Natural Neddies Equine Podiatry

28/05/2026

What a fantastic opportunity for someone looking to get into the Hoof Care industry!!!! If only I was 30 years younger!!!!

28/05/2026

This is why science and peer reviewed studies are so important! They take a lot of effort and hard work, but so important to the welfare of the horse :)

27/05/2026

Hottest day of the year and Ash decides to dupe me again with his “not much to trim here” feet. LF & LH trimmed, soles and frogs far too hard to exfoliate. Then I pick up his RH and discover, it’s actually compacted sole that’s trying to shed! The amount of retained sole that popped out was unreal, leaving a good half inch of wall height over the live sole plane. So that’s then six hooves I had to trim, as I had to get out the retained sole out of the two feet I had already trimmed and rebalance the walls. Very satisfying when I had finished, but I was soaked in sweat!

Urgent plea to all my clients, can you please start soaking your horses feet prior to my up and coming visit, this will help to loosen any compacted and retained soles and make my job so much easier in the coming weeks, Thank you!

25/05/2026

Top Tip from Abbotts View Livery! I would be so grateful to all my clients if you could attempt to soak your horses feet before I arrive. An old piece of carpet or a rug soaked also works really well. Or even soaking sponge cloths and putting them in hoof boots. They need to be soaked for as long as possible.

Top tip for trim day in this weather 🥵

Soak your horses feet, not just for your horses comfort but also for your trimmer!

If your horse is okay with it and is a good boy like Buck then these soak boots are a great idea. If not, buckets of water or a hose held on works just as well.

You can also get ice lollies and set up a fan and misters if you want to make your trimmer really happy 😂🪭🍦

Barefoot Bumpkin

18/05/2026

When one of you has COPD and one of you doesn’t want to get it. This is how we roll for today’s trim!🙂

I think we look a right pair lol 😷🤿🐴🐎😳😂

15/05/2026

Today was Giant Horse trimming day! Combined approx weight of 3250kg Four absolute gentle giants, all had impeccable manners and a pleasure to trim. Each one has current pathologies and I will do a short post on each one 🙂 Two Gelderlanders, one Irish Draft and an English Warmblood!

Also can’t forget the gorgeous Rosa, who looks like a midget but is a full up Highland Pony, which happens to be my favourite all time breed! Big horse with little legs!

15/05/2026

This 100%

The equine world can be a strange place sometimes. People care deeply about horses, which is a good thing, but passion can also make us vulnerable to poor reasoning, emotional marketing and logical fallacies dressed up as “education”.

A logical fallacy is simply a flaw in reasoning. Something that sounds convincing on the surface, but doesn’t actually hold up when you slow down and examine it properly. And it seems to me hoof care discussions are full of them.

One common example is assuming that because a horse improved after a trim, the trim itself must have caused the improvement, while ignoring all the other variables that may also have changed at the same time. Diet, environment, movement, stress levels, pain relief, management, season, workload and time itself can all influence the outcome.

Another is the assumption that somebody with a large following must automatically be correct. Popularity is not evidence. Confidence is not evidence either, although social media often rewards people who speak with certainty whether that certainty is justified or not.

We also see people fall into “either/or” thinking. If one approach is criticised, the opposite approach is immediately treated as correct. Traditional farriery has limitations but that does not automatically mean every alternative approach is scientifically sound. Equally, questioning aspects of barefoot practice does not mean somebody is anti-barefoot. Complex problems rarely have simplistic answers.

Perhaps the most concerning fallacy of all is emotional manipulation disguised as ethics. “If you really cared about horses, you would agree with this.” That kind of thinking shuts down discussion rather than encouraging it. Real welfare conversations should be able to tolerate nuance, questions and uncertainty.

One of the biggest welfare risks in the horse world is not people lacking information. It is people losing the ability to critically evaluate the information they are consuming. Good education should not make people more emotionally reactive. It should make them more observant, more thoughtful and more capable of sitting with complexity.

