HORSES ALREADY HAVE SHOES

Take a few minutes to look underneath your horse. Attached to the end of his/her legs is one of the most, if not the most, sophisticated, complex and durable natural constructions ever seen in this wonderful world.

This is the horse's natural shoe. It has the most advanced hydraulic system you could imagine. It has a suspension system you could only dream of for your car. It is self-repairing. The more it is used, the better it gets. The rougher the going the tougher it is.

Why it is that we believe, faced with such an engineering marvel, that we need to nail shoes on to it to protect it is a modern mystery.

Everyone, interested in horses or not, has seen wild horses on the television. They manage to survive in Siberia and Mongolia at temperatures well below zero. They survive in the Namibian desert at temperatures we don't even want to think about. And where do Arabs come from?

We don't really know why shoes were first put on horses. There is a theory that at a time when Europe was a place full of castles, knights, and marauding bands of people keen on modifying national borders, it was necessary to keep horses, then a crucial element of any army, inside the castles, in small rooms. The result of this unnatural environment was that the feet became soft and needed shoes to protect them, particularly in battle, when a lame horse would be a serious liability. Equally, it may have been that steel attached to a charger's feet helped damage the enemy in battle. We just don't know. What we do know is that it became popular. Very popular.

But we know different now, don't we? We keep our horses in very different conditions. We don't go to war on them much anymore. We don't need to protect their feet so much anymore. We don't really need shoes on our shoes, if we ever did. And, no, it is not true that thoroughbred feet are worse than other horse feet and that they need shoes on their shoes. And, no, it is not true that horses that do much roadwork need shoes on their shoes. On the contrary, lots of roadwork is positively healthy for the bare foot.

But let us be clear about this. If shod horses were uncomfortable with steel shoes, it would be visible. Horses would not be racing and competing at top level if steel shoes seriously damaged a horse's athletic ability. On the contrary, it is likely that more unshod horses are suffering through neglect than shod horses, which at least have their feet maintained regularly.

What is rapidly becoming understood, however, is that the life, or at the very least the working life, expectancy of steel shod horses is much shorter than that of a horse with his own natural shoes, as long as they are well maintained. It is also becoming clear that barefoot horses are at least as competent as steel shod horses in competition in most, and probably all, disciplines.

So, you might say - let's just take the shoes off!

Well, as with all things, it's not as easy as that. We are keeping our horses in artificial, unnatural conditions. Horses in the wild travel great distances each day, getting a variety of different food and plenty of exercise. Their feet need, and get, plenty of movement and abrasion.

But if we are to use our horses we need to keep them nearby. So we keep them, necessarily, in artificial conditions. Of course, depending on the owner and the use, these conditions vary from as far from natural as one could imagine, for example a racing stable which shall remain nameless which keeps its horses in stables 23 hours a day with no turnout, with most horses getting only one hour of exercise a day; to as close to natural as possible, where horses in very large veldt fields are left out 24 hours 7 days a week.

This is not to make a judgement, although it is hard to understand how one can get the best performance out of an athlete if one leaves him in a box 23 hours out of 24.

If, however, we are to get the best out of our horses, both in terms of health, and in terms of longevity, we are going to need to do everything we can, in an artificial environment, to exercise and feed our horses and maintain their hooves as if the horse was in the wild. This is not all that easy, but if we at least aim to move from the worst case of steel shod, stabled 23 hours a day, towards the best case of free movement 24 hours a day, we will at least be trying to improve the lives of our horses.

This is not an easy road to travel, and in a country with African Horse Sickness, leaving horses out at night is a dangerous choice. But we should be working towards giving horses larger protected areas to be in at night, where they can move. And if we really can't at this stage get them out of their stables at night, at least we could try to ensure that they get plenty of movement during the day.

In the case of feet, this means that even without steel shoes our horses' feet need maintainance.

We have been most of the routes that are available in barefoot, trying out different techniques and trims and working hard over the last 5 years or so to try to figure out both the best regime for our horses in terms of environment and food, and the best way to trim. As most people who have been the same route as us will tell you, this is a long and frustrating path.

Early on, we became passionate in our belief that shoes are generally not necessary and should really be used only if we really believed they would help the horse (which we are predisposed not to believe). During a visit to us for a NH clinic, we expressed that passion to our friend Jayne Hunt from the UK.

