An open letter to horse owners, trainers, vets and farriers from the Equethy gang:

 The two metal horse shoes pictured are separated in time by nine centuries!  Yes nine centuries!

Just ask yourself what other apsect of horse care has not changed in nine centuries?  Answer NONE!

The most creative on the right was fashioned only last year by a farrier.  For nine centuries we had no choice for hoof protection but steel and nails.  We also had no access to research into the hoof at cellular level. We have approached horse shoeing as if the horse were not a living creature just because the horse is stoic and gentle by nature.

In the 21st century we do have access to better research, sadly with this new knowledge comes the realisation that we have inflicted pain and suffering on a massive scale, on generation after generation of horses, albiet unknowingly,  

It also brings to us a responsibility as stewards for the horses of this century, and on into the future, to put our egos away and drag our thinking firmly into the 21st century.  To ignore the huge weight of evidence damning horse shoes and to continue to approach hoof care as we have is animal abuse on massive scale. 

*****

Through Equethy Barefoot Educational Workshops & in conjunction with The Barefoot Blacksmith*  over the past six years we have had the privilege to meet, talk to, and educate,  the owners of  thousands of horses from all  disciplines.  We have also had a chance to work with some of the most brilliant minds researching natural hoof care both in Australia and overseas and the information offered on this site is the sum total of shared experiences.

From our first success with barefoot rehab. all those years ago, creating normal functional hooves out of foundered pixie feet for a tiny, insulin resistant 30 year old Sheltland called Legend,  through more recently to the horses of  the Western Australian Mounted Police division, now all sound and no longer plagued with  lameness issues, we have met the most amazing people. 

Each and every one of them had one thing in common, they were seeking soundness for their horses.  They wanted a better quality of life for the entire life of their horses.  They wanted  to reverse and halt the crippling effects of hoof deformation.

Its not been easy to be part of this seachange in hoof care.  This field is so very new its very hard to explain to those considered the "top" in their respective hoof care fields that much of what they have studied in veterinary and farrier texts, and based their life long work upon, was gleaned from imperfect studies done on damaged deformed hooves. 

Studies whereby even the "normal" shod hooves considered sound by traditional standards and used as the benchmark by which to judge the abnormal, were not normal at all! 

Texts still used today in a great deal of educational facilities and as a reference resource by those writing about equine lamness issues.  Flawed texts that list acquired postural stances from living with years of hoof pin, as if they are conformational problems. Just because they have traditionally been thought of as such!  Texts that blame the horse as a species for being prone to lameness!  When if the hoof is respected and maintained in the form that nature intended, it is actually over engineered by evolution and quite capable to being a self maintaining problem free unit for the entire life of the horse.

As more people turned to natural hoof care Equethy's lecturers were continually asked to train professional trimmers as well as deliver the workhops to horse owners. Because  we knew from our own experiences that just learning how to trim to a barefoot method does not provide you with enough skills to be a truly effective hoof care practitioner able to deal with all aspects of rehabilitative hoof care,  we combined with other  professionals working in this field and developed the Diploma of Equine Podiotherapy in Australia. 

This course is to train people who are hoof therapists as much as hoof trimmers.  People who could work effectively with vets in the field of rehabilitation for serious hoof conditions and meet the huge need for this new career path.   Our first graduates are in the workplace already and we are getting wonderful feedback from the vets and horse owners they are working with who are stunned at the healing they are seeing.

To horse owners I say take a long look at barefoot trimming no matter where you learn your basic information from  it will change forever the way you view the hoof.  It will empower you to make better choices for your future hoof care.  The hoof is part of the entire horse and you should not allow it to remain the realm of your farrier, he will not mind that you have gained new knowledge if he has the horse's best interests at heart. 

Once it was very hard to have a barefoot horse as it was nearly a lifestyle choice and it limited your ability to go anywhere, anytime,  as we do with shod horses.  This has all changed now.  

Over the past few years we have seen the equine hoof boot develop and increase in styles and sizes and become very "user friendly" .  Its now used by top riders from show jumpers to endurance riders because with this option you have the ability to reduce hoof problems and by allowing your horse to work in harmony with its biomechanics you reduce musculo-skeletal isues greatly too.  Its benefits for rehabilitation and riding are endless. 

Boots are also now popular with those who see the benefits of not paying huge fees for continual horse shoeing when they can only ride once a week or less and don't want to confine their horses feet with steel every day just for that odd ride now and then and would prefer to learn to do maintenance trims themselves.

We also have to be realistic in our approach to our hoof care.  In a perfect world we would wait to ride our horses till their skeletons matured (five years old at last) and we would all be able to ride every single day over lots of varying terrain to create those rock crunching hooves we all desire.  We would house our horses on thousands of acres of differing terrain, living in a huge herd to so they  had continual movement to create their own perfect hooves.  Sadly, our horsers do not live in a perfect world so for lifelong soundness we need to seek out a hoof protection solution as close to nature as possible and one that allows their hoof bones to continue to develop and mature into the shape nature intended, not an unhealthy shape forced on them by steel and nails. 

This site is full of information on barefoot hoof care.  Some is our own experiences some is science and I make no apologies for being direct about the need to rethink our hoof care options.  For over six years I have watched thousands of horses gain healthy feet with barefoot and also watched thousands descend into lameness with horse shoeing. 

Even if you don't have access to professional barefoot help there are great dvds to get you started and for boots  Easycare Down Under are based in Australia, now the Australian conditions and are professional hoof care providers who can answer all your boot questions.