Cindy Valoura - Cross Equine Consulting, LLC

11/09/2025

The absence of grass - like this image - is what so much of the terrain in their natural / adaptive habitat looks like!

We don’t sell dirt, rocks or hay! 😂 If most domestic grass pastures were good for horses, we would promote that as a path to good health. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Of course, they do need access to safe forage at all hours of the day just as they have in their natural habitat.

Pic by

11/07/2025

11/07/2025

If you are in need of excellent pig trimming I recommend Flip Side Hoof Care. 🐷

Talk about relief! Good girl, Sunny😘🐷



Www.mohrmethodgroup.com

✌️❤️🐖🏃‍♀️

11/07/2025

Photos from one of today’s trims - This was a setup trim meaning it was the first trim I have done on this horse. She had a lot of overgrown hoof wall and bar as well as compacted sole material that was likely left in but should have been removed during previous trims. Underneath it all were pretty nice hooves. Thankfully she was a perfect “Lady” for her trim and for that I’m grateful 😊

11/05/2025

Horse are herd animals! If you think your horse doesn’t like to be out with other horses, if is likely that you just don’t understand the species and that your horse may have been traumatized by the isolation from members of its species and needs to be allowed to recover or heal. Depression, despair and detachment in horses can be read as contentment.

Photo of two young wild and free-roaming foals living naturally and freely in the U.S. Great Badin by

11/03/2025

Heard of the natural trim but do you understand the principles? The practice?

The natural trim is a humane barefoot trim method that mimics the natural wear patterns of wild, free roaming horses in the U.S. Great Basin and other similar adaptive biomes. But it is but one pillar of natural horse care.

In order to achieve hooves like this, diet, management, trimming, lifestyle and environment must be in sync with the biology of the animal. Symptoms of good health and the wear characteristics of naturally shaped hooves are not carved but will emerge when we provide our domestic horses with the pillars of species appropriate natural horse care.

If interested in learning more, check out the website and read as much material (books, articles, essays and posts) as you can by Jaime Jackson.

Your horses will do well if you use the wild and free roaming horses living naturally in the U.S. Great Basin as your model for their diet, lifestyle, environment and horsemanship.

Photos by

10/30/2025

Pictures often surprise me because it can be easy to forget where we began. I first trimmed this horse on 4/7/25 and the top photos in each comparison were taken after the trim. The bottom photos were taken by me today, 10/30/25. Six months of changes. The entire shape of these feet have changed and this sweet horse is back to being ridden.

10/29/2025

10/24/2025

❤️

Somewhere Along the Way, We Mistook Preservation for Welfare

I’ve decided to pivot. I was heading in one direction with doing a series, planning to stay balanced, measured, and focused on the science, but after weeks of working on these posts, I kept landing in the same place.

Every time I tried to make it neutral or balanced, to show both sides, I kept circling back to the same uncomfortable truth I didn’t want to water down.

After writing, rewriting, and collecting studies for weeks, I realized something:

The research has already been clear for years.
It’s not about proving the risks anymore.
It’s about asking why we keep justifying them.

I’m not speaking about short-term, once-in-a-while stalling, not rehab, weather holds, brief hours of rest, or decisions made with their health in mind.

I’m talking about confinement in the name of preservation.
Stall time that exceeds turnout time, a lifetime spent inside instead of out.
The kind that removes a horse’s freedom under the guise of keeping them show-ready, preserved, pristine, but no longer living as a horse.

There are endless studies documenting the risks of confinement, physically and mentally.
I’ve read them, collected them, cited them.
But no amount of studying changed what the science kept showing me, confinement isn’t welfare.

A horse is meant to be a horse.
And being a horse means the ability to roll, graze, rest, move, and socialize.

According to the Five Domains of Animal Welfare, wellbeing is built on nutrition, environment, health, behaviour, and mental state, and the Three F’s, freedom, friends, and forage, form the foundation of every one of those pillars.

So ask yourself: when a horse spends more time in a stall, isolated and confined, than turned out, is that supported by either of those models?

Every measure of welfare science says no.

When we take those things away, when we isolate, confine, and micromanage them, especially in the name of performance, we’re not protecting them.
We’re exploiting them.

And if the end goal, the prize and reward for good performance, is to one day “retire outside,” then we’ve already admitted there’s something wrong with the “care” they receive today.

We can’t call it care if it only exists on our terms or for our benefit.

Because at the end of the day, if being “the best” means taking away everything that makes a horse a horse, then maybe it’s time to question if we truly love the animal.

10/24/2025

Today at the office with the handsome ex racehorses, Maverick and Kirby. These tall guys have this great open access shelter in the barn where they can come and go as they please. Their owner reports that they have been choosing to be out and about on these cold rainy nights rather than in the shelter. No blankets, just freedom to choose where they want to be and when. 😃❤️

10/19/2025