Horses are complex. Hoof health is complex. And ethical practice often lives in the uncomfortable space between certainty and curiosity. For me, this is always what makes working with these wonderful animals so rewarding, but it can also fry your brain at times.

A good practitioner should be able to say “I don’t know yet”, “that’s interesting”, “what else could explain this?” and “what evidence are we actually basing this on?”. That is not weakness. It is professional maturity.

If we want better welfare outcomes for horses, we need more than confidence and catchy soundbites. We need better thinking.

30/04/2026

If you think trimming alone can change the entire physiology of your horse, you might want to read this post. So many pieces of the puzzle!

The barefoot is NOT always the answer!!

There’s a conversation that keeps going round in circles.

“Barefoot is natural.”
“Shoes are bad.”
“Just trim it correctly and the hoof will fix itself.”

It sounds logical.

It just doesn’t hold up when you actually follow the mechanics through.

Let’s start with what we agree on.

A healthy barefoot hoof, in the right environment, under the right loading, is the best-case scenario. No argument there.

But that sentence has three conditions built into it that most people ignore:

Right environment.
Right loading.
Right horse.

We don’t work with that horse most of the time.

We work with domestic horses.

And the domestic horse is not a wild horse.

In the wild, poor conformation, poor posture, and inefficient movement patterns get filtered out. That’s Darwin. If the limb cannot tolerate load efficiently, the horse doesn’t stay sound. If it doesn’t stay sound, it doesn’t stay alive.

That filter is gone.

We now breed horses with conformations that would never survive long-term in a natural environment. Then we place them in managed settings that further alter posture. Stables. Arenas. Repetitive work. Artificial surfaces. Restricted movement. Rider influence. Equipment. Feeding patterns.

And then we say:

“Nature.”

That’s the first disconnect.

The second is even more important.

The hoof does not respond to ideology. It responds to force.

Specifically, it responds to impulse.

Not just how much force is applied, but how that force is applied over time, and critically, in what direction.

If a horse has good conformation and neutral posture, the ground reaction force enters the limb in a relatively balanced way. The hoof deforms within its elastic range. Structures share load appropriately. Morphology trends toward stability.

That’s your ideal barefoot.

But what happens when that isn’t the case?

What happens when conformation or posture drives off-axis impulse into the hoof?

Now the force is not entering the system cleanly. It has directional bias. Medial. Lateral. Cranial. Caudal. Rotational.

And here is the key point:

That biased impulse is not a one-off event.

It is repeated thousands of times.

That repetition is what drives pathology.

Because the hoof adapts to loading.

So now the hoof begins to change shape, not because it is “self-correcting,” but because it is accommodating the load.

Distortion appears.

Capsule migration appears.

Mediolateral imbalance appears.

Dorsopalmar imbalance appears.

And here’s where the barefoot conversation goes wrong.

These changes are often interpreted as “natural adaptation.”

They’re not.

They are maladaptations.

They are the structure reorganising itself around a pathological input.

Now we have a loop.

The posture creates off-axis impulse.
The impulse creates morphological change.
The morphological change alters proprioception and loading.
That altered loading reinforces the posture.

And round it goes.

A bi-directional pathological cycle.

This is not theoretical. This is what you see clinically every day.

And this is where the “just trim it” argument falls apart.

Because trimming is primarily reductive.

It can removes distortion. It can improves geometry. It can sets a better starting point. When there is enough foot to do so.

But it does not, on its own, change the force entering the system if the horse continues to move and stand in the same way.

If the horse is still delivering off-axis impulse, the hoof will simply return to the same pattern.

This is why people get stuck.

The trim looks good.
The horse improves briefly.
Then the same morphology returns.

Because the input hasn’t changed.

Now bring bodywork into this.

The hoof is one of the main entry points of force into the entire system. That force travels through fascia, muscle, joints, and the nervous system.

If that input is biased, the body has to compensate.

So the bodyworker releases the compensation.

But the input is still there.

