A day in the life of a Barefoot South student

Hi there, I’m Michelle. Some of you will have already met me and others will have heard that Lucy has taken on a student. Well that’s me and Lucy has set me the challenge of telling you about a day in the life of a Barefoot South student, so here goes.

6am – I get up early to attend to my four horses. They all live out 24/7 on a track and are fed ad-lib forage. I’m allergic to hay and have been trialling them on haylage but after 4 weeks it’s clear that it isn’t suiting them. All four have lost some of the concavity in their soles and one of them has developed really soft frogs which are prone to infection despite daily scrubbing. I’m amazed how much of a difference it’s made but it’s unquestionable: my lot all grow better feet on soaked hay.

8am – Set off to meet Lucy armed with my essential flask of tea – you never know how long it might be to the next cuppa in this job so best go prepared!

9am – Our first client is a small native type who has been diagnosed with PPID. We watch him walk across the stony car park and he walks over the stones happily. I trim his front feet and he’s an absolute dream; not only does he pick up each foot easily he actually holds the weight of his own leg which makes trimming so much easier. He’s an absolute sweetie so we have lots of fuss and cuddles too, always a bonus. Lucy trims his hind feet as he is a little arthritic and can find it uncomfortable. I watch as Lucy takes the time to let him relax his leg to where he finds it comfortable and she trims it there even if it’s not in the easiest place for her. After trimming we watch him walk on the same surface again and he’s moving very nicely, a slightly longer stride than pre-trim. We aim to watch all our clients horses walk before and after trimming to assess how they are moving and how the trim has altered that.

10am - Our second client has cancelled which leaves us time to find a cafe and catch up on some admin; booking appointments and responding to new enquiries. By pure coincidence we find somewhere selling cake.

12pm – Next up is an established client with a new horse. We deshod him two weeks ago and tend to leave a couple of weeks before trimming. His owner meets us direct from a clinic where he’s been moving forward and striding out better than he did in his shoes. Despite this she’s been ‘helpfully’ told by onlookers that he looks a bit short so she’d probably better shoe him! He has contracted heels from being shod but has all the makings of really solid feet. Lucy trimmed him and we then watched him stride out over the stoney car park really very well.

1pm – We have quite a long drive to the next client and we use the time to discuss feet, trimming, nutrition, my horses, Lucy’s horse and client horses. You name it and we chat about it as both of us are totally fascinated by our work.

2.30pm – We’re booked to see a new client with one horse to deshoe but it turns out to be two clients and two horses to deshoe! These ladies have clearly done their research which is always a good starting point.

One horse has quite contracted feet that look like they’ve been squished into too small shoes. They feel solid though and I’m sure he’ll find his way to rock crunching fairly easily. I used to hear Lucy say to clients “this foot feels lovely and solid” and not really get it. Somehow I seem to have picked it up though because now I see other people give me the same blank expression I gave Lucy. She’s right though, after handling so many feet you can just feel that some are solid.

Our second new horse is in a bit more of a sorry state. He’s been through all manner of remedial shoeing and is currently in wedge shoes with pads. If his feet weren’t in such a sorry state I would find this almost funny. In order to put the wedges on his heels have been cut very short, so once shod his hooves are at exactly the same angle as they would have been if they hadn’t bothered. I presume his pads are to protect his very thin soles, except I can see knife marks in his sole where someone has tried to carve concavity into them. Now I don’t need any of my training from Lucy to see that cutting material off an already thin sole is, at best, illogical.

To add insult to injury (quite literally) this horse’s frogs are so thrushy they’re almost entirely rotted out. His owner was very upset that no one had told her this was not normal and needed addressing. It was abundantly clear that if she’d known she’d have done something about it so it begs the question of why no previous hoof care professional said anything. It’s a question I can’t answer, but I can tell you it’s not at all uncommon and to me it’s a clear sign that those hoof care professionals were not putting the horse first.

