Wilson Hoof Care

13/12/2021

21/11/2021

Look at this chunky little man! Sarge the Shetland Pony. He’s a bit nervous of anything taller than him but also full of gentle curiosity, inspecting my tools and saying a quiet hello to me after his trim. He also wonders if my hat is part of me or if it could come off but he was too shy to try remove it like most other horses do 😂

23/10/2021

Was well worth finding the patch of shade today, summer is on the way!

23/10/2021

I see you ♥️⁣
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I see you, showing up to spend sacred time with your horse as often as you possibly can 🐴 ⁣
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I see you, working hard all day at your job, so you can give your horse a healthy, happy life 🌱⁣
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I see you, continuing to work with your horse and allowing the process of trial and error, even though it can be SO difficult at times 😰⁣
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I see you, doing the challenging, sometimes even painful inner work that it takes to use compassionate horsemanship 🙏⁣
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I see you, with your big goals and incredible vision you hold for your horse’s future 🔮⁣
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I see you, diving back into learning and research when something in your training doesn’t work 📖⁣
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I see you, becoming aware of your reactions to your horse, bettering yourself so that your horse-human relationship can flourish 🦋⁣
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I see you, in love with the journey… The process that is horsemanship 🐎 👣⁣
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I see you. ⁣
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I would tell you “keep going, you're on the right track”...⁣
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But I know you will ♥️ You don’t need me to tell you.⁣
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I see your passion for this. I’m caught in awe and wonder of who you are.⁣
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You’re making a big difference in this world by focusing on your personal growth and ethical horsemanship practices 💞⁣
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Your ripple effect goes farther than you know 🌬⁣
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Thank you for being you 🌈⁣
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22/10/2021

Couldn’t help taking a photo of this beautiful eye today 😍 a sweet, sensitive mini mare named Rain.

11/10/2021

Im sooo looking forward to this course with equine body worker Maggie Ashley! Enrolment closes Friday 12 Oct. If you want to jump on board click the link to check it out. How lucky are we to have such dedicated people willing to share their knowledge so our horses can live better lives ❤️

🤨 I wonder why…? Why do you think…? 🧐

These are the questions that always lead me down the path of crazy investigation. They always start the things - the path of questioning and experimenting and finding out answers. And I love to ask them, because ‘I wonder’ all the time.

As much as I love to live in the ‘why’ and the ‘wonder,’ it is even more fantastic when you guys ask these questions as well. Because there is so much power in groups of people being curious about the same thing.
That is when we start to investigate deeply, and experiment, and question what always has been. We can pool our resources and our ideas, or lived experience and our clever brains.
We can, together, perhaps start to find a better way forward.

In creating an online skeletal anatomy workshop, I am hoping to be able to provide some answers or some further knowledge for you. For whatever path of investigation and learning you are on.
It is my dearest wish to be able to help you in this one, small way. To help you with whatever path of ‘I wonder..?’ you might be on.

I wonder what we might find out together? You should probably just join me, and help me find out 😘🦄

Enrolment closes Friday 15 October

equinefunctionaltherapy.com

📸 playing with the stifle joint, photo thanks to Sabrina Stephens

02/10/2021

😂

'World's best Farrier'

Our November image from the 2022 Calendar! I'm sure none of you are guilty of presenting your Farriers with Horses dripping in wet Mud... 🤣

©Emily Cole Illustrations

28/09/2021

Have officially added the grinder to my toolbox! This tool is particularly useful for horses with founder, inflammation or arthritis, when the pull and vibration of the rasp is uncomfortable for them, the grinder is a widely preferred option for our sensitive friends. The horse tells us what they prefer.

26/09/2021

There’s nothing like lockdown to make you appreciate face to face education! Feeling rejuvenated after a day of learning, asking questions that I’ve been stewing on and examining bones, X-rays and cadaver legs. I got to remove my first metal shoe and took home some bones for the start of my collection (I get the funny feeling I’m heading down a slippery slope… 😂) We looked at several examples of limb deviations and their effect on hoof growth/wear, dug up some bones that had been buried 4 months ago to see the effect of chronic founder on the coffin bone, mapped and trimmed some cadaver hooves (while they’re a bit gross I feel like we are honouring them by giving them a nice trim) and some live horses with slight limb deviations. All in all a very interesting day with a great group of people, Thankyou Megan for all the energy you give and another great clinic!

