Horse Feet, part 1

The hoof of the horse has always been an extreme curiosity to me ever since I was old enough to pick feet. We had an amazing farrier who would spend hours with me "talking shop"; he would allow me to trim one of the horses under his careful eye and taught me each part of the foot, its purpose, and how it should be treated. Years later, we have a new farrier who is the same way-- eager to teach and talk about what years of working on horses have taught him about the foundation that carries the animal. Without the feet, there is no horse.

There are a lot of things I've learned from our farrier, who is an artisan in his own right. One thing that sticks out in my mind is a discussion we had on the hype on barefoot trimming. I had been reading about it for 2 or 3 nights, looked up all the "specialists" and read all the articles about 'mustang rolls' and 'the natural way to trim, like how wild horses are'... and how (according the articles) the angles on a wild horse's hoof are different. Pretty fired up on all that I thought I'd learned, I called him and wanted to pick his brain about it. I started off telling him about all the reading I'd done, and all the terminology, etc etc, and started explaining about the angles.

"So this natural trimming focuses on that the hoof should be steeper, like a wild horse, at a 30 degree angle instead of the usual 45..."-- and that is as far as I got. I could hear him take a deep breath over the phone, and then told me something I will never forget.

"Do both you and and all your friends wear the same sized shoe? Or are you shaped exactly the same?" (to which I replied "no...") "Then why should your horse fit into a similarly man-made mold? And why would you trim your horse according to what they think wild horses look like? You don't have a wild horse... your horse doesn't do wild horse things, or have the same diet as a wild horse... how are they even comparable?"

He went on to describe how most hoof problems that horses have are actually man-made... from people who want their horse to fit that 45 degree, 30 degree, or whatever angle based on some idealized # in a book. You can't trim a horse according to a book. Each horse is different, and sometimes, all 4 feet on the same horse is different. You can't force a round peg into a square hole, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If yours horse is sound with one front foot being 46 degrees and the other being 42 degrees, don't mess with it because that's how he was born, that's how he is comfortable, and unless something radically changes in that equation you shouldn't try to make him something he isn't.

The comment on how ridiculous it is to trim a domestic horse like a wild horse really hit home with me. He basically said that these "barefoot specialists" are making a fortune charging well-meaning people huge amounts to do what any good farrier does already. Any good, honest farrier will know how to balance a horse according to how that horse will move best.

Of course, there are those farriers out there who will try to charge you for every gadget and new thing that comes out. I've dealt with those farriers too... they are especially fond of those who do a lot of showing, praying on people who want to squeeze every last bit of potential out of their mount. They will happily put on the most expensive shoe (x4 feet) and any supplement or miracle cream they have to make a dollar. Emperor's new clothes come to mind... they are happy to sell you anything that makes YOU feel better about your horses feet. In reality, its all just hype and smoke/mirrors.

Why does this all come up? Well... the reason I started my education on feet is that I always believed in the "less is more" approach, and Lilly has been sound as can be with just a regular trim and I am jumping her 3x a week. Lacey (my sisters WPH), however... is a horse who, since she was broke to ride, we were told would NEVER go barefoot. Her feet were too fragile.. white feet... appaloosa feet... brittle, bad, never go without shoes. And she has a club foot... and we were told that a shoe is the only way to fix it. This of course was all told to us by farrier who specializes in every specialty shoe on the market, while Lacey was showing. After having such major success with Lilly being barefoot, I had a hard time believing that Lacey couldn't go barefoot too. I mean, with shoes on her front feet she had terrible bruising and cracking... and she just looked uncomfortable.

That was the reason I started looking into barefoot trimming in the first place. And then, after talking to Don (our new farrier), we decided to pull her shoes and see how it went. He said that the bruising was caused by the shoe preventing the natural growth differences around the hoof (kind of like how the end of your nail sometimes grows faster than the sides)... basically, the hoof couldn't grow and wear down naturally, and so in the places it grew faster it would not wear down...creating pressure in the coronet band... creating a bruise.

He mentioned the history of horseshoes... how metal shoes were put on horses who worked long hard hours on tough surfaces like pavement-- which would cause excess wear on the feet. The shoes were designed to keep the feet from wearing down at such an excellerated rate. Now adays, he grumbled, people seem to think that shoes will solve every foot problem a horse has... when, in reality, the hoof is just fine as nature created it. Hammering nails into an already perfect structure only weakens it, sometimes creating more problems than it solves. He agreed that some horses do need shoes for traction, and to reduce wear and tear... but that most horses don't need shoes... what they need is an experienced, honest farrier.

Long story short... Lacey has been barefoot nearly a year now. Her movement is cleaner and lighter than ever, her feet are perfect with no hint of cracking or bruising-- and there is not any sign of the 'club foot' she once had. Its amazing.

I suppose the moral of the story is... horses feet are best left as nature intended, unless there is a valid reason to add shoes to the equation. Each horse is unique in and of itself, and so each is a special case, and cannot be forced into particular angles or ideals. Imperfections or things "not according the book", whether it be conformation or hoof/pastern angles are part of being a natural, living creature... be wary of those who wish to "correct" what does not need to be corrected. To use the old mantra... Less is more.

Part 2 will come tomorrow, and be about the internal/external structure of the hoof and how it functions (re: why does it look like that?). There is so much we can learn from how a horse's foot is put together... its amazing.