Tag: performance barefoot

The Opposite of Imposter Syndrome

aka Expert syndrome

Cover image courtesy of Sarah Linton. Painted Horse by Debranne Pattillo of Equinology and Equi-Ink Publications.

There has been a lot of chat this past year about imposter syndrome. It has now become completely acceptable and even laudable for leaders in their field to express their inner voices of doubt and lack of self-worth. It has become acceptable for experts to admit that they too feel unworthy and under confident in their powers and that we humans may not put ourselves out there and may not shine at our brightest as a result. Every successful public persona seems to have this missionary zeal to tell us that they too suffered from crippling fear and self-doubt at some stage in their journey. While this is a perennial problem that I am sure all reasonable, non-psychotic humans grapple with, in my experience, much more day to day damage is done by those with non imposter aka expert syndrome.

Expert syndrome

is a funny beast. It has become much more prevalent in modern times with the internet. The boon of instant communication and a non-discriminatory search engine enables us to type in a question relating to any problem and we will find all sorts of self-proclaimed experts offering the quick fix solution. In the world of horses, this magic bullet will solve everything. The expert has discovered the ultimate secret, packaged it up neatly into bite sized chunks and is now selling it in affordable, pocket seized online courses that will change both yours and your horse’s life for the better. And do you know what?

Life would be awesome if there was a magic bullet,

or a quick fix solution that could transform the troubled and complex beings that are our difficult and quirky horses into dreamboat equine dance partners.

behaviour is communication- every time…

With Rocky, (aka Royal Magic I kid you not) I spent years searching for the alchemical elixir. Ulcer treatment, hind gut biome rebalancing, regular massage, chiropractic treatment, rehabilitative groundwork, 3 fresh starts under saddle interspersed by 2 rounds of treatment for kissing spines. I went through a few different saddlers and brands of saddle, I checked his foot balance with x rays, as well as his back. I did everything that I and my very experienced team of supporters knew how and none of it was enough. In the end, for whatever reason, that horse would not let me tune in to his body or psyche to help him fix the problem that occasionally made him a dangerous, unpredictable riding horse. And I am just about OK with that. I think Rocky’s lesson for me was that you can accumulate all the knowledge in the world and do your absolute best to address all the issues but there are some horses for whom you are too late or simply not good enough.

I don’t claim to be an expert...

I also don’t believe that there is ever one root cause and one answer. In fact, the more I learn about horses, the more layers of the onion I seem to unpeel. Horse are the most masterful of compensators. They will hide one problem, until the hiding itself leads to another pattern of pathology, then a third. Some horses are incredibly stoic and tolerant, others will not put up with a single moment of discomfort. And most thankfully fall somewhere in between. Hope for the horse that will tell you ‘No’ clearly in a way that doesn’t risk your life.

And there are equestrian magicians out there.

Don’t get me wrong- there are some awesome practitioners who do absolutely improve the life of the horses they come across. Some are hoof trimmers, some are saddlers, some are physios. Life always gets a little bit better when you come across one of these people. They are all experts in their field, they are all keen to share their knowledge, they are keen to find out what you as the owner know and have put in place already and who else you work with.

So, how do we tell the difference between expertise and ‘experts”?

Who decides whether the self-proclaimed saviour of all things equine should be awarded the title of expert? In my view only one opinion counts here, and that is the horse.

How do we know if the horse is happy?

That can be such a simple question but for some reason we make it very tricky.

First we should all learn to trust our eyes. We can all see simple things, because seeing is believing and our eyes do not lie to us. The trouble starts when our brains try to fit what we believe or what we have been taught around the thing that our eyes are actually seeing.

This is why so many horsey folk believe that the poll lies about 6 inches behind the ears, rather than its correct anatomical location under the bridle head piece. We all know that the dressage rules state that the poll should be the highest point and we have seen so many top riders consistently win medals on horses where C2/C3 is actually the highest point, that we fallible humans convince ourselves that the poll must actually sit at the junction of C2/C3. Because that is the only way the winning makes sense within the rules that we have had drummed into us since we started to ride. When we actually get around to looking the facts up in an anatomy textbook, it is easy to see we have been mistaken for all these years.