02/08/2021

29/07/2021

The importance of the 5 weekly trim cycle for our area. (One example of many)

Pictured below is a horse who is trimmed every 5 weeks. He has a very common conformation that turns his toes out slightly, like many of the horses I have seen in our area. He bears his weight more on the inside edge of his hoof, wearing it down between trims, while the outside edge grows longer. The longer the outside edge gets, the more weight is transferred to the inside, creating a vicious cycle. Already at 5 weeks this growth has affected the way he walks, obsorbs concussion during footfall and his muscle development. With an extra 3 weeks growth this hoof will be putting strain on the joints of his legs, right up into his shoulder and back muscles, he might become grumpy or spooky for no apparent reason. By this stage the hoof wall would also be pulling outwards, creating gaps for seedy toe to get in. Cracks would also be appearing, and seeing these many people would decide to book in their farrier. By 8 weeks, pressure will have begun to distort the hoof capsule and it will take months of good trimming for this to grow out and become a strong hoof again.

And that is why we have a 5 week trim cycle. I want to see the hooves that I work on actually improve, the horses become happier to move and their owners enjoy riding!

28/07/2021

My journey into trimming:

As a teenager my family ran a small riding school and we had 9 horses in our care for lessons, natural horsemanship, pony club, show jumping and dressage. It was the best childhood! My mum passed on her hoof trimming education and wisdom to me (along with pretty much everything else I know about horses!). Megan came out a few times to do our horses and gave me some golden pieces of advice. I remember listening to her explain about rolling the breakover and wondering if she might want a trainee one day? 🤔 More than ten years later, turns out she did! I have been on a life-altering ride learning all the things I knew I was missing plus so much more, I never would have believed I would spend my free time examining dead horses legs and learning anatomy 😂

I believe hooves are just one part of the big horse puzzle, they reflect what is happening in the body: conformation, muscle development, injury, paddock quality, amount of exercise, diet, even the horses emotional state, can all be read in their hooves. And in return, the hooves affect the body and emotional state - sore/unbalanced/long hooves can lead to a tense body, compensatory issues, a nervous/defensive horse, and what we see as behavioral problems.

It is a never ending journey of learning and I am so excited be there travelling along. We are lucky in our area to have some really great mentors and professionals, who specialise in each piece of the horse puzzle; hoof care, body work, muscle and posture development, connection and relationship. Mind. Body. Hoof.

I am so grateful that I get to spend my life getting to know and be friends with the beautiful creatures all over our community. Thanks for being here!

26/07/2021

Ohh handy.

COMMON PAIN & STRESS POINTS MAP

𝘉𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘩, 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘥𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴

Here are the most common stress and pain points Manolo finds on horses. Debranne Pattillo, owner of Equinology INC painted them on Clint during a presentation a couple of years ago. Here is a cheat list - you can look up the area in Equinology's book and learn all about them and how to address thel with massage.

a: temporomandibular joint
b: poll directly behind the ears
c: head obliques and other “head” (capitis) muscles
d: cervical portion of rhomboid and trapezius muscles
e: muscles converging at the base of the neck and at the neck/shoulder intersection (serrated cervical muscle, multifidi of the neck, brachiocephalicus, subclavius muscle)
f: muscles at and behind the shoulder joint (often found with “h”)
g: biceps brachii; on the cranial surface of the check (front); pectoral muscles next to sternum
h: flexor of the shoulder; tensor fasciae antebrachii and the long head of the triceps brachii
i: ascending pectorals
j: rear (caudal portion) and pocket of the withers; shelf of ribs at the scapula intersection
k: transverse abdomen muscle and hip flexors
l: multifidi of the trunk (especially lumbar) and muscles over the thoracolumbar epaxial muscles
m: middle gluteal trigger
n: cranial edge of biceps femoris and semitendinosus
o: ischial segments of the biceps femoris
p: superficial digital flexor and gastrocnemius
q: accessory gluteal
r:caudal nerve
s: mid-shelf of the rib
t: last rib
u:subclavius
Y: saddle fitting point (illiocostalis and scapula junction)
X: rider

To learn more about equine bodies and wellness please visit www.equinology.com

Free Poster:http://www.manolomendezdressage.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Equinology-and-Manolo-Stress-Point.pdf

Our friend Dr. Fiona Mead, Azur Holistic Veterinary Services made the following suggestions:
"Check out these points on your own horse by gently palpating or striping over the areas indicated. If you horse reacts on several repetitive touches, there could well be a problem. Why repeat it? Because it could just be sensitive to touch to start with. If the reactivity gets worse with multiple striping/touchings, this increases the likelihood of a muscle soreness or issue being present. Be careful if your horse goes to bite you in any of these areas - some are less tolerant than others, potentially because they are more sore and cannot stand to be touched in any way! Depending on the sensitivity of your horse, if you start too softly, you could annoy the horse and they think you are like a fly that needs removing from the area. Be purposeful but gentle in your touch. If you know your horse to be sensitive, start more gently."