So the compensation comes back.

That is not a failure of bodywork.

That is a failure to change the mechanical driver.

This is where intervention at the hoof-ground interface becomes critical.

And this is where the conversation needs to mature.

Because the answer is not “always barefoot” or “always shoes.”

The answer is:

What does this horse need to reduce pathological impulse?

Sometimes, a correct trim and appropriate environment is enough.

Sometimes it isn’t.

Sometimes you need an additive solution, not just a reductive one.

Something that doesn’t just remove material, but changes how force is applied. Especially in a working barefoot that has nothing to trim!!

That might be a steel shoe.

That might be composite shoe.

That might be a different interface altogether as technology evolves.

Steel is not perfect. It carries mechanical cost. It alters deformation. It is not biologically identical to hoof horn.

But dismissing it entirely ignores what it can do when used correctly:

It can change load distribution.
It can reduce pathological lever arms.
It can redirect force.
It can bring structures back within a tolerable range.

In other words, it can interrupt the cycle.

And once the cycle is interrupted, the system has a chance to reorganise.

That is the goal.

Not tradition.

Not ideology.

Not barefoot versus shod.

The goal is breaking the pathological loop between hoof, force, and body.

So when someone says:

“Nature would fix this.”

The honest answer is:

Nature would have removed that horse from the system.

We don’t.

So we either accept the constraints of the domestic horse and work within them, or we keep arguing theory while the horse continues to compensate.

And if we’re serious about welfare, performance, and longevity, that’s not a position we can afford to stay in.

I’ve spent years teaching the consequences of shoeing and I advocate for barefoot in most cases, so this is not about being pro-shoe and anti-barefoot, quite the opposite, but I am pro sound horses and equine welfare, and when we change the horse’s world from a natural one, including preserving poor conformation and creating poor posture, we have to accept interventions that mitigate the domestic reality.

Image shows a deformed barefoot from poor conformation that was driving a poor posture.

30/04/2026

It’s Footy Horse Season!

WHY YOUR HORSE IS SUDDENLY FOOTIER — AND IT'S NOT JUST THE GROUND

Edited for accuracy and clarification on the horn hydration mechanism.

The ground was soft all winter. Now it's baked hard in a week. And your horse is picking their way across the yard like it's made of broken glass.

This is one of the most common spring presentations in the UK, and it tends to prompt a lot of anxiety. Some of it warranted. Most of it manageable.

Here's what's actually happening.

WHAT MONTHS OF WET GROUND DOES TO A HOOF

Horn — the structural material of the hoof capsule — is a keratin composite whose mechanical properties are directly tied to moisture content. But the hoof wall is largely impermeable. It regulates its own hydration internally, via blood supply to the underlying dermis. Environmental wetness doesn't change wall moisture content the way it's commonly assumed.

The sole is different. The sole can absorb moisture from the environment. That affects sensitivity and bruising risk directly. And after months of wet ground, that matters.

THE TRANSITION PROBLEM

The problem isn't prolonged wetness. It's the transition.

Repeated cycling between wet and dry states creates mechanical stress — water molecules breaking and reforming bonds within the horn matrix. When the ground hardens rapidly, that cycling intensifies at exactly the point when the foot is least prepared for it.

Classic research by Bertram and Gosline (1987) measured the stiffness of hoof wall keratin across different hydration states. Young's modulus — the measure of material stiffness — increased from 410 MPa at full hydration to nearly 14.6 GPa when completely dried. That's an enormous range. The hoof is designed to operate somewhere in the middle, with maximum fracture toughness occurring at an intermediate hydration level — roughly 75% relative humidity, which is within the normal in-vivo range for healthy hoof wall.

Stable conditions, even persistently wet ones, are less mechanically damaging than constant fluctuation. A foot that's been cycling through wet and dry all winter is not in that optimal middle range.

