12/15/2024
A long post, but worth the read. THIS is how you build solid hooves. The design of the hoof is incredibly effective, but only when the shape is as it was intended. 💪💪
This page has been active for over 10 years now. When I first started posting in 2014 I had been trimming for 8 years, and shoeing for 2 years before that. I had read the available hoof books and articles at that time and attended a few clinics, but the most valuable opportunity that had the biggest influence on my trimming was seeing fifty 2-3 yr old Arabs that were raised and living in a 300 acre bouldery hillside pasture at the base of the San Francisco peaks near Flagstaff AZ. These horses were tame enough that I could crawl around them and watch their feet grip and contort to the surface of the volcanic rock. I saw ,up close, hooves that had never lost their true frog/sole/wall proportions to distortion/flaring. The bold roll of the wall fit tightly around their supple full bodied frogs. The collateral grooves and sole were stood up steep and forming a bowl that was partially hidden from sight by the live tissue of the frog and the frog was suspended above the ground without any wall height. There was nothing keeping these horses from bolting from one end of the boulder scape to the other, their movement was fluid and effortless.
That day changed everything for me. After that I could only see how humans got in the way of the natural wonder that is the hoof. I wasn't seeing anyone else out there getting to these higher levels of hoof development that I had witnessed with these horses flying around in the lava rock fields. There was a lot of talk at that time online about diet and owner compliance and footing and weather, but no long term documentation with full rehabs, and no hooves with perfect grids or highly developed soft tissue…
no hoof building.
I found it hard to think of anything else besides getting a lava rock field for my horses. I had no money so buying land was a pipe dream. One day while trimming, I realized that the rough side of the rasp reminded me of the texture of the surface of the lava rock. My thinking switched from acquiring a lava rock field to simulating the miles of wear that my horse’s feet would get if they lived in that lava rock field.
I had a photographic image of those feet in my mind and I knew the difference between retained dead sole and frog that wears away easily and calloused live sole and frog that doesn’t wear as easily, so I just decided to mimic the appropriate amount of wear for every one of my 7 horses every week as long as I didn’t see any negative signs. There were no negative signs. I did those weekly trims for 7 years.
At that time my horses all lived in 12’ X 12’ stalls. I was blindly faithful, keeping the image of those beautiful hooves in my mind, for the first year of weekly trims and only going on the fact that my horses were all moving better (although I was still using boots to ride sometimes ). By the second year their feet were almost distortion free. By the third year they were starting to condition with healthier, thicker more supple structures. By the fourth year they all had undeviated, fully live, and well developed, high functioning hooves that didn’t need to be booted for riding. They all had low heels, deep soft tissue and live sole as evidenced by the deep collateral grooves, and perfect grids on their hoof walls made by the undeviated growth rings and horn tubules. I kept the weekly trims going for 3 more years until they reached optimal development. Or can they keep improving? Is there a limit?
After that 7 years of weekly trims I had to quit my experiment because I had 150 client horses on a 2 week trim schedule and I was running out of the energy for my own. I ended up building my horses a track system and importing sand, then backing off to a 1-3 week trim schedule for them. Their feet “deflated” slightly but they stayed healthy and undeviated from P3.
It’s been over a decade since I ended that experiment and I’ve applied all the lessons that I learned from it to every horse I’ve ever trimmed since. Their trim schedules vary depending on the clients wishes and the travel distance, but I trim every horse very similarly. I remove the dead layers from the frog and sole, and put a perfect 1/2 round roll around the wall from inside of one heel around to the other. Since I’m simulating miles of wear for a sentient being, I’m very careful about the details. Every horse has a different opinion on exactly how long or short to trim, but it’s been my experience that they all like the weight bearing on the inner wall, with less of the load on the frog, sole, and quarters. I’ve applied this with excellent results on everything from rehabbing foundered horses to improving performance for working ranch horses.
From this experiment and from my experience since, I don’t believe in only maintaining or managing hooves anymore. They’re either building or breaking down. There are dependable signs that tell you which direction the feet are going in:
-The grid
-The angle of the central sulcus
-The contour of the sole
-The heel/frog/seat of corn shapes and relationship
-The depth and contour of the collateral grooves.
Put these all together and they provide some solid cross references to keep you on track.
By applying this simulated wear pattern and learning to read the horses' individual feedback, I was consistently rehabbing hooves from severely distorted to highly developed. It was addictive, and I was annoying my wife and daughter with my hoof building obsession. They were always supportive, but also wished I had another outlet. They told me I should start taking and posting photos myself, instead of just complaining all the time about the poor quality of trim advice and hoof documentation available on FB.
I never did it with the intention of gaining “a following.” That line of thinking makes me cringe, and I try not to think about how many people are interested in what I have to say. But somehow here we are with over 50k people having clicked “follow,”and I am grateful, humbled and hopeful. Hopeful for the future of horses and their Hoofcare.
I am lucky to have a pretty solid bu****it detection system surrounding me. I rarely post anything unless it's been run by Stephanie, Claudia or Mollie first. If you've been to a clinic, you know I have a lot to say. They manage to pick through my rambling and help narrow it down to the point I'm trying to make. They all know when I'm coming from a place of ego, and are quick to stamp that out. It always has to be for the horses.
For the rest of December we will be resharing some posts from throughout the last 10 years. If you remember the first post that got you here, or if there are any topics you want to see covered, please let us know in the comments.
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