Footloose Barefoot Hooves

10/08/2026

This is a really good post about what's currently going on. Big changes in hoof and sole make-up tend to cause upset and will disturb the routine a bit. We do our best with what's in front of us, but sometimes we have to prioritize one outcome over the other. Bear with us. Hopefully things will settle down a bit on this front soon.
And then it's time for the PPID discussion when coat shedding happens 🫣

05/08/2026

SERIOUSLY cute Shetland feet 😍

Only one tag does this one justice -

01/08/2026

Yesterday I got a well aimed kick from a horse.
She's one of the favourite horses on my books; the type that makes me love mares. But yesterday she just wasn't with me. Until she made contact, literally.

She had moved yards recently and received some battering in the field (from a horse she moved with). She was dangerous to ride (which was instantly stopped), very reactive to touch on the chest, and physio found soreness in that area. So we put it down to that as to why she had been so tricky for the trim.

Until I played through the scenario again in my head. And I realized it had been her right hind she kicked me with, and when I had lifted the leg forward.

Lashing out during that move can indicate discomfort in the hind gut area.

Darn, that's me humbled again. I go on and on about gut health. It's one of my top priorities with my own horse. I had even discussed gut health with regards to another horse on the same appointment.

I'd love to say I have a single easy answer to fix this; gut health can be very layered and sometimes it's difficult to figure out which is the chicken and egg - was the compromised gut there first and the pain/anxiety second, or the other way around.

I'll maybe write more about symptoms and remedies later on, but for now I'll need to think about this beautiful girl and how we can help her. Maybe her issues aren't gut related, but if they are, we want to support her as best as we can.

(Pictured is my own from 3 years ago, not the horse in question)

31/07/2026

What's been going on, aka "if it helps - your horse isn't the only one".

Where to start! Visuals first.
There has been a lot of chipping going on. Increase in growth during summer and the dry weather making the hoof horn drier and more brittle has led to this. In most cases this trims out easily. Sometimes the chips are higher up than the trim line, and in some cases this has put the horse on their soles.

Lots of frog and sole shedding. The dry weather has retained both, and with it going back to wet now, it's all ready to pop out. This generally doesn't have much influence on comfort levels, but in some cases so much coming off in one go makes them a bit cautious on their feet for a few days - suddenly feeling the ground again and feet softening up while the ground is still quite hard plays a role there.

Now for the trickier bit.
Laminitis has been far more present this year than last. Grass has been continuously challenging, despite no huge spikes like we usually get in spring for a few weeks, and then things tend to calm down again. This year the all-clear just never came.
And now there are horses who just can't take it anymore. It seems to also be hitting the horses that have never caused worry before, or that are well managed.
And we can't get round the fact it's probably been the grass all along.

So what shall we do now?

- Give them time off grass
- Offer some comfort with boots and pads
- Support their liver and lymphatic system
- Keep blood testing for metabolic issues on your radar. Just because they weren't metabolic last year, doesn't mean they still aren't this year.

PS: The picture on this post - if you see an image of a pie and think of a frog, you'll get it 😄 This cobblestone was just shouting for my rasp. Looking at chipped hooves and smoothing them out has been my life for the last few weeks 🫢

29/07/2026

Look at this! Learning Wild experience in Scotland. Cancel your plans and head up North!

https://learningwilduk.wixsite.com/learningwild/test

20/07/2026

A great visual of white line disease. Sometimes all it shows up with is a thin line of dirt. What's behind that is what we need to focus on when treating.

I like to clean out and topically treat with Red Horse Hoof Stuff and Endosan3 spray if persistent. Sometimes WLD grows out like that, sometimes the area needs opened up some to allow for air to get near and easier treatment.

Cracks and bacterial ingress can happen from time to time. If it persists, or returns repeatedly, especially in the same spot, we need to think about the why - biomechanical issues or dietary/metabolic challenges lend themselves to showing up as wall cracks and crevices and often the inability to fight intruders.

White line disease up close- islands of crumbling hoof wall.

Notice the non pigmented wall that’s nearer the coronary band is fractured, like islands. That’s the appearance of microbes digesting the keratin. Keratin is essential structure that keeps the wall functioning correctly. As it is digested the wall crumbles.

If the paddock muck (the black plug) is not removed, there is no point squirting a treatment up into the hole. It can’t get to the active part where the microbes are digesting wall and multiplying uncontrollably.

Many owners religiously treat white line disease but it often a complete ware of time and money as the treatments can’t get to where it is needed.

The disease can be very high up and it also digests horn medial to lateral.

In the olden days this was called ‘hollow hoof’ as it made a hollow sound when tapped.

The photo is a sagittal section of the toe.

Please share and let’s try and help others that don’t realise how awful this condition is.

Thanks to my sponsors for supporting my equine study - see comments for details.