So after much frog cleaning, applying thrush treatment and measuring him for hoof boots we wrapped his feet in nappies to keep him comfortable and his frogs clean until his new boots arrive. This owner has a bit of a mountain to climb, but she’s determined to do what is best for her horse, and now armed with the knowledge of how to deal with his thrush and keep him comfortable I don’t doubt she’ll get there. She’ll have some ups and downs but we’ll always be at the end of the phone and will drop by if she needs more support.

6pm – We’re in the car and on our way home. After a few minutes we both start sniffing around and realise we’re covered in thrushy ick and the car absolutely stinks!

7pm – Arrive home and after a quick hello to my partner and dogs I go out to feed, hay and poo pick for my gang and take a satisfied look at their lovely feet.

Once home I reflect on the fact that Lucy and I do have to have some difficult conversations with clients, usually about their horse’s weight or thrushy feet, or sometimes behaviour. But one reason I decided to train with Lucy was her mantra: “The Horses come First” and they really do.

Note: A week after this blog post we went back to visit our deshoe clients and the lad with the thrushy frogs now has small but lovely firm clean frogs. It’s clear his owner is putting in just as much effort as we hoped she would and her horse is reaping the benefits already.

Flat foot to concavity and some of the challenges

Taking your horse barefoot is both challenging and rewarding (when you get it right). It can also be very frustrating when you make a mistake. But trust me, even the most successful barefooter will have made mistakes. This is especially true in the more difficult environments where the ground is often wet and muddy and the grass grows fast and lush.

This post shows that you can make mistakes and recover and end up with a very sound, very happy horse.

The mare is working hard, on a very low sugar, high forage diet and over the summer successfully completes two novice endurance competitions.

In the last post the first three pictures showed a really tiny Western Pleasure QH foot (as well as others).

This is a hind foot from the same horse as it 'arrived' April '08 - you can still see the nail holes from when the shoes were pulled the previous Autumn(ish)./div>

Slightly bull nosed, stress rings and bruising are signs that all is not well.

An injured sacro illiac, some dodgy trimming, too much sugar and an abcess later the front foot looks like this in August '08.

The sole is on the point of bulging (now why didn't the farrier or the vet point this out?) There is flare, there is virtually no depth of collateral groove (so no depth of sole) and the wall is really thin. When the foot was cleaned you could also see blood in the white line. But I was very inexperienced at documenting things then so didn't know enough to clean the foot before taking the photo!

After 12 weeks of box rest for the sacro injury the horse is still lame. So we move her to a mini PP track and within two weeks she goes sound and shortly after that she is rideable.

Feet are still terrible though and being trimmed in ski tip fashion. See Dec '08 below.

The mare spends a month completely off grass and on gravel instead and has one 'proper' barefoot trim. Jan' 09 left below.

Back on grass PP track. The improvement in concavity continues - you can see the sole getting ready to flake and the back of the foot is looking better. But if you look at the heel bulbs (2nd picture) you can see some odd marks/damage. This was little abcesses blowing out of the back of the heel. It went on for some time and then just stopped.

Then we had a foreseeable disaster; which we only saw with hindsight! The grass grew (bad bad grass), the sole splatted and the mare got horribly bruised.

Then because of circumstances other than feet, the mare spent much of the summer stabled, being exercised 3 times a day and her feet started to heal. In the picture below you can see new concavity spreading out from the centre of the foot. The outer rim of sole is still pancake flat at this stage.

At this stage the mare is working hard, on a very low sugar, high forage diet and over the summer successfully completes two novice endurance competitions.

The left hand picture is of a freshly trimmed foot. You can see the thick wall, tight white line and the wear in the heel area. This foot is on the way!

In the right hand picture you can see here how the sole is naturally exfoliating and exposing new concavity. There is a dirty great hole in her frog where an abcess blew out. You can also see how much thicker the hoof walls is, even with a big roll.

