Most trimmers, myself included, have been bringing heels back every month, to the back of the frog and not listening to this important directive. If heels keep coming forward they need to be there. Trimmer Maureen Tierney from KY experimented with this and decided to just back up the toe. Sure enough over short shift, the hooves rehabilitated quickly, heels went back, toes shortened, flare disappeared…and often before it grew out! There remains so much we don’t understand about this very complicated, seemingly bionic structure. I hope you will look into the Hoof Guided Method of trimming. It works and for the owner trimmer, it’s less work!

Over the summer, trimmer Maureen Tierney, shared some hoof photos from her herd and those of her clients. Her results were amazing. There is less work for the trimmer and the horse gets a foot he wants, quickly. I began the Hoof Guided Trim in August, 2012. Within 2 weeks, Sunny’s front hooves decontracted more. So much so that I had to remove the Easy Care Power Straps on his Glove Boots. Within a month his ‘long’ foot shortened a half size.

Here is the Hoof Guided Method (according to my interpretation; errors are my own.)

Do not nag the foot. I was trimming every 2 weeks to keep Sunny in ‘balance’, my idea of balance! Now I trim every 4-5 weeks, allowing him to make dramatic changes.

Within parameters, leave the heels alone! I haven’t touched his heels since August, 2012, and they have remained the same low height, and have moved back under him, slowly. Let the horse take his heels down and back as the foot rehabs. Remember that in rehab a lot has to happen.

Assess the heels as they stand over the live sole plane. Do not sight down the leg. To find the live sole just scratch away at the seat of corn in front of the heels with your hoof pick. No need to cut with a knife. If the heels are taller than 1/2″ over the heel, rasp them to 1/2″.

•  If the two heels vary more than 1/4″, make them equal. Otherwise let your horse pound down on the back of his foot building better frogs, above it thicker digital cushion and overall denser back-of-foot. Success in Barefeet is all about a strong back-of-foot.

Use sole concavity to guide the trimming/backing up of the toes

•  Mark 10:00 to 2:00 on the toe.
• Feel where the sole concavity is, beginning at the frog and moving towards to the toe. Where it levels off, make a mark. Do this around the entire toe. Connect the marks and you will have a crescent, called the Sole Ridge. By the end of rehab, your horse’s toe will end about 1/4″ to 1/2″. The space beyond the concavity will include The White Line or Lamina, The Inner Wall and The Outer Wall, only.
•  Mark 1/2″ in front of the Toe Sole Ridge, or the crescent, to begin the toe bevel. This is also called Backing Up The Toe. Rasp a 45 degree creating the toe bevel. This will help your horse ‘break over’ the toe closer to where he would like to. If you horse has a shorter toe, begin backing up the toe 1/4″ in from of the concavity or Sole Ridge. In the end, the concavity of the sole should run to the White Line or Lamina. (Break Over: When the heel lifts, the toe breaks over.)

Add the Mustang Roll to the outer wall from the bottom, from heel to toe to heel. That is, bevel or rasp an angle on the edge. Without this mustang roll, the mechanical stress coming from the perimeter wall on the ground will pull the hoof wall away from the coffin bone. This is the essential error with a Pasture Trim or Farrier Trim.

And trimming from the Top or above the horse, apply a mustang roll around the rest of the foot, beginning at the heels. Roll top and bottom to make a nice round edge, like the toe of your sneaker.

What the trim doesn’t do:

1. This trim does not trim flare off the outer wall. It grows out naturally. Sometimes what we think is wrong, actually gives the horse some support. Sometimes the flare, which is disconnected lamina, may reattaches. Or perhaps something else is going on? In other words, I have seen the flare disappear before it grew out!
2. The trim doesn’t keep bringing heels back. Heels bring heels back.
3. Except for flaps, don’t trim the sole. When the sole is ready to exfoliate, it will. Concavity is grown not trimmed. Ignore Retained Sole as it will exfoliate when no long needed.
4. Except for flaps, don’t trim the frog. If the frog isn’t a huge, robust structure, do soak once a week in the treatment of your choice:  White Lightening or 10% bleach and water or 50% apple cider vinegar and water or 2T Lysol and water. 30 minutes. Treat diligently. Most owners, myself included, don’t keep at it long enough. Consider ‘No Thrush Powder’ and other treatments for every other day treatment. Avoid Thrush Buster as that kills healthy tissue.
5. If your horse has a sore frog, create the Toe Bevel further from the sole ridge, and seriously treat the frog until it has been healthy for a month. People stop too early, in my view.
6. Oh, and if your horses hoof is flat, bevel the other wall, top and bottom and check in a month. You will probably see a tighter connection growing out the hairline and concavity will begin to form. You could also get an online consult as detailed below.