What is Manolo doing in the pic?

Manolo was demonstrating his "metric system" for evaluating posture by looking at the angles of the horses profiles and shoulders.

To learn how to Train for Wellness™️ and get $10 USD OFF on Manolo's 3 hour introduction to in-hand work and lunging video in DVD or Streaming format go to:

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Offer includes:

+ 24- page in-hand work booklet (pdf)

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Offer Extended - ends 8/30/21.
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16/07/2021

Another great training day! Feeling so lucky to be learning from the best. The horse I was given had very twisty hooves due to angular limb deformities in her joints (this can often present as pigeon toe or toed out depending). The hooves wear unevenly between trims, placing extra pressure onto the joints. This is something I especially wanted to practice under Megan’s critical eye as the hooves present in various ways and need to be trimmed accordingly. While the conformation fault can never be fixed, we can keep the hooves nicely trimmed to the skeleton she has so she can move comfortably.

16/07/2021

There’s some really great podcasts on here, this one is what I’m so interested in at the moment! What imbalances in the hoof can be fixed with regular good trimming, what needs to be fixed with correct movement and muscle development, and what is a skeletal issue that can only be managed. Everything is connected and the hoofs are just a reflection of everything else, part of the cycle.

‎Show The Humble Hoof, Ep Balanced Rider, Balanced Hoof: Riding the Horse from the Inside Out with Deb Davies - Feb 12, 2021

16/07/2021

Imagine trimming a Giraffe 🦒!

13/07/2021

How to watch the Olympics - Dates & Timings below
EVENTING
DAY 1: 30 July
Eventing Dressage - Session 1 9.30am AEST
Eventing Dressage - Session 2 6.30pm AEST

Day 2: 31 July 9:30 AM AEST
Eventing Dressage Team & Individual

Day 3: 01 August 8:45 AM AEST
Eventing Cross Country

Day 4: 02 August 6:00 PM AEST
Eventing Cross country replay - 3:30 am AEST
Eventing Jumping Team & Individual 6:00 PM🥇

Timings are AEST (Sydney/Melbourne time)
Note: You can watch replays

signup for free
https://www.nbcolympics.com/equestrian

07/07/2021

03/07/2021

An easy way to visualise all those ligaments and tendons! 🧐
https://youtu.be/AGck-JnxutM

A computer-generated movie that accompanied my PhD thesis.The movie shows many of the major tendons and ligaments in the equine distal forelimb.The models of...

01/07/2021

Cooool the layers inside the hoof. This page ‘The study of the equine hoof’ is a great resource for seeing what’s inside the hoof capsule, and how it all goes together, if you’re interested… and not squeamish 😳

I was asked for a labelled photo, so here it is. Again it is very simplistic but it is the essence of what we are looking at.
And look how each part (not bone) is not blocks of static unmovable wood. Each part moves, has elasticity, connective tissue, and works together as a unit. One part fails and we are in big trouble. You can almost imagine this all moving inside the foot, very very tiny movements but it really does.

01/07/2021

This little cutie deserved his carrots for being a patient lesson pony.

01/07/2021

*This post is pinned to the top of the page*

Barefoot Hoof Trimming based in Nana Glen, servicing areas between Bellingen and Grafton. I am training with barefoot specialist Megan Matters (if you know her you understand why I feel so lucky to be one of her trainees!) in maintenance and rehabilitation trimming.

The aim is to help our horses grow the best hooves they can in the environment they live, striving for bony column alignment, compact hooves with thick concave soles, a wide healthy frog and a heel first landing for optimal shock absorption and digital cushion development. Achieving this can take a long time and most horses in our area are somewhere along the long road to this optimal healthy hoof. The lovely soft rich ground and regular rainfall on the East Coast of Australia keeps our horses fed year round, but it is not ideal for their hooves which cannot wear down naturally as they should.

My clients are on a regular 5 week cycle and receive handy reminder messages a week before.

Attached is a photo I took while I was tagging along with Megan on her rounds one day, such a good example of a great hoof in our area!