Astonishingly, she decided soon after to take a qualification in Applied Equine Podiatry with KC Lapierre. When she came back here with that under her belt, and proceeded to assess and trim our horses, we were amazed at the result. And now, she in turn, has converted us to AEP.

She has written us a piece here, which you might find interesting:

Natural hoofcare works well with natural horsemanship by Jayne Hunt, Equine Podiatrist NHZA has been a proponent of shoeless hoofcare for longer than I have been an Equine Podiatrist. Tamasine and Michael understand only too well that keeping horses in a state of optimum health and wellbeing involves an holistic approach to equine husbandry. Managing the shoeless horse effectively requires a healthy horse and the right environment and fits in beautifully with the natural horse management practices at NHZA. Over the years I have learned so much about horses through my friendship with Tamasine and I am delighted that as an Equine Podiatrist, I am now able to return the favour and pass some of my knowledge back to my good friend. Applied Equine Podiatry is a science that has been developed to enable the horse owner, with guidance from an experienced professional, to work to achieve the healthiest hoof that their horse is capable of. The science is very different to farriery - partly because it does not involve the use of shoes, but mainly because the focus is on adjusting the management and environment of the horse to enable the hooves to achieve and then maintain optimum health, making shoes unnecessary. It is a common misconception that we have genetically altered today’s domesticated horse so that it can no longer handle its workload without shoes. What has really happened is that the act of domestication removes many of the stimuli that hooves need to maintain adequate health, creating a necessity for shoes. Applied Equine Podiatry fits in well with the natural horsemanship approach. It understands that we are treating the whole horse and that everything is connected. When faced with a horse with hoof problems it is all too easy to focus all of our attention on what’s going on below the coronet band, when in fact we should be looking not just at the whole horse, but the horse’s environment too. Imbalances in the body will show up in the feet, just as imbalances in the feet will affect the body - not just mechanical, but nutritional, psychological, physiological and environmental imbalances can change the feet dramatically. Many people, on seeing a healthy, sound, barefoot horse, are tempted to remove their own horse’s shoes. All you need is to remove the shoes, get someone to apply a “barefoot trim”, wait for the soles to toughen up, and hey presto - right?. The reality is much, much different. A hoof that has been nailed to a metal shoe for a number of years, no matter how well shod, will have undergone physiological changes that weaken the hoof. Returning strength to these hooves involves daily exposure to the right sort of surfaces, careful attention to nutrition and a host of other modifications to traditional horse management practices that will allow the hoof to develop health and strength. Once the hooves have achieved the level of performance that the owner needs, care must be taken to ensure that the management of the horse continues to take into account the needs of the unshod hooves or the hooves will deteriorate once more. An Equine Podiatrist specialises in evaluating each horse’s individual hoofcare needs, then advising the owner on what they need to do to achieve and then maintain shoeless high performance. Although trimming is all part of the service, the real skill is in being able to evaluate the hoof, then devise a workable, realistic horse management regime that is adjusted as the hooves change. The hooves are monitored carefully throughout to ensure progress is being made and to avert problems early. Keeping a horse successfully shoeless is a skill in itself. It requires a lifestyle change for horse and owner, but the rewards are great. Soon the owner becomes adept at evaluating hoof structure and monitoring changes themselves, enabling them to be far more pro-active in their horse’s hoofcare than ever before. Watching a hoof strengthen in response to simple management adjustments is a huge incentive in itself. Seeing the horse become confident on all surfaces as the hooves improve, developing improved muscletone and becoming more sure footed, not to mention the sheer beauty of a healthy hoof, unfettered by nails or shoes, is more than enough reward for all of the hard work. All of the horses at NHZA are shoeless. Some have never been shod. Some are still in transition, and some are recovering from serious pathologies. Tamasine and Michael are committed to a responsible, effective, hoofcare programme and are more than happy to share their knowledge and experience of successful shoeless hoofcare.

We have been following the method for some time now and we are very pleased with the results. It needs to be said that we are not qualified in this method, so we are doing the best we can, and aiming to arrange visits from qualified EPs twice a year to help us stay in shape. Go to Courses and Events to see what dates we have if you are interested in an EP consultation

You can learn more about Jayne at www.healthyhooves.co.uk

And more about AEP at www.equinepodiatry.net

Finally,

we are happy to advise. If you want to know more, you are welcome to email us.