So that’s it. Leave the heels alone. Bevel the toe when concavity doesn’t reach the white line-inner wall-outer wall. Bevel the outer wall from the top and bottom, creating the mustang roll.  24/7 turnout. Pea Gravel in loafing area. Go ride, a lot. If your horse isn’t 100% happy barefoot, use Easy Care boots until he is. In the winter, put some Easy Care Quick Studs on the back of your boots, 3-9, and off you go.

For $10, Maureen will review photos of your horses feet (4 views of each) and make trimming recommendations.

She offers an online course that is very affordable, as well as clinics if you are near Harned, KY.

Photos to follow.

Summer 2013 video to follow. Any local video experts near Delaware?

I am glad to offer clinics if you can gather some interested students. I also include bodywork.

Sunny wins his only race in April, '04. Finds himself at New Holland auction in June.

Racehorse Feet: Shelly, thin walls chip at the bottom; laminitic rings indicate high sugar and stress; poor overall shape due to shoeing

Butt Cracks means Thrush in all four. Sunny would never land heel-first on these painful frogs. Stay on top of your frogs!

Racehorses are in pretty bad shape right off the track and my thoroughbred Sunny, who I found at the Lost and Found Rescue in York, Pa. was no exception. He came to Bittersweet Farm in Unionville, Pa. in the late summer of 2004 where I introduced him to a small herd. He lived out for the following year. Micro tears of soft tissue and bones healed. He added weight. His muscle distribution began to normalize with constant movement in a pasture with hills. Dr. Patti Blakeslee, his chiropractor worked on Sunny about every 4 months for the first year.

Only Krystin Dennis, Equine Dental Consultant, touches these pearly whites.

I introduced clicker training as we began the basics: cross ties, leading, out of my space. And of course I began some tricks, with Sunny outside the heated tack room and me inside on a stool! I found dentist Krystin Dennis a year later and she gave him a balanced mouth. It took several visits to get his mouth just right but with his TMJ correct, his entire spine and way of going improved.

Using Clicker Training as taught by Alex Kurland I did a lot of desensitizing because I wanted a calm and reliable trail companion. I began having him “target” (touch) easy objects like cones and brushes. Then we moved on to being touched by pool noodles, or allowing the long end of the lunge whip to encircle his barrel, crossing wooden (noisy) bridges and climbing on large mounting blocks. When confronted by a monster on the trail, my horse touches it when I                                                                          ask him to “target”, click and treat.

In this more advanced request I ask How Many Things Can You Do with a … Barrel? Each new behavior gets a click (To mark the behavior wanted)  and a treat (Think of it as his salary).

Touch the top.

Check out the bottom.

This plastic one is even more fun! (and is good for the body)

And over time, much to the shock of vets and farriers alike, Sunny’s racehorse feet turned into gorgeous thoroughbred feet. The outer wall or horn quality is exquisite due to diet and movement. Although he may get some laminitic rings in the spring and even lose a bit of wall-to-coffin bone connection, he doesn’t go lame. (That has been my experience with most horses. With the natural trim, they get through the spring without a bad step.)  I just tweak the trim so that the “rotated wall” does not injure any more laminae. The ‘tweak’ is a stronger angle on the mustang roll.

Thoroughbred Feet can be Gorgeous. Beautiful horn. Lovely shape. Rock hard.

We just put on boots for rides on rocky terrain in Woodlawn Preserve.

We love to hack out in the snow, barefoot of course.

Turnout, a correct diet, a Balance International Saddle and hacking out on hilly terrain got us quite far in Sunny’s rehab but I knew his body could get better. I just didn’t know how to do it. Then I found Jill Wilcox of Tory Hill Farm in Glen Mills, Pa. Sunny moved to her 100 acre horse farm in May, 2010. For the first month I wasn’t entirely clear what we were doing nor why but I had faith in her method and just kept at it. It took a while for the parts to fall into place. Every morning from 10:30-1, we began with body work, then in-hand, basically just walking with him trying to understand his movement, ground driving, again to understand how the hind was driving the horse. Finally I learned to ride the hind and get off the front end!

Asking the Abs to contract and lift the relaxed back to my soft seat, I imagine encircling the ball with one leg yield.