Unfortunately it is possible to make the same mistake over and over again. In the Autumn the mare turns out again which is much better for her socially. There is a struggle with grass management and quite inadvertantly a high sugar product is added to her feed.

Once again the feet splat and she bruises her soles. You think we'd get the message by now :-) This mare can't handle sugar.

The results are felt not just in her feet, which lose concavity again, but also in temperament - the mare looks sad and tired even though she is not working so hard.

Her owner though is both fantastic and dedicated. The source of sugar is found and eliminated. The feet start to improve again.

But as the nights draw in and with a saddle problem the amount of exercise is cut drastically.

Now, I often hear how people are worried they will wear their horses feet to the bone. Well actually, if you manage your horse well the problem is actually the reverse. This horse's feet have been stimulated to the extent that they grow so fast the owner can't wear them out fast enough. And then when the exercise reduces you can get the problem as seen in the next picture.

This foot looks like it's trying to emulate the 'tin cans' I worked on in the States. Just because it's gone short of some wear. The sole is in reasonable nick, although the heels are getting long.

We trim the foot and as it adjusts to less wear the growth slows. By the next trim, we have lost the tin can effect, but the heels are on their way to the moon. The horse has developed thrush and the foot is starting to contract again.

You can see the stress rings from the sugar the mare had in the Autumn. The wall is really thick and I've put on a fat roll to enable her to break over properly without suffering mechanical leverage on the flare.

The owner has strict instructions to work the horse much harder, on a variety of surfaces, where ever she is comfortable. I know the owner has the dedication to put in the work.

But there is the rub - unless you are keeping your horse on a PP track with a variety of surfaces it takes a lot of exercise to give the horse hoof the stimulation it needs. Most people don't actually ride enough :-) So far from restricting the amount of exercise you can give your horse, you will probably need to give it more.

You will also need to manage your horse's diet and environment really carefully, with attention to detail and a consistant approach.

A few people have horses or conditions that make it really easy. But that kind of luck is as rare as hen's teeth in the UK.

As you can see from this video - the mare is very sound on gravel and if you can slo mo it you will see she has a solid heel first landing.

A pasture trim is not a high performance barefoot trim

This has been an incredibly hard post to complete. I've wept buckets throughout because the horses to which the hooves belong are especially dear to me, even though they are not necessarily my own.

Each of these horses has suffered unnecessarily because of human ignorance (and butt headedness).

And having thought about it, and reflected on all the evidence to hand, I have come to the conclusion that when farriers complain about barefoot trimmers taking 'their' business, they have only themselves to blame. If my local farriers were able to do a good barefoot trim I would never have had to learn how to do one myself.

But maybe it's really the farrier bodies that are to blame? My own ex farrier often complained that the farrier training syllabus, exams and competitions all focus on how to make/fit shoes - not how to trim a foot. In one three day farrier competition they may only do three feet. Heck in 3 days they should be able to do close to 40 times that amount and still do a good job.

The following pictures and information are all drawn from my personal experience. It's not scientific 'hard' data, but it may be more reliable than the stuff about climate change :-) At least I know the source and I have my hands on the evidence.

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I used a farrier to trim my first barefoot horse for around 10 years. It was the same farrier who supported/encouraged me to keep my horse bare when I was facing much opposition and I will always be thankful for that.

Took me a while though (years) to figure out that the farrier's enthusiasm was running ahead of ability. I did a lot of road mileage on my mare and didn't realise that it was the self trimming which was working rather than the stuff I was paying for.

It was when I became involved with another laminitic horse, with poor feet that was not self trimming, that the flaws really started to show.

Look at the pictures below - do you see what I mean? The really tiny foot was not my farriers fault - it had been made that way by the not so wonderful practice among the western pleasure community of wanting tiny feet on their big buttocked horses. They would probably support chinese foot binding too.

But the practice of taking off huge chunks of the toe underneath (solar side) to effectively put a ski tip on the foot is all down to my ex farrier.

