching away that kept the grass looking poor.

Do you check your horse’s pulses every day?

http://www.ironfreehoof.com/equine-digital-pulses.html

Shod or not, a palpable pulse might be the first sign of impending laminitis and feeling a change early might just save your horse from a full blown attack.

https://thehorse.com/111374/10-early-warning-signs-of-laminitis/

Do you watch every mouthful your horse eats?

Keeping a tricky barefoot horse sound, healthy and in full work is a sure way to turn into a feed geek; Paddy could eat more or less what he liked and still trot and canter on any stony surface in the forest.

Since having Cal my rudimentary knowledge of horse physiology and nutrition is now more or less at degree level; of course it helps that I am already an expert in human physiology so the proper equine textbooks are legible to me. I have tried every supplement on the market, tried every supposedly healthy bagged feed and have come around to the acceptance that maintaining a healthy hindgut is key, and that all is really required is hay, water, salt and enough variety in their environment to allow them to forage for what they need. in the absence of variety, supplements might be required and it’s the Phytorigins approach that makes the most sense to the cynical scientist in me.

Do you reduce the bucket feed if your horse is doing less work?

Cal isn’t on anything rich or high in protein or sugar, we use Agrobs, but I have cut down significantly from what I was feeding and will cut down even more if he has a quiet week. He wasn’t fat, but his condition hasn’t really changed on less food so I think feeding the minimum required to keep him fit is definitely the way to go. Even in a busy month, he will never be in hard work like a polo pony or a racehorse.

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.

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

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!

The best thing about competing

The best thing about competing is that entering competitions makes me focus on my training goals. The best thing about competing is that entering competitions gives me a concrete timetable to direct my work towards, and when eventing is your main discipline, that timetable has to include basic fitness, fast work, jumping practise and cross-country schooling

as well as flatwork. We have had a great winter mostly working on our flatwork, as always with the help of the amazing Patrice Edwards, and Cal has been feeling stronger and better than ever, with a good canter (finally) that feels effortless and adjustable. So the best thing about competing is that it forces me to test the training.

The best thing about competing, and training for competing, is that we get to catch up with old friends. Winter can be dark and dreary, especially with working full-time and having horses living out; some days it just seems too much effort to ride, let alone enter anything. This winter my surrogate pony club mum, the lovely Judith, has organised regular riding club jumping clinics with Richard Carruthers. These have been great fun, watching combinations develop, and the camaraderie, thrills and spills and banter have been inspirational. A bit of continuity has also allowed Richard to be inventive: in this lesson he put Cal in a hackamore to see if less inadvertent clutching rein action might improve his way of going. We still had a couple of stops but it did make me realise where I might possibly have been tightening my hand when thinking “oh heck”. My current tasks is to retrain myself to kick every time I think “oh heck”!! The hackamore won’t stay in for ever, but it has been a useful exercise, and doesn’t allow me to micro manage at all, so all I can do is keep asking for forward, which is very much what Cal needs.

The scariest number I ever heard is 4000: this is the number of weeks in an average 80 year lifespan. 80 years sounds like a very long time, 4000 weeks by contrast sounds surprisingly short. It’s so easy to let a week drift by, or a month, when one isn’t focused. Horses set their own timetable, for sure, but a sense of time passing is handy for those of us with busy lives and other distractions, like a full time job and a home business on the side.

Rocky set his own timetable this month; no sooner had I ordered his new saddle then he developed an abscess and was waving his front foot around like a dying swan. He came down to the house for a few days for poulticing, which was quite testing. Note to self, must handle him in more inventive ways, rather than just doing basics, as nappies went flying across the yard and he did pirouettes and levade whilst the tape was going round his foot. After 8 days there was no real improvement so we took him to Brownmoss for x-rays. The x-rays showed a tiny abscess, quite deep in the foot, so no point digging and no point poulticing. We chucked him out in the field again for it to work its own way out. This took another week; he got really good at chasing the dogs on 3 legs and doing perfect pirouettes to turn around. It was all good hind end strengthening. He finally looked sound the evening before we went away for Easter weekend, so will get ridden out tomorrow.

Rocky handing in his note excusing him from games

The best thing about competing is that it makes me clean my tack properly! I’m quite good at looking after my tack for durability and checking stitching for safety, as most of it is second-hand, but it rarely gets a full buff and polish unless we are going out somewhere. Rocky chewed Cal’s leather reins, so I have the choice of looking scruffy in lightly chewed leather tomorrow or doing dressage with rubber reins that don’t give the same nice elastic feel…we’ll see.

The best thing about competing is that it forces me to tackle Cal’s mane so that it can be plaited; as a friend once said, he has two good manes, one on each side, that take quite a lot of taming. He also hates having his mane pulled, so we have to do a few handfuls at a time, or do it really quickly before he gets too cross.

After photos tomorrow LOL.

The best thing about competing is the anticipation. To keep ourselves moving forwards, we are told to do something every day that scares us. You can’t grow in your comfort zone, only in your stretch zone. Well, having not competed properly i.e. jumping, since last summer (I don’t count dressage as competing because I am now so detached from the outcome), I am indeed feeling stretched! Here’s to growing!

The dulcet tones belong to Richard Carruthers, videos courtesy of Brent Sansom, many thanks Brent.

And finally, my stepson Barney stomped way out of his comfort zone this weekend, walking 100 miles in less than 48 hours, raising over 4K so far for Cancer Research UK and St Wilfred’s Hospice, in memory of Pam, his dear and wise friend. I am uber proud, and would ask you to consider donating to the 2 very worthy causes.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SomeoneSpecial/PAM

Tag: barefoot eventing

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