HoofNexus

Xenophon was a Greek military commander who wrote what is believed to be the 2nd book (in Western Civilization, the first being written by an Athenian horse trainer named Simon) on the art of horse care with particular emphasis on war horses. Long before the Middle Ages barbaric practice of nailing steel to a hoof, horsemen/cavalrymen knew how to keep a horse’s barefoot hooves sound.

I give you Xenophon in his own words as translated by Morgan.

‘While it is very important to attend to food and exercise in order to keep the horse sound, it is just as important to pay attention to the feet. A damp and smooth floor ruins even naturally good hooves. To prevent the floor being damp, it should be sloped with drains, and to avoid a smooth surface, cobble stones should be sunk side by side in the ground and they should be the size of the horse’s hoof A stable floor of this type is designed to harden the feet of the horses standing on them.

Then surely it will be the groom’s job to lead the horse out to be combed and brushed, and after the morning’s feed to untie the horse from the feed bin, so that the horse will take greater delight in the evening feed. To make the best type of stable yard and with a view to strengthening the horses feet, I would suggest to procure and spread out on the surface, four or five wagon loads of pebbles, each as large as can be grasped in the hand, and about a pound in weight. These should all be fenced round with a skirting of iron to prevent them scattering. The mere fact of the horse standing on these will have precisely the same effect as if the horse were walking along a stony road for some time each day.

The horse, while being brushed or being annoyed by flies, will be forced to use the hooves just as much as if the horse were walking. A surface covered in this way with stones will also tend to harden the frog.

Just as care is needed to make the hooves hard, a similar effort should be taken to make the mouth and jaws soft The same methods and equipment which will make a persons flesh soft, may be used with the same effect on a horse’s mouth.’

I tell clients they can’t ride a horse on ground tougher or harder than what their horse lives on. For some, this isn’t a problem. But for those folks who seem to think the essence of horse riding is down the stone beds of railroad tracks, well then, they just have to get the same rock and make sure the horse spends a few hours every day on that rock. Riding on asphalt helps as well. But the idea is to train the hooves for the hardest, toughest terrain they will be used on. Seems like pretty good advice for any athlete: train for what you will be doing.