Feet First Hoof Care & Rehab (2026)

27/07/2022

4 weeks out of steel for this absolutely beautiful little jumper mare 😍

This is her right hind foot, and in just 4 weeks we are seeing a ton of exciting progress! By taking her excessively long and tall toe back in both height and length, she’s been able to improve her posture and start to grow some functional heel. While we are still working with a palmar P3 angle that is likely too low - indicated by the profile of the dorsal wall which is still bullnosed, the bulge and dip at the quarter, the steep coronary band, and the hoof rings that are wider at the toe than the heel - all of these external indicators are significantly less extreme than they were just a few weeks ago. Hooves are so elastic and resilient - when we give them the input they need, they are pretty amazing at responding.

I don’t work with a ton of performance horses who are in active training and competition, so it’s been fun - and a bit of a learning curve! - to play around with the right set up for this wonderful mare. We’ve still got some tweaking to do to get it just right, but luckily her owner is as dedicated and lovely as they come and is all in for the journey to get this gal’s feet in ship shape!

03/07/2022

How quickly can we effect positive change in a foot?

When the right things are in place - pretty darn quick!

This horse had an infection that caused intermittent severe lameness and resulted in significant bone loss of P3 (the coffin bone).

Though it was an initial challenge to figure out what was going on with him (concurrent hind-end issues didn’t exactly *help* with diagnostics), we’ve been able to help this hoof go from the top image to the bottom in a little under 9 weeks.

After a thorough white line resection - performed with Dr. Jeannine DeLuca of Avon Animal Hospital - this little guy spent some time booted and wrapped in a diaper to keep the resected area clean and dry and allow us access for continued treatment.

When we were certain there was no lingering or secondary infection, he went into a glue on package that let us stabilize the capsule via casting and direct glue, while giving him the mechanics and support he needed to start healing.

After a week or so of adjustment to his new feet, he has been getting sounder by the day 🥳.

So how do you make these changes in 9 weeks?

➡️ Diagnostics to pinpoint the issue

➡️ Collaboration and support between vets, owner, and hoof care provider - helping horses is a team sport!

➡️ A trim (and in this case shoeing package) that is going to appropriately support healing and get the horse set up for success

➡️ Tip top aftercare and management. Owners and facility management have to be engaged to make sure conditions are right for the horse to continue improving. Easier said than done, sometimes, and this horse could not be luckier in that regard.

Add a little luck 🍀 and you’re off to the races! (Or in this little 🍊‘s case, maybe off to the dressage arena again soon!)

25/06/2022

Life’s been… busy lately. Busy is good, and hard, and not always when I shine with keeping on top of things.

But even in the busiest of busy times, I’m so, so, so lucky to get to spend time with outrageously cool creatures, like my new best friend, Tiny.

When someone says they have a draft who is a bit overdue I always have an internal struggle about whether I want to take that horse on. I love drafts for their kind souls and often very smart sensitive personalities. But the wear and tear on my body when a draft is even the tiniest bit ill behaved is no joke.

Pretty glad I decided to have time for Tiny, who picked up his feet from the lightest little tap on his leg and held them up like a total gentleman. He didn’t mind that my hoofstand is technically way too small for his gigantic tootsies, and even stood ground tied through his whole trim 💕

If every horse could be as chill and polite as this guy, this dream job of mine would be even dreamier!

06/05/2022

Centre of the limb vs centre of the foot!

Some feet and legs make for cool optical illusions. This interesting hoof/limb combo belongs to an elderly Arabian mare who was injured as a very young horse. Despite the wonkiness (technical term), this is a very functional foot: the mare is comfortable and stable, often choosing to canter and gallop in her pasture. She is not riding sound, but she enjoys her life as a pasture pet and is well loved.

This was my first trim with her, and she was fairly overdue. My focus was on paying attention to how she lands and loads on this funky foot and maintaining her comfort and mobility on all four feet!

I love hooves that make me reconsider ideas about what functionality means and that need me to get equally analytical and creative 🎉

30/04/2022

Severe capsular rotation + phalangeal rotation + minimal sole depth = ??

In this beautiful girl’s case, 12 months out from the start of her first laminitic episode, 7 months since the radiograph in the first picture was taken and I got to team up with the most dedicated owner / barn owner team imaginable, and 4 months since starting treatment for PPID…. all that comes out to being sound and comfy walking out barefoot over gravel!

