10th August, 2013 Barely Barefoot

I'm meeting more and more horses that are barefoot these days but I meet very few that are entirely comfortable being ridden out without anything on their feet. Sometimes that's because it's early days but more often it's because the owner is unable to completely commit to the time, effort and attention that barefoot really needs. It isn't just a matter of taking the shoes off and a normal six weekly trim - the feet need to be cared for and nurtured from the inside out. Special attention has to be paid to diet and environment as well as foot care and the type and frequency of of trim administered. It's not easy to do. Some horses just cannot make the transition (even those that have never had shoes on) without wearing boots to go out and about on more tricky terrain and a sore horse will alter its gait and attitude as time goes on. They're not just wary of the next step but of every step ahead. We can only guess at how painful the horse finds it to stand on stones. How long can a horse be expected to suffer as part of a transitioning process? Don't get me wrong, instinctively and intellectually my preference would be for all horses to be barefoot but not if the price they have to pay is months and months, or even years, of pain in the hope of them ever coming right.

Getting hoof boots can be a nightmare in itself. Rose's owner, Sian, is on her third supplier since January and the companies seem to be particularly tardy in getting her anything that will fit Rose's non-standard feet. Sian continues to experience poor communication and failure to act on emails, diagrams and photographs.

It's difficult to know where to draw the lines and make compromises - my two riding horses are shod all round these days having struggled without back shoes on the gravelly ground of the Forest. I knew that I didn't have the time, environment, conditioning regime, diet and paddock arrangements to sustain my horses barefoot.