The second picture shows how the 'raw' edge of the trimmed foot hasn't been dressed. The third shows how the contracted foot has 'sucked in' at the quarters - look for the dark shadow running the full length of the quarter from coronary band to the edge of the wall. Its not well illustrated by these pictures but the coronary band is doing weird things too.



The fourth picture is the same horse months later. The farrier is still at it - ski tipping. But almost worse is the flare which has not been addressed. Huge opportunity for mechanical leverage (where the laminae get torn) and when this happens its very painful - imagine tearing your nails off the nail bed and you get the idea.

The 'ski tip' is also shown in the same farrier's trimming of another horse (fifth picture). It's not a good picture but you can probably still see what I mean. Another error is leaving in the deeply compacted false sole - you can see its been scratched and chipped at. The frog is very thrushy and has been packed out with dressing and lint.




The sixth picture is a whole new can of worms. Another false sole - so the farrier addresses the problem by carving back the heels and to the extent that the horse goes lame. And never in all the years I've been around horses (over 35) have I ever seen a regular farrier 'dress out' the wall edge of a barefoot horse. We all know that if you don't 'dress' the wall edge (mustang roll in american) then the hoof wall may chip and/or split.

I could go on but I think if you look at these pictures and then compare them with a properly completed barefoot trim I think you will see the difference. If not - post me and we can discuss.

Do you know a foot like this?

I went to Dallas to improve my trimming skills and hopeful that I would see a wider variety of feet with more issues than the feet I usually see at home. You can see by earlier posts that I certainly achieved the latter, the former is still being tested.

But then it occurred to me that actually it would be interesting to examine a foot which is often seen in pastured/retired horses in the UK. A foot which is often accepted as 'normal' but which in truth while it might be common, it is certainly not normal for a healthy foot.

This type of foot (see photos below) is a product of hoof management and is neither genetic nor inevitable. If you click on the photos they will enlarge.

As the horse to which this hoof belongs is already dead, we can't discover how long it would have taken to bring this foot back to the healthy model. But I am 99.99% certain that with correct management of the live horse it could have been and probably within months.

With each pair of photos the first picture is the 'before' photo and the second is the 'after' photo.


Notice flare, hoof rings and chips. These are still evident after the trim, but the improvement can be seen and the hoof is starting to look better already.

The sole looks a scary mess - but its actually relatively superficial and just one trim is a significant improvement. Good management could sort this easily.

The heel is running under and the capsule is long. It will take time to fix these, but a good mustang roll (would have) made the horse more comfortable.

It looks better from this side!

Whether shod or barefoot please don't accept a foot which looks like the foot in the 'before' pictures above. And please understand that the foot is the 'after' pictures is a work in progress. To be tolerated while the damage is grown out, but not the end product. :-)

It is not natural, its not healthy and it needn't be.

You might just find that the pasture ornament you know of with feet like this might even come sound if the feet are brought back to health.

And it doesn't take heaps of money or shoes. Just good management, a bit of patience and persistance.

Me trimming

This is me. Apache was a sweetie to work on and his feet were in good shape. Unlike my apron which is seriously long. Because of her physical condition Grace is not so straight forward, so it was nice to work on a horse that can hold a foot up for more than 30 seconds.

Learning more about trimming

To be a better trimmer I need to see a wider variety of cases. So I have taken myself off to Dallas to train with Jamie Jackson. He has updated his training programme and its much more intensive and rigorous than previously. Which is just as well because I know I have a lot to learn.

We are practising on a mix of cadavers and live horses. Although it is sad and sometimes unpleasant to think about the dead horses, I would rather make my mistakes on them than a live one. The fatal mistakes have already been made on the dead horses and sometimes the evidence is in their feet.

The pictures above show what could have been a good foot that over a relatively short time period could have been rehabilitated. It has bull nose and compacted soles from inappropriate foot care. The later pictures show the compacted sole coming out and what the foot looks like after one trim.