Julie’s illustration – labelled to star TMJ but also has the Poll as highest bony point and the head in a lovely correct position in front of the vertical

But then why do those riders win medals if they are doing it wrong?  

This is the common but incorrect aberration- see how the bones of C2 and C3 are the highest point here- and the strain this puts on the nuchal ligament.

That is why horse-naive people can see the cruelty and artificiality of Rollkur and the stiff spider leg movement much more clearly than the dressage afficianadoes. Their novice brains have not been scrambled playing mental twister trying to equate the images they see of the winning riders with the words we read in books and hear from our trainers.

Words that bear little resemblance to the reality of the pictures.

Turn the sound down when you are watching the videos- the music is carefully chosen to be emotive. If the trainer is talking in a masterclass, mute them for the first watch. Let your eyes see the truth of the picture initially without prejudice- does the horse look calm and relaxed or tense and fearful? Does he move freely, smoothly, effortlessly? Is your eye drawn to the horse, filled by the horse, is the rider rendered invisible or are your eyes distracted by the rider doing weird stuff on top?

Don’t listen to the trainer’s spiel until you have decided if you like the way the horse is going and whether you would like your horse to go like that.

A beautiful calm halt- the hallmark of good training

Would you want your horse to look like that?

Who did they train with? Are they good trainers or merely gifted riders? Can they explain to the rider how to change the horse for the better? How many horses have they trained from scratch? Do they have a history, a provenance, an education, a foundation of knowledge?

How do they interact with their horses? Do the horses seem to like them? Do the horses stand calmly next to the human looking goofy and relaxed? Do they stand quietly to be mounted? Do they show resistance or tension at the halt? How long have the horses lasted in their career, have they stayed sound? Do their horses look like happy athletes? Would you let them ride your horse? Would you sell them your horse?

Would your horse let them ride him?

If you truly allow yourself to feel the truth of those questions, more of us would be impervious to the influence of self-proclaimed experts and would be able to make better choices for our horses. Many people can talk in soundbites and sound plausible or sensible and offer us hope.  Many of the experts might have something valuable to offer, but the only individual that will tell you the truth of that in the long run is the horse.

If we had more confidence in our own eyes and our own instincts, we would not suffer from imposter syndrome either. And I believe that more of us could have happy, sound, long lived riding and competition horses. We would be empowered to use our eyes, our observation, our personal knowledge and our love of our horses to make better choices for them.

Fabulous jumping position and keen focussed horse. I would love the feeling in this picture…

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.

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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.

Cal storming the XC st Eland Lodge

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:

  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

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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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Of Course the Environment Matters- keeping the ridden horse barefoot

Of course the environment matters for keeping the ridden horse barefoot successfully. By environment, I mean all the places your horse works plays and relaxes in.

Ask yourself- Where does he spend most of his hours? And how helpful is that particular environment for building high performance barefoot hooves?

How many hours does he spend in a stable? That’s x number of hours he’s not moving. It’s also x number of hours that’s he’s standing in/on bedding mixed with urine and faeces. And what is he eating while he’s standing there?

If your horses are the fortunate ones that get plenty of turnout, how many hours is that? What sort of surface are they turned out on? What are they eating while turned out? Are they on a track system or in a small individual paddock square? How many miles do they move while turned out? How far do they have to move for their food and water? And all that is before we consider whether their social and behavioural needs are met.

We know that the horses with healthiest barefoot hooves are found in the feral horse populations.

#friendsforagefreedom – the Carneddau ponies have the perfect life

In our part of the UK our nearest feral population are the Carneddau ponies of North Wales. This ancient herd of ponies are truly wild, and have frequented this mountain range in Snowdonia for thousands of years. Their numbers are controlled but other than that they are not managed in any way.

Photo by Hannah_morrellt find her on Instagram

A recent segment in a wildlife programme featured a stallion in his prime chasing off a usurper- both ponies cantering effortlessly over the rough stony ground. The Mongolian ponies had similar skills.

