Hoof Doctor

10/09/2024

This is some of the most important data you will see on breakover.

Scroll down to the link provided by Yogi to the article on research.

01/06/2024

This is a real problem in the world, too many schools teach that short toes are good when they will be the death of horses.

The rest of the system that these people recommend is a bit of a mess.

I certainly do not recommend there education system but that does not mean they have not stumbled upon the best way to treat Laminitis.

I would recommend looking into how fast horses recover when trimmed correctly and to ask more questions of anyone who wants to shorten the toes.

Should we keep these catastrophic hoof errors caused by human hand behind closed doors?

Or better still, blame it all on laminitis, and let the whole hoof care world OFF THE HOOK!

And whatever you do, for God’s sake don’t educate the owners in case they find out the truth.

In just 4 months, this pony went from a nicely rehabbing foot, growing out the lamellar wedge caused by high heels and dietary issues. The toe was on the ground, so feedback was working well, and the growth rates were equalizing heel to toe.

Then, in just 4 months, it turned into a foot in distress, with the pony becoming more unsound and compromised by the day. Why? Because the hoof care professional changed.

Our HMB Pro student couldn’t take the long journey across two countries to get to her client anymore, so her last trim on this pony was on January 24th, 2024.

While we tried to set this client up with a new HMB Pro, she had no choice but to employ another barefoot ‘specialist’ (who believes in chopping off toes - don’t they all it seems?).

On the first visit, he did the following:

- Belittled the owner and ignored her requests to leave the toe alone.
- Chopped off the toes and left the heels, bars, and quarters above the HSP.
- Charged the owner handsomely.

And he did this for three trims in a row until our new HMB Pro student was able to take over.

She had the pictures from her colleague of the trim on January 24th, so her eyes nearly popped out on stalks when she saw what had happened to this pony’s hooves in such a short space of time.

In just 4 months, he took a rehabbing foot and turned it into a ‘coke-can’ - a desperate foot with a very precarious P3. It would have been so easy to take up the mantle and carry on with this rehab… but no…
.. he caused P3 (the coffin bone) to become more and more positive. The pony started going downhill again.

Not only was this appalling hoof care, which we see ALL OF THE TIME, but he had no clue of the harm he was causing. He was too arrogant to see - and was probably one of the pros out there calling us a ‘cult.’

If this hoof had been x-rayed by a vet, they would have exclaimed, ‘this pony has rotation and laminitis!’ And round and round we go!

This was NOT LAMINITIS - this was HUMAN-ITIS!

Don’t let this happen to your horse, pony, or donkey.

Now we have to start the rehab all over again and hope P3 has not suffered too much.

Tut tut, equine world, for trying to shut us up and stop us from highlighting your errors. We aren’t the ones causing harm. You are! And we are teaching owners to finally WAKE UP to you.

You should have listened to us 15 years ago… but you decided to ridicule us instead. Now the owners are learning… and asking questions:

“Why are you chopping off the toes of my horse and leaving the heels high above the HSP?”



Hush now HM. 🤫

p.s. if this is your equine right now, join our free rehab group - The Phoenix Way: Path 2 Hoof Health

18/04/2024

Headed to see Daisy Alexis Bicking for 5 Days next week on her Face 2 Face clinic.

Going to be awesome

Recommended for anyone wanting to go big in hoof care. Daisy has been every where and learned a lot.

Still a couple of places available.

Lecture, Anatomy, Mapping, Trimming, Reading Radiographs for Hoofcare, Glue-on Composite Shoeing

08/10/2023

The horse that didn't die.

The fate of Horatio.

Horatio is a young Friesian just beginning life as a riding horse and learning from his favourite humans. Then things go wrong, so badly wrong.

He is learning Dressage and having fun and meeting other horses at dressage then his feet start to hurt a bit, then it gets worse. The end of December is not fun for Horatio, no more going out to play. Then in January he starts to feel reasonable and does a few rides then goes to the beach to play.

After this thing go downhill his feet get sorer then various new types of shoes are tried and more time standing around. Then he can no longer stand and the Vets visit again and his feet are starting to obviously founder.

In February he can no longer stand for more than a few minutes. He is developing pressure sores from laying down too long.

One Vet does a Venogram to see if his feet are getting a good blood supply, They are not and on the 2nd of February his owners are told there is no way to save him now. He is a young horse full of life and willing to fight on. He does not know why he can't stand even laying down is painful now and even his tummy is acting up from the lack of walking.

Mum spends time snoozing with him to keep him company.

Around mid February I was planning a trip to Victoria to meet up with Matt Rannstrom a farrier of 30 years and a Jim Masterton trained bodyworker for 10 years. We were both picking on KC Lapierre about over trimming feet with the plan of fixing them. We did not know each other but both were aware that showing people the wrong way to do things is not good when people do not understand the risks.

One of my clients from the Hunter Valley had a horse destined to be put to sleep 12 years ago for Navicular Syndrome. In 5 days in new shoes his horse was fine.

He asked if I wanted to look at Horatio while I was on the road. Phone calls and text messages flew all over and it was planned to see Horatio the first of March.

We discussed his diet and got the Speedibeet out as it is known to make horses fat and have sore feet.

The next night Horatio was not groaning laying down so we took that as a good sign.

He would have been trimmed by farriers and barefoot trainers 3-4 times in the last weeks of February. So much so that when I arrived late at night the question was asked what more could I do if the trimmer had declared 2 days before that there was nothing to trim and the same person had trimmed on the previous weekend.

It took over 1 hour to cut the bare minimum off, this included nearly 50mm of heels and frog.

In the previous 2 months no one had trimmed the back of the feet only the front.

The next day he was up and walking, 2 days later he was following his owner around the paddock while she cleaned the manure from the paddock.

He is no where out of danger yet but at least he can stand up. This is technically the worst that founder can get. It is only a slight mishap away from the hooves falling off the feet. Everyone had given up except the horse and his loving owner.

It was a long road to recovery but he is now being ridden 10km on Saturday and Sunday.

01/11/2021