18/07/2026

Very well written. It definitely is a team effort to get horses that are out of balance back on track. "Fixing" one area will only have a short term effect, if at all.

What if it's not the farrier's fault?

Can we just talk about feet for a moment?

After looking at these two photos side by side, it really got me thinking about feet (not in a fe**sh way 😂) and the forces being placed upon them from higher up in the body. I think these pictures illustrate it perfectly.

At our first appointment, we discussed the angles of her feet and how underrun they were. This wasn't a criticism of the farrier, just an observation of where she was at and something we hoped to improve over time.

In the top image, you can see how the directional force through her body is sending weight into the back of her heels in the front feet.

Now look at the hind legs. The way she had to stand to find some degree of comfort meant she was effectively sitting back onto her heels there too.

So how can we expect to develop a more upright hoof capsule when the body is continually directing force in a way that encourages the opposite?

If we had added wedges or pads at that stage, my concern is that we would simply have increased the directional force and stress on an already compromised system.

The changes would have had nowhere to go. Her body was stuck in that pattern and wouldn't have allowed meaningful adaptation. We can't force posture.

Now look at the second image. We still have work to do, but the body is beginning to find more balance. The directional forces are more evenly distributed (the right hind is still further forward as that limb had its own issues), but to me there is noticeably less crushing force from above, she appears more lifted and soft, than strapped down. The white arrows represent the direction of fascial pull ( this is how my brain functions 🤓)

Of course, feet don't change overnight. It takes around 6–9 months to grow a new hoof capsule, so I'll be fascinated to see how her feet continue to develop over the coming months now that the force patterns are changing.

I think hoof care professionals sometimes get a hard time for not "fixing" feet, but if the feet don't have the space or freedom to adapt, how can we expect them to?

This is a team effort. Free the body, work with the feet, assess the saddle, address dental balance, improve biomechanics and then repeat the cycle. We leapfrog each other, with every professional contributing to the overall change.

But first, the body needs the space within the system to change.

12/07/2026

That's me off for some holidays now. I'll be finishing up admin today, so can I please ask for any outstanding payments to be made so I don't need to keep them in mind during my time off, and pop in any outstanding Q's.
Emergency questions I'll make myself available, otherwise I shall see you on the other side on the 24th.
Behave yourselves and tell your equids to do the same! 🫣

17/06/2026

Geriatric day! 🩶
Last week I did a day where the youngest horse is 17, and the oldest approaching 30!
It's lovely to be with these guys. They all have their individual challenges which their owners meet with love and care 🤗
And we adjust to whatever they need and can give. Which means that the last picture is a bit different from the rest. I simply didn't want to ask him to stand on 3 legs for yet another time!

17/06/2026

This 👏👏

Why can’t so many horses eat grass anymore?

This comes up a lot.

I had a great comment on my last post saying, “Thirty years ago, horses were out on grass all the time and they were fine.”

And I do think it’s a fair question. But I don’t think the answer is one simple thing. Part of it is that the grass has changed.

A lot of horse paddocks now are small, overgrazed, fertilised, sprayed, compacted, and resown or populated by survival of the fittest, with grasses that can survive heavy grazing. That does not mean they are ideal for horses.

Improved pasture, ryegrass, clover, fertilised paddocks and stressed grass can be very different to rougher, mixed, lower-input pasture.

A horse grazing a varied paddock with native grasses, herbs, weeds, shrubs, roughage and room to move is not living the same life as a horse standing in a small green square of high-production stressed grass.

We also have less biodiversity.

When paddocks become monocultures, we lose the variety that supports the whole system. The soil changes. The insects change. The gut input changes. The plants available to the horse become narrower and often richer.

Gut health, soil health and biodiversity are connected. If we simplify the environment too much, we should not be shocked when the animals living in that environment start showing health problems.

Then there is management.

Many horses now live on smaller properties with less movement, alone, more confinement, richer grass, more hard feed, more rugging, more stress, and more weight gain. A lot of equines who are easy keepers are being managed in environments that are simply too rich and “comfortable” for them.

And then there is the other part: we are also better at recognising the signs now.

Years ago, a lot of horses were probably called “a bit footy,” “arthritic,” “lazy,” “old,” “pottery,” “sore after a trim,” or “not great on hard ground.”

Now we are more likely to recognise those signs as possible low-grade or subclinical laminitis, insulin dysregulation, PPID, or metabolic stress.

So I think the answer is, the grass, the paddocks, and the way we keep horses changed. The amount of movement and the soil and plant diversity changed. And our understanding of early metabolic and laminitic signs improved.

Grass is not evil for every horse.

But for some horses, especially metabolic horses, grass can be the trigger that keeps the disease process going.

And if that horse is already showing signs of laminitis, stretched white line, footiness, thin soles, abnormal growth, strong pulses or chronic hoof capsule changes, then “just a little grass” is not a useful management plan.

We have to manage the horse in front of us, in the environment we have now.