Photo by Nasta, zoologist on our SES expedition to Mongolia July 2018

Could you canter over rough ground in your bare feet without any training or conditioning? I know I couldn’t: not straight away. I do spend a lot of my time barefoot, and when I was travelling through Israel and Australia and shoes were mostly optional, I could run miles barefoot on packed dirt and tarmac. But it did take some time to toughen feet up, human and horse. And these days they are soft and ouchy again LOL.

If your horse spends most of his time standing in a field of soft mud or working in a soft arena, of course he don’t be able to march briskly down a stony track. Just like muscles, bones and tendons, feet need conditioning.

A good diet sets the barefoot horse up for success (see part 1), while the miles will build and shape the feet (see part 2) but at the end of the day the feet will perform best on the surface to which they have become most accustomed.

If you want your horse to be rock crunching, then he will have to crunch some rocks!! He can be exposed to gravelly then rocky surfaces, bit by bit, building tough feet incrementally.

Photo Jason Davies

So yes of course the environment matters. Track systems in summer are great because they encourage movement, limit grass intake and tend to pack down into hard dirt. You can enrich sections; with pea gravel or hard core, best done on the horses’ route to a favourite spot so they traverse the surface regularly.

Google earth snap of the first Nelipot track

Be realistic out hacking. Build up the exposure to challenging surfaces gradually, initially at slow speeds, possibly hop off for a challenging section. Let the horse pick his way, slowly if required. One of the major benefits of keeping your ridden horse barefoot is the increase in proprioception and the way that allows him to choose his balance over challenging terrain and protect his joints- give him the time to learn the skills.

if you only ever work on a beautiful level surface, be that grass, dirt or arena footing, how will your horse learn to dodge tree roots, deal with camber or adapt to undulating terrain? It’s like the difference between road running and cross country running- in human terms it’s a different sport!

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Hannah_morrellt

So of course the environment matters for keeping the ridden horse barefoot. It matters for both physical and mental health.

The way we keep horses is profoundly unnatural, even when we are doing our best by them. Low level stress and gut dysfunction are often contributors to poor hoof performance- as well as the physical, you could think of the hooves as the most sensitive barometer of your horses mental and psychological health.

So does the environment your keep your horse in meet all his needs? And I don’t mean shelter feeds and water here- that’s the minimum to keep the RSPCA away; I mean his species specific needs for mental and psychological health. Is he living a full and satisfying life in horse terms?

Another by Hannah_morrellt

#friendsforagefreedom

Or is he being kept alive and functional purely for human use?

That’s a whole new dilemma!

My name is Fran McNicol and I am an amateur equestrienne living in Cheshire, UK. I am a doctor, specialising in colorectal surgery, and my MD research thesis was on inflammation and sepsis. Through my day job, I understand and fix the human digestive system, and I know a huge amount about inflammation and the human animal, but the most useful thing about becoming a “Doctor Doctor Miss Miss” (MBChB, MD, MRCS, FRCS)  is that I have learned how to read other people’s research, evaluate the evidence and then critically test apparently good theory on my own horses. My writing is therefore my opinion, and  current state of learning, from 25 years of full-time doctoring, a few years working as a polo groom around the world and many years of keeping my own horses. I love training young horses, and focus on riding the sport horse both classically and holistically. I compete regularly in all disciplines at our local riding club especially one day eventing. I started blogging as a way to share the experience gained from taking a selection of horses barefoot and working towards the dream barefoot property. I blog regularly at www.nelipotcottage.com

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

 

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“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” Lao Tzu

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.

Rocky and Ernie mast

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.

img_1794
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

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

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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.

paddy drag hunt

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.

Paddy indoor hunter trials

 

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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.

Our horses on the summer track system

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.

img_0274

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.

img_1199

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.

Sarah Oliver’s trackie in Cumbria
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.

Cal’s working and living out clip

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.

Rocky’s mum Willow in her mud rug

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

Insulation properties of snow- Sarah Oliver
Moustache definition – 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.

Sun bathing in the dip in Delamere

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.

Snoozing in the sand pit

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.

Dinner al fresco

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”

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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?

Horsemen of Mongolia

By far the greatest pleasure of the recent scientific trip was hanging out and riding around with the horsemen of Mongolia.