WHAT'S ACTUALLY HURTING

The solar corium — the vascular, nerve-dense tissue that sits just beneath the sole and produces sole horn — is protected by the horn layer above it. That corium must always be well-protected, covered by adequate sole thickness to keep it safe from ground contact and concussion.

The sole, having absorbed environmental moisture through the wet months, may be softer and more vulnerable than usual. The wall above it is a different story — wall integrity isn't the issue. It's what's underneath. What the rapid transition does is intensify the cycling stress on a foot that's been in unstable moisture conditions for months. The solar corium — already less protected than ideal — now faces harder ground.

Injury to the sensitive tissue beneath the sole can cause bleeding between the sole and the pedal bone — forming a bruise or haematoma that causes pain and lameness. In harder cases, that bruise becomes an abscess when bacteria find their way into the damaged tissue. The pressure of building pus inside a rigid capsule is what causes the acute, sometimes severe lameness owners describe.

FOOTY VS LAME — NOT THE SAME THING

This distinction matters and it's worth making clearly.

A horse that's footy is shortening its stride, picking its way carefully, choosing soft ground where it exists. It's responding to surface information. The foot contains mechanoreceptors — sensory structures including Pacinian corpuscles, found in the digital cushion, heel bulbs, and around the frog — that respond to pressure and provide critical sensory information during ground contact. On suddenly hard, unyielding ground, that sensory input changes dramatically. The horse responds accordingly.

That's different from lameness. Lameness involves pain — nociceptive signalling from damaged tissue. A bruise, an abscess, an inflammatory process. The horse isn't just reading the ground differently. It's protecting a structure that hurts.

The two can look similar from a distance. Both produce shortened stride and reluctance. But footy tends to be bilateral, consistent across all four feet, and resolves when the horse moves onto softer ground. Lameness tends to be localised, persistent regardless of surface, and accompanied by other clinical signs — heat, pulse, swelling.

A horse that's footy on hard ground and sound on soft is telling you something different from a horse that's lame everywhere.

THE LAMINITIS RULE-OUT

This matters because spring footiness has a differential diagnosis that cannot be ignored: laminitis.

Laminitis is inflammation of the laminae — the interlocking tissue that suspends the pedal bone (coffin bone, or P3) within the hoof capsule. In early or subclinical cases, it can look identical to general footy behaviour. Spring grass is a significant trigger for horses with underlying insulin dysregulation — a condition where the normal insulin response to dietary sugars and starches becomes dysregulated, driving lamellar damage through mechanisms distinct from simple carbohydrate overload. Horses with equine metabolic syndrome or PPID are the primary at-risk population.

If your horse is hesitant on hard surfaces and you notice an obvious digital pulse or heat in the feet, contact your vet. Increased digital pulse — felt at the back of the fetlock — is a flag that warrants proper assessment, not watchful waiting.

The presence of digital pulse changes the conversation entirely. Transition footiness from wet-to-hard ground typically doesn't come with a bounding pulse. If it does, rule out laminitis first.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Check all four feet. Pick them out and press on the sole with your thumbs — a normal sole should feel hard and unyielding. If it feels soft, that's relevant information

Feel for heat and digital pulse. Assess the walk, including tight turns on firm ground.

Hoof boots provide immediate comfort and are worth having in the kit for exactly this time of year.

WHAT RESOLVES IT — AND WHAT DOESN'T

Uncomplicated bruising generally resolves within two weeks. Abscesses resolve once drained, though the timeline varies.

What doesn't resolve: the underlying vulnerability if the foot is chronically cycling through wet and dry, or has structural issues that leave the solar corium inadequately protected year on year. That's a longer conversation about management, trim approach, and sole depth — but it starts with getting through the immediate discomfort first.

The horse isn't being dramatic. The ground changed faster than the foot could.

23/04/2026

Really good advice from Clare!

20/04/2026

Images taken 9 months apart, this mare was lame and now sound. there’s still a long way to go in her overall rehab plan, but having much better balanced feet will allow this journey to continue at pace! David Landreville- On the Vertical