Jill said, “Become a Centaur, like the painting in the arena (she had done). Ride like her. Sunny’s hind end is yours.” And for the month of May we walked, in-hand and mounted, riding off a noseband, later adding a neck ring, on pads or saddle without stirrups. “When you ask him to yield, crossing his hindleg under the body and engage, imagine his body is a ball. Think of asking the ball to lift to your seat,” Jill said as she sat on an exercise ball for demonstration. One part of the “Ring of Muscles” for self carriage as described by Dr. Deb Bennett in her series on Conformational Analysis, is contracted abdominals that lift the relaxed back to my soft seat.

Initially my plan was to stay at Tory Hill for the summer, then the fall but as winter approached I asked if I could continue working with Jill. Sunny’s entire body has muscled up so nicely and it seems like every day or so, I get another insight into creating the ideal partnership. My riding improved with Jill’s suggestion to “float” the trot when I am out on the trails. I intend to publish more details on her training.

As I write the ground is a nasty combination of slush and ice but normally I hack out after lessons or in lieu of. And there are days we go to the arena in the afternoon and revisit all his early “tricks” like fetching, dunking his basketball, playing soccer with Jill’s huge exercise ball. Mixing it up is fun for both of us. This past Christmas, Santa treated us to a used truck and stock trailer. When the weather clears we will  visit our favorite trails in the Woodlawn Preserve on a weekly basis, trotting hills, enjoying a hand gallop around the hay fields and soaking up the beauty of the Brandywine River Valley.

I always find synchronicity a fascinating occurrence. Here is the long and circuitous journey of my trip to Panama to teach the natural trim. In 2007, Mario Chamorro, horse owner, finca (farm) owner, cattleman, engineer and business owner, was moving a herd of Brahman steer one day when his horse threw a shoe. Most horse owners can sympathize; we have felt the same frustration. That event initiated his search for better hoofcare. His farrier pulled the shoes, Mario bought a rasp and based on his research he began trimming. Mario lives at the eastern end of Panama, in Panama City.

Meanwhile, at the western end of Panama in Boquete (pronounced: boo-ke-tay), Carol Delonis, owner of Boquete Mountain Safari Tours, had a similar experience during the summer of 2009. While on one safari tour, one of the horse’s hind shoe became interlocked with the front shoe, same side. The guide eased the tourist out of the saddle and fortunately a local Panamanian was there to help unlock the horse shoes. The fact that the horse remained calm is a testament to Carol’s excellent choice of horses; most in her herd are Paso Fino’s or Paso crosses.

Carol immediately called her farrier, Eliezar, and had him remove shoes on the entire herd before there was a serious accident. A few days later, as synchronicity would have it, Carol stumbled upon an internet photo of mustangs from western United States. In the series of photos, the feral horses floated across rocky terrain. She set about learning how her safari horses could go barefoot as well.

In the summer of 2009, Mario found trimmer Marjorie Smith’s site on-line and began learning the natural trimming style from her, via e-mail.

As luck would have it, several months later, Mario was attending a local Quarter Horse Convention and saw a poster of Carol’s that advertised barefoot horse care. Within a week he called her and offered to help organize a clinic in the Chiriqui Province where Carol lives. Mario immediately contacted Marjorie Smith for her advice for a practitioner.

Marjorie and I, long time friends, attend monthly meetings on equine clicker training, a passion for both of us. I vividly remember chatting with her after the meeting. It was a warm November evening in Elverson, Pa. I recall Marjorie asking me, “I have a crazy question for you. Would you be interested in helping some folks in Panama get started with the natural trim?”

Honestly I didn’t think longer than a few seconds. “Of course I would,” I told Marjorie. I love teaching and offering a clinic to teach owners to trim their personal horse was a perfect extension of the 1:1 training I had been doing for years. And so what became “No Hoof….No Horse, Boquete Natural Balance Horse Week” and my trip to Panama was set in motion.

It was probably foolish but I did no research on Panama, Carol or Mario. My focus was the horses and I let the details sort themselves out. Since I am not under 400 horses a month, who better to travel on behalf of barefoot horses! As my husband and friends became excited about my impending trip, I laughed at them, “How great could it be?” I asked. “It’s a frickin’ canal!” Little did I know the paradise I was about to discover. Panama is a well kept secret. Frankly one I hesitate to publicize here.

I left all the organizing details to Carol and fortunately she proved to be an expert in that area. I focused on researching and designing a one day clinic (I did several of them) based on information I had learned over the last eight years primarily from barefoot farrier Pete Ramey and Dr. Bob Bowker but also Jaime Jackson, K.C. LaPierre and Dr. Eleanor Kellon (nutrition). I pulled together case studies with photographs of the rehabilitation of shod and barefoot horses, and horses with a multitude of pathologies. And much to my husband, Drew’s sagrin, I began busily trimming and cooking cadaver feet transforming them into hoof and bone models for my clinics. I already had a feral brumby hoof from Brian Hampson of The Wild Horse Research Project.