First a cautionary tale: how many times are we told not to waste our time on social media?? A stray FB post caught my eye, I had been tagged in by a friend:

“Wanted, horse-riding doctor for an expedition to Mongolia”

It’s like reading the small ads in the local paper; once in a while, there will be something far too good to pass up. Who could possibly say no to the opportunity to ride with the horsemen of Mongolia, and call it work?

Yasmin and I- team medics aka Chirmentoya and Jijgee

The trip was organised by John Blashford-Snell,

of Blue Nile fame, (a climbing community legend through his partnership with Bonnington on that trip)

https://www.johnblashfordsnell.org.uk/biography/

and was facilitated through the Scientific Exploration Society

http://www.ses-explore.org/

and fixed by Great Ginghis Expeditions

http://greatgenghis.com/

The purpose of the Expedition was to carry out archeological, botanical and zoological surveys in the West of Outer Mongolia, as well as performing local community aid: simple medical and dental clinics, handing out reading spectacles, and presenting books to the local schools and colleges.

https://youtu.be/g_6woHpflDM

Horses were to be the main form of transport in the mountains, which meant we would get to ride with the horsemen of Mongolia, over their beautiful and rugged country.

The briefing document had all sorts of cautions about the horses (horses, not ponies, the Mongolians demand respect). They are semi feral, liable to kick and bite, and bolt off if spooked. They were only to be approached with caution, only in the presence of  herdsman or groom, and might need to be re-broken before we got on them. We would be in Australian stock saddles, not the Mongolian wooden treed saddles, as these would apparently offer more support.

The horses arrived in small groups, the evening after the local Nadaam festival, to our camp site high in the mountains. The drive in, sandwiched inside the Russian mini-buses with their beefed up suspension and four wheel drive, had been quite trying.

I’m not sure which we were more pleased to see, the cook truck, always late, or the herdsman bringing in the eagerly awaited horses, as the light faded.

On first impression, they are small, sturdy, stock horses, a lot like Icelandics or Exmoors. They tolt like Icelandics, a lateral trot which is easier to sit or half sit too than our English diagonal trot which needs rising to. Even this would get wearing after several hours. On arrival, the herdsman hobbled them and set them loose around the tents.

The next morning we each got allocated a saddle and a horse. These horses don’t have names, they are working animals that may end up as meat so don’t get names from their Mongolian keepers. After a few days the herdsman started giving the horses names, mainly as an excuse to start giving us Europeans special Mongolian names. Our herdsman was called Munkbhat, and the horses he brought for us to ride were all from the same family group.

He gave me his wife’s horse, of whom he was obviously very proud, a good horse. The horse was quiet, dignified, self contained, didn’t bite or kick when tacked up, and easy to steer and stop. A great start.

The horses wear a rawhide bridle, with a simple metal bit, and a long lead rope attached to the noseband. The lead rope acts as a tether, a caching rope, a set of basic hobbles and a lariat to use as a waving, slapping encouragement to go faster.

The horses are not trained to move off the leg: the Mongolian saddles actually had long saddle flaps to protect the riders legs from the horse’s sides, or vice versa. The stirrups were very wide, round platforms, to support the feet over a long day, they could put their toes or their heels on the foot rest, relieving different muscles as the day went on.

The horsemen, and horsewomen of Mongolia ride with short stirrups, reins in one hand, and the horses are trained to run into a high hard contact. To go faster one said “Cho” quite sharply, and waved the lariat around, or tapped a bum with it. Turning was neck reining, but again with hands quite high and bit quite tight, and stop was hands up and “Drrrr”.

To canter the good horse that belonged to his wife, one simply stood up in the stirrups and turned slightly to the right side, and the horse cantered. I didn’t work that out, my friend did, after we had swapped horses because I thought the wife’s horse too slow and boring when he wouldn’t canter despite all the flapping and Cho! Cho! I could muster. His younger brother was a bit more clumsy, but a lot more sprightly, or maybe more forgiving, and cantered on a thought.

We talk a lot about aversive training, positive reinforcement, and +R training here in the UK. The Mongolian horses did not get any positive reinforcement. I never saw a Mongolian pat or reward a horse with a quiet word. They aren’t nasty people, it’s just not in their training vocabulary.

