HoofNexus

Or Why Every Horse Deserves A Physiologically Correct Barefoot Trim.

Two things require explanation here.

First, Physiologically Correct, as in meeting the bio-physiological needs of the horse. There are a whole lot of things in conventional wisdom that are for sure, true as can be, I know for certain ’cause my vet told me so and ‘that’s the way my farrier done my horse.’ Like trim the hoof capsule to the same angle as the shoulder or the pastern. It shouldn’t take more than a moments reflection on that country myth to know what’s wrong with it and that there isn’t a shred of truth in it. There’s a manure spreader full of nonsense out there but, for today, I want to concentrate on a few things that it does mean and leave the wild ass guessing to others.

It means that the hoof is in Anterior/Posterior balance. Front to back. It means that it is balanced Medio-laterally. Side to side. It means that the bottom of the wall in the quarters area is not in a plane with the toe or heel buttresses but are slightly concave to that plane to allow the hoof capsule to deform properly. It means the bars are trimmed in a rising slope from anterior to posterior. It means that the coronet band is a plane and not bowed up or down. It means that for the size of the hoof and weight of the horse there is an appropriate convexity of the solar surface. It means the hoof capsule is trimmed so that when the horse is standing squared up, his coffin bone is ground parallel.

If that’s all true, and it is, it means that NO shoe, EVER, should be NAILED to a horse’s hoof. I am still astounded at how dense people are with what is wrong with nailing steel to the bottom of a horse’s hoof. Maybe it was my years of schlepping across parking lots in ski boots that made me sensitive to the issue of a fixed, non-flexing piece of steel on the bottom of a horses’s hoof but it just seemed instinctually wrong. Just a gut reaction that was strongly against it even since childhood. That little voice remained little and in the background until it came time to put shoes on my horse. Then it came rushing forward as NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This is just plain wrong. I couldn’t give you all the reasons at the time but there was no way in hell anyone was going to nail steel to the bottom of my horse’s hooves. Then I read Jamie Jackson and had reasons and clarity. Then I read Hiltrud Strasser and felt vindicated.