I only asked two things of Carol; she did not let me down:
1) Don’t cost me any money,
2) Let me work with the horse owner on their own horse. For this to work, I think the owner must understand what’s going on with their personal horse. Working on a cadaver foot or a horse at a clinic is not adequate.

Mario, Carol and I picked on a date in January, 2010 before the busy tourist season; Mario booked the ticket. I took a 4 hour flight from Newark, NJ to Panama City; then a puddle jumper to David (pronounced: da-veed) where I finally meet Carol Delonis, an bubbly American from Massachusetts with a shock of white hair. She drove me to my home base, Rancho de Caldera. My stay at Gina McCall’s “boutique hotel” was nothing short of magnificent, ‘a siesta for the soul’, she calls it.

First we worked on Carol’s horses who were pastured on an adjacent farm. I was told the horses had been sore after each trim. Whenever I hear that common complaint, I know they were over-trimmed and mostly probably the heels were lowered too much. The heels should be high enough to keep the horse comfortable but as low as possible. Typically the variance is small; 1/16” to ½” over the sole.

The heels on the Boquete herd had been rasped down to the sole, leaving the horses sore. They were forced to take short steps, landing first on their toes. This is a recipe for disaster. In the traditional world, this is called “navicular disease or syndrome”. In my world it is called Back-of-Foot Pain. Except for making sure the heels were balanced, I left them alone enabling the horses to walk heel-first on everything but the rockiest roads. Lots of heel-first landings will develop the back of the foot: the frog, and internally the lateral cartilages and digital cushion.

Another common problem, the farrier trimmed the bottom wall flat rather than rolling the wall. At home we call this the pasture trim; it’s fast, easy and detrimental to the horse. Because of this the horses were unable to grow out flare, the disconnection of wall to coffin bone. The disconnection is actually ongoing tear of the laminae. In 8 years of practice, I rarely see a horse with excellent wall connection. The horses in Panama could be found in any barn back home.

I applied the mustang roll on the outer and inner walls. (4 photos) I put a bevel or angle on the wall from the bottom. Later I will put a bevel from the top and round the edge off, creating the mustang roll. This simple yet critical roll of the wall is the difference between excellent functional hooves and the lameness. Flare on most of the horses will grow out in 3-4 months.

The untrimmed soles will thicken during this rehabilitation period. The coffin bone will move up in the capsule where it belongs (or capsule will relax down around the coffin bone. Authorities are arguing this point. No doubt it’s a bit of both) and concavity will develop from the frog to the edge of the sole. Concavity is not trimmed, it is grown! And it can be grown on all horses. There are no congenitally flat footed horses. A thick sole mirrors the bottom of the coffin bone. Hooves will vary according to weather, diet, movement and terrain.

Healthy frogs are not trimmed. Over time, especially in the dry season from December to April, they will become increasingly thick and callused. Healthy frogs allow a horse to land heel first and as he does, this correct landing develops the internal structures. With an incorrect trim or with shoes, the internal structures do not develop. This is why we find juvenile digital cushions on a 20 year old retired racehorse who has lived in shoes his whole life.

The feet on most of the horses showed thick walls, some sole concavity, frogs free of thrush. I advised the owners to trail ride in the hills during the rest of the dry season and stay off the rocky roads and paths as much as possible. I expect most of the horses will handle any condition in a few months. Easy Care Epics with half inch pads are always an option for horses that don’t become sound enough for the work required of them.

One horse actually needed boots because she had blown out her laminae on both sides of both front hooves, mostly likely from abscesses. With such an unstable coffin bone, it will take the growth of at least half wall-to-coffin bone connection via the laminae to make her comfortable. Alternatively she could have off.

Pepino arrives back at the Rancho for his trim.

The hooves of the shod horses I saw on another farms looked pretty bad: thin walls, thin flat soles, small and unhealthy frogs, very long hoof capsules with flare. In one case, we pulled the shoes and I gave his two horses a very light trim, with special attention to leaving the heels balanced but high enough, to protect what little back of foot the horses had. These two active horses were fitted with padded Easy Care Epic boots and they both trotted right off. In fact they trotted off sound on grass, barefooted too. The owner called to report they had a great one hour trail ride the next day and he planned to compete in barrels that weekend! I wouldn’t have recommended that but who listens to the trimmer?