They were slightly fearful of the horses, as befits their semi-feral status. They understood the importance of habit, and had set ways of doing things: first catch the horse with the ground rope, bring it closer, tack it up with the rope tight and the head turned away, so the horse couldn’t bite them or run away. The men were very wary of the back feet, never standing behind the horse, between two horses, or in the kicking zone. The bridles had the bit permanently attached but the throatlatch was undone and bits slipped under the chin at night. In the morning, the bit was then slipped into the horse’s mouth, the throatlatch done up again and the long rope used for leading, steering and creating speed.

The horses weren’t shut down or suppressed. They didn’t look for affection but did connect when asked, and quite liked strokes and a bit of cranio-sacral or back massage.

Jane saying goodbye to her faithful steed

The horses were all good at voicing displeasure; one day the girth strap was twisted when our esteemed quartermaster got on his horse and the horse bucked and bucked. The herdsmen quickly got Stuart off, checked the girth and it got sorted out. The horse was then back to his quiet sensible self. We had another team member who was quite heavy; when his horse had carried him far enough, it simply sat down and demanded a rest.

When travelling long distances, the horsemen of Mongolia sing, folk songs and love songs. When the horses heard the singing, they all bunched together, and marched on more smartly. They were beautifully behaved as long as we travelled in a group. Some were better than others at leaving the group or going from front of the line to the back, and all found a burst of speed when left too far behind.

The funniest thing was on one of the long days, when we crossed from one mountain range to another. There was a road through the middle of the valley. These tough sure footed horses, that had done ditches and boulder and river crossings without hesitation had no idea how to touch tarmac. One in particular was quite firm in his no- the herdsman got off and tried to drag him across while his colleague slapped the horse from behind with the long rope.

The interesting thing was there no frustration or malice or viciousness in the use of the rope; it was simply a signal of coercion. As soon as the horse moved onto the tarmac, the use of the aversive stopped. Loading the horses onto the cattle truck at the end of the trip was very similar; they absolutely understand the use of pressure release, and because there was no ill intent or malice used, the horses absolutely understood pressure release too. They stood on the truck quietly, once they were on, with their mates, and travelled easily.

The horses’ basic needs are met every day: we talk often of #friendsforagefreedom. They didn’t seem stressed or unhappy. They took every opportunity during the day to drink, graze, stopped for a wee when they liked, lay down at lunchtime, napped when we stopped. They were all remarkably self contained. When they were not working with us, they were turned out around camp with hobbles on, to graze and roam, and in between big trips they would have been out on the hills with their mates, in a big herd, grazing up high during the day and coming down to the valley at night.

Winters are fierce in Mongolia, with up to 3m of snow, and the herdsman move their animals to the lowland corrals and feed them precious hay through winter. Not all the animals will be kept all winter, some will end up in the pot, but the oldest horse on our trip was 25, and the two brothers I rode were 12 and 13. Munkbhat was proud of his horses, and he told me I am now the proud owner of a little bay horse in Mongolia that I can go back and ride anytime!!

My favourite moments of the trip were sat around with the horsemen of Mongolia, at the end of a long day, sharing a cigarette or a beer and asking them, via the young interpreters, about their country and their way of life.

The Mongolians are very proud of their heritage, and traditions, and somehow have managed to find a way to combine the best of the old and the new. The winner of the horse races at Nadaam wins a motorbike! The herdsmen all had very good mobile phones, tucked into their deels, with the hard yak’s milk cheese and the cigarettes, and took lots of selfies with us. The drivers could also change a tyre and strip an engine, in the middle of nowhere, in lightning quick time. The gers all had solar panels and satellite dishes, and the literacy rate in Mongolia is very high, over 90%. Yet the horse remains the best mode of transport for much of the terrain, and a ger is moved from camp to camp strapped to 3 camels. The Mongolians loved sharing the beauty and splendour of their country, and made us very welcome. And riding with the horsemen of Mongolia was an experience I will never forget.

A little film from our trip by the talented Matt- check out other snippets on his YouTube channel

https://youtu.be/-lIMWNwZiI8

Our camp sites are marked