As we passed the one year mark of dutifully changing boots, soaking, packing with clay, etc. her owner was rightfully ready to tap out of the boot game and asked if we could apply composite shoes. Partway through our trim I stopped to really stare at the big frog, thick dense sole, and overall… healthy (!!) foot in front of me and asked if we could take our girl for a spin in the arena. As she crunched over great big sharp pieces of gravel on the walk to the ring, I had seen just about all I needed to see.

We’ll monitor her comfort carefully, but with her EMS and PPID under careful management (note her grazing muzzle, aka her favourite accessory 😬) I am very hopeful she will remain sound and comfortable with just her own feet to stand on!

This mare is a really great example of the kind of rehab that is possible when owners, vets, hoof care providers, and facility owners can come together as a team and work for the horse.

26/04/2022

The big, beautiful foot in this picture belongs to gorgeous Belgian mare, Lady.

Heavy horses carry tremendous weight on each of their feet which makes them prone to flare - and not only in the hoof wall where we might tend to think of flare occurring. Bars are equally susceptible to flare (they are in fact a continuation of the wall!). When bars flare and lay over onto the sole, they can trap dirt, grit, even little pebbles underneath them which easily turn into abscesses.

Lady’s bars were quite overgrown and she’d been experiencing some soreness. When I trimmed her medial (inside) bar on the right hind an abscess immediately started to drain. I gently explored around the abscess and found that it was a very shallow track. No need to go digging and introducing more gunk into the foot. The drainage, which you can see in this picture, had pretty much run dry by the time this foot was trimmed.

Oftentimes I hear hoof care providers advocating leaving bars alone as they can provide depth and protection for the back of the foot. While there are absolutely situations when leaving some flared bar is the better choice, cleaning them up is my preference when possible - and on a big solid foot like this, I think it’s absolutely critical!

21/04/2022

Pulled shoes off this truly adorable foot (and its partners!) today.

He was working very hard to be patient with all the fuss and earned lots of breaks to put his feet down, so this shot features some dirt in a supporting role ⭐️😊

I love how clearly this picture shows where the frog had stretched forward and welded to the sole at the apex. The green outline shows where it *looked* like the frog was. Mapping and seeing the true ratios of this foot made me suspicious that the frog was telling a few white lies 🐸. Some gentle exploration at the apex showed an area of exfoliation and I was able to get closer to the true apex of the frog. The area I exfoliated to is outlined in pink.

The purple outlines the central sulcus, with the horizontal purple lines projecting the length of that sulcus doubled forward - which shows us where our true frog apex should actually be!

This foot is fairly fragile, so a gentle exfoliation was the most I wanted to do. My priority was preserving frog mass while removing flaps and opening crevices that could harbour microbes.

This sweet friend got a good antimicrobial treatment, had his feet packed with artimud, and got wrapped up in some cute little diapers and into boots for a cycle. Aside from a frog tidy, the only trimming he got was a gentle round up where his walls had broken and chipped. Over the next 4 weeks he’ll have regular antimicrobial treatment and a bit of a diet overhaul. He was super comfy in his new kicks, and I’m excited to reassess next cycle!

03/04/2022

Before and After?

Nope! We’re looking at two “before” shots.

Huge difference in cycle length?

Also nope! The first picture was after a consistent 6 week cycle, the second after a few months of a consistent 5 week cycle.

The difference here between a hoof that’s crying for a trim at the end of a cycle and one that’s still holding it’s own comes down to knowing how to read internal anatomy in the external hoof capsule in order to effectively manage distortion without removing anything critical to a horse’s comfort.

Being too conservative in our trim may give us the short term gain of knowing we’re not causing immediate discomfort, but the trade off is to be constantly chasing distortion and never making real progress toward a more compact, functional foot.

Mapping a foot in three dimensions is a key piece of my approach to hoof care and means that I can be accurate and intentional in the material I remove and the material I leave behind.

Prettier before pictures for me 📸

More functional tootsies for my critters 🐴

Win win!!

30/03/2022

It’s been great gearing back up to work, and the next week and a bit are packed to the gills to fit everyone in before I head out for some top notch continuing education: first, a clinic put on by The Humble Hoof which I could not be more excited about, and then off to PA to spend a few days with mentor, friend, and all around hoof-wizard Daisy Alexis Bicking

All told I’m out of town for about a week, from the 8-14. I’ll be doing checking messages as I can - and promise you’ll hear from me by the 15th if I miss ya while I’m gone!