I did see unusual barefeet at one farm and it took some reflection to understand what was going on. They just looked like blocks of wood. The farrier had rasped the entire bottom of the foot by a half inch and had removed all wall flare with the rasp. This had the effect of robbing the hooves of their natural mechanics. Surprisingly, the horses weren’t lame. I demonstrated the basic trim and in a few months the hooves will normalize.

As the natural trim is applied, many changes will occur:
* The owner will see a nice wall connection develop from the hairline, and the flare will grow out.
* The sole will concave, mirroring the coffin bone rising in the capsule/capsule relaxing down.
* The heels will decontract as the frog and above it, digital cushion, becomes healthy and functional
* As the coffin bone rises in the capsule, (or the capsule descends around the coffin bone) the toe and heels will naturally shorten.

In general most of the horses in Panama had the same kind of feet I see at home. It’s all a variation on a theme. On most horses, the foot the horse wants is located at the top of the hoof, right below the hairline. Jaime Jackson called this the “healing angle”. Because of shoeing and unnatural trimming, flares develop and are maintained, never growing out. When the wall deviates from the coffin bone, ripping the laminae, it is called flare. I believe all horses with flare are experiencing pain. It is common for horses getting a natural trim to not only grow beautiful and functionally correct feet but to become healthier and more energetic. I attribute this to the elimination of chronic pain and to the reestablishment of full blood flow to healthy, regrown internal structures in the hooves, namely lateral cartilages and digital cushions.

I probably worked on 15 or 20 horses during my stay in Panama. I didn’t have any time off but I didn’t mind. Rehabbing horses is my passion. Still a girl has to eat! Although it was tough to pass up Chef Craig’s sumptuous ethnic offering for lunch and dinner at the Rancho, I only treated myself to 2 dinners.

What I loved even more was catching one of the horses, the same ones Carol uses for her safari rides, around 4 pm. At the end of my first full day, I hopped on Gina’s personal horse, Shaggy, and rode into Caldera for dinner at Melissa’s Restaurant. It was a 30 minute ride on small dirt roads. Horses are common transportation in this small town in the far west of Panama so I didn’t look too out of place. (Except for the not looking Panamanian that is.) Upon reaching Melissa’s, I removed the bridle, tied Shaggy up to the pole and asked Melissa for a bowl of water!

In baby Spanish I ordered “un comida con polo”, one meal with chicken. That kept our conversation to something I could understand. I will say that I loved every minute of my ten day stay including the 3 clinical presentations, working hands-on with both the “Gringos” and local Panamanians, visiting farms to work on yet more horses and traveling with Mario to the furthest end of Panama to trim his colt, Young Playboy.

But I can’t imagine anything topping my evening dinners at Melissa’s, sitting outside on the verandah, watching the locals walk or ride by and enjoying Shaggy’s whiny to any horse that might be in the area.

For more information on:
Boquete Mountain Safari Tours
Rancho de Caldera

Can You Lower Your Head? is a Foundation Exercise. He lowers from the slightest poll pressure. You can see what a wonderful stretch this is for the top line. We teach the head lowering from a variety of cues, some that transfer nicely to riding. Why? Because a horse with his head down, is a calm horse.

Secondly Peanut has learned to put all four feet on a small stand. What trust he must have in his trainer!

Below, Can you touch the target is another Foundation Exercise. Here Peanut offers to touch the “dressage wand” when it is placed above his head. This is an advancement from touch it right around and below his head. Extensions of this exercise are: Can you walk while touching the target (TTT)? Can you back while TTT? Can you stretch to the side and TTT? Can you reach between your front legs and TTT (one way to teach the bow)? See Alex’s books for more suggestions.

A horse who can touch and follow a target can also touch a Scary Objects while on the trail. These exercises form a basis for desensitizing work: walk over water, walk over tarp, touch flapping tarp, walk through a wall of moving plastic flaps, etc.

Then say hi to your new healthy horse. Good bye to rain rot, thrush, hives, scratches or ”thin skin”.  No more shelly Racehorse feet. Just a beautiful coat, an easy-keeper body, lovely gaits, energy to spare and a Very Happy Horse.

Wow, that sounds just like my rescued race horse, Love Sunny Days, by Not For Love (Northview Stallion Station)

Here is Sunny only 5 months into a Natural, Barefoot Lifestyle

Both Hind Feet

Left Front Hoof

Look at these “shelly”, thin-soled Thoroughbred feet! Easily rehabbed with trim, movement and diet.