27/03/2022

When we succeed in improving hoof comfort, function, and form, what kinds of changes might we see elsewhere?

Postural compensation has an intimate relationship with hoof distortion and pathology. While causation can be a chicken-and-egg scenario, my focus is on improving the hoof part of the equation, and I *love* seeing horses start to make positive adjustments to their posture as we make progress with their feet!

This TB boy is a classic example of camped under, or goat-on-a-rock* posture. Common contributing factors to this compensatory posture are:

Long front toes ✅
Painful, thrushy frogs on front feet ✅

Horses’ nervous systems perceive excess toe length as similar to standing up hill. This causes them to lean out over their front legs, which is often exacerbated by trying to unload painful caudal tissues. To counterbalance, the hind end steps under which often leads to overloaded, crushed heels, low or negative plantar angles, and excess toe *height*

When this postural compensation becomes habitual, the effects on the entire body can be significant. Rather than using deep postural stabilizer muscles + gravity to stand up, the horse uses mobilizer muscles simply to stand still. This is extremely energy expensive (uses more calories), not to mention overtaxing on the joints, muscles, and other soft tissues involved. These horses are often sore through their SI and LS regions, sensitive through their backs, and while they may continue to perform athletically there’s no doubt it costs them a great deal.

Compare our handsome model’s before and after posture shots and notice the angle of his canon bones relative to the ground. Our goal is for all 4 canon bones to be perpendicular to the ground creating a “leg at each corner” stable posture. We’re not quite there yet - but we’re coming leaps and bounds!

I have not documented his hind foot progress which I truly regret - but here are some shots of his left front from the same days as his full body pictures. We’re losing toe length and gaining functional caudal tissue + vertical depth. A thing of beauty!

Much much love to this sweet boy’s owner for her eagle eye for every little detail of her horses’ comfort and her equal dedication to helping them improve 💕

*”Goat on a Rock” is a term coined by Dr Judith Shoemaker whose work on postural compensation is fascinating!

26/03/2022

Perfect forelock? ✅

Perfect feet? ✅

Perfect for her trims? ✅

Sweet Angel really was angelic for me as I ease back into work!

19/03/2022

While I’m still on strict orders not to do anything more strenuous than look at horses, cool hoof pics are out for a little while longer… so let’s talk about diet instead!!

I’d love to say that my trimming and shoeing techniques are the magic touch that fixes every horse I work on - but the reality is that even the best hoof care provider in the world can only work with the foot in front of them. It’s up to owners to help their horses grow the strongest foot possible - and all the horses in my care who have come the furthest have all made the biggest leaps by adjusting their diet!

I recommend the same basic diet for all of my clients: plenty of hay (starting at 1.5%-2% of body weight), a high quality mineral balancer, and calories added as-needed via timothy cubes/pellets, flax, and molasses free beet pulp. Zero added iron, and keeping sugar and starch low (specifically, ESC + starch under 10% with starch under 4%). If any metabolic issues are suspected, add hay testing to the list to ensure it has appropriately low levels of sugar and starch.

It might sound lazy to recommend the same thing horse to horse. And I spend a lot of time gently trying to get folks to let go of the 73 supplements they use and the grain that their “hard keeper” (usually code for thoroughbred 😂) really NEEDS.

But here is the secret… even with all the nuances and idiosyncrasies and unique things about all our horses. They are, at the end of the day… horses! Feeding a forage-based, mineral-balanced diet isn’t about being “more natural” and it doesn’t only work for easy-keeper types. Not much that we do with horses is “natural” - but we can strive to be as species-appropriate as possible! When it comes to diet that means respecting how a horse’s digestive system has spent millions of years adapting to work.

If your horse is having hoof problems of any kind - sensitivity, persistent thrush, a tendency to shelly, brittle walls, white line separation… the list goes on! The first place to look is what’s going into growing those hooves.

And as for those hard keepers (yes, EVEN the TBs and TBXs!), here’s my gigantic 5/8 TB lad: zero grain for the last 2 years, and officially declared “a little chunky” at his annual check up this year 😱😂

Feet First Hoof Care & Rehab

27/07/2022

03/07/2022

25/06/2022

06/05/2022

30/04/2022

26/04/2022

21/04/2022

03/04/2022

30/03/2022

27/03/2022

26/03/2022

19/03/2022

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