Content

Intro

1. Rockley Farm
2. What drew me to barefoot
3. "My horse can't go barefoot."
4. A barefoot hoof doesn't lie
5. Taking your horse barefoot is life-changing for both of you
6. 6.4.19 - A client enquiry
7. Update Sep'22

"A horse is the only one of God's creatures who's not allowed to walk on its own feet. We put metal on them, it's going to mess with everything."

Quoted from an unnamed rancher

Now, before anyone groans “Oh noooo, a Barefoot-is-Best plug,” I promise you this isn’t what this page is about.

I'm not here to twist anyone's arm behind their back and/or guilt-trip anyone into taking their horse barefoot. As a (sadly no longer around) brilliant barefoot forum used to quote, "Far better a comfortable shod horse than an uncomfortable barefoot horse." So, let's start with a reassurance that we're talking more about supporting anyone who might be considering how taking their horse barefoot may be the answer to help resolve serious hoof issues.

Let me also assure you that no-one chooses to go barefoot for the fun of it - it's not a fad, or a trend - most people end up considering barefoot because their horse has no choice . But trust me when I say it's serious hard work, involving major compromises along the way; you'll literally have to relearn everything you thought you ever knew. However, if you stick with it and put every drop of your blood, sweat and tears into it, it could well be the best thing you ever do for your horse.

And a final full-disclosure before I get stuck into my take on all-things-barefoot. Out of all our horses I took barefoot, all of them bar one - my connie, Murphy - did brilliantly without shoes (we were trail riders with a bit of XC fun). Murf, however, was a metabolic EMS/IR chap from the get-go (2001) and was my most challenging barefoot transition during our ridden life, so much so that I actually gave in on two occasions and reshod his fronts. Now though, he's happily retired so gets by with a regular pasture trim and an occasional boot if/when he's spring/summer-footy.

Let's get stuck in ...

... and first up, if you've been thinking about taking your horse barefoot, I'm going to introduce you Rockley Farm, run by Nic Barker and Andy Willis.  If your vet's thrown in the towel and your horse is in last-chance-lameness-corrall, with one of the typical navicular, DDFT, collateral/impar ligament labels etc etc, Rockley is your go-to resource to get your horse sound again.

Have a quick look at this YouTube video of Rockley-recovered barefoot hooves in action on a proper stony surface. This 7-minute video will show you real-life slo-mo barefooters in action, and I promise you your jaw will hit the floor. These same horses are all Rockley Farm Rehabs, all of them previously in that same last-chance-corrall, who'd had those very same degenerative syndromes where the vets were no longer able to help them, and all successfuly rehabbed as barefoot horses.

The video truly makes for eye-opening viewing. This is real evidence that for any horse who may be in that corrall, taking them barefoot - even short term - can produce remarkable results. Nothing will inspire and assure you more that there's always hope, and that there is another way.  And this is the Why behind it all; it's what's taking your horse barefoot is all about.

1. Rockley Farm

Rockley Farm is a small hill farm in the Exmoor National Park specialising in barefoot rehabilitation livery for horses with hoof-related lameness.  At the time I was looking to take Kelso barefoot (2006-ish), DDFT damage was the latest buzz word going around, and starting to override the dreaded 'navicular' diagnosis, which was the blanket term used by vets to diagnose hoof lameness. It was so prevalent that it was almost considered an epidemic, and no surprise, because as new research was published, courtesy of Dr Renate Weller, we started learning that ...

• For every 1-centimeter of extra toe length, this results in an extra 50-kilograms of force acting on the tendons.
• For every 1-degree drop in sole angle where the DDFT inserts into the coffin bone (affected by palmar angle) can lead to a 4% increase in the pressure exerted by the DDFT on the navicular bone.

Almost two decades later (where did that time go?!), to this day most horses that end up at Rockley are usually in the aforementioned last-chance-lameness-corrall, usually when the vets have given up on them with either very little chance of recovery, or worse, a PTS prognosis. Most of the Rockley clients have had a diagnosis of DDFT, collateral ligament or navicular bone injuries, usually (but not always) following an MRI. 

Rather brilliantly, most insurers now cover a Rockley rehab, but back ine mid-2000s they didn't. Owners had to front up the cash, but it was worth every penny, with an incredible 80%-plus of horses returning to the same level of work - if not greater - than before they went lame. If you click on the Rockley Farm website's Barefoot Performance page, you'll see a gallery of awesome Rockley Rehabs still competing at high level.

2. What drew me to barefoot

Back in the mid-2000's our Kelso's hooves were in a dreadful state - he was constantly tripping, and couldn't keep shoes on, losing chunks of his hoof wall each time. Meanwhile, the 'barefoot' word was just starting to trickle through the ether as a possible option for hoof issues, and for me it instinctively felt 'right' for my horses to satisfy my 'natural' direction - as a family we were already riding bitless and treeless.

However, back then there was very little knowledge about transitioning a horse correctly, and to be honest I thought it was just a case of taking shoes off and getting on with it, although I was keenly aware of uncomfortable surfaces. Remember, this was a time when no-one understood the importance of nutrition for strong, robust hooves, and at the time our riding area was Salisbury Plain which was extremely flinty and sharp.

Meanwhile, as the barefoot word kept emerging, there was also a dark side erupting, with the ever-opinionated conventional mob shouting loudly that anyone considering it was cruel, with all kinds of sinister accusations that we were also members of a dark cult (seriously). There was no consideration that those thinking about barefoot were actually desperate to find a way to literally save their horses' lives.

And understandably, many farriers were also dead against it! I spoke to my then-farrier who said without hesitation that there was no way my horses could go barefoot as their hooves "were too weak." Without realising at the time, he was actually giving me the very reason why I absolutely needed to take them barefoot. Another farrier took it upon himself to loudly call me "a prat" while attending another horse on the livery yard I was on, splitting his sides laughing at his own joke with many of the other (shod) liveries joining in. There was a lot of blind ignorance back in the day.

Back to Kelso and my barefoot dilemma to do something urgently for him, I started browsing online and purely by chance I stumbled across the UKNHCP Forum run by the very same Nic Barker at Rockley Farm. From that moment on, my entire life changed, and so began my horses' unshod world, not to mention a complete vertical re-education of everything I thought I'd ever known about horse care.

3. "My horse can't go barefoot."

I'll just chip in a word here for the sake of those hooves out there. You'll hear all sorts of reasonings as to why horses (allegedly) can't go barefoot.

• "We do too much road work so the feet will wear away too much - we can't possibly go barefoot." Au contraire. Tarmac is invaluable for conditioning hooves, toughening them up, especially the sole. A bit like us walking on a pebble beach - at first it's ouchy, then the more we do it the tougher the soles of our feet become.

• "My horse is a thoroughbred so we can't possibly go barefoot." You might also hear a well-known phrase of "typical thoroughbred feet." Myths! I've taken two TB's barefoot, including Carmen, our TB mare who's still very much with us, who was born with a twisted LF hoof and pastern. Somewhat surprisingly, they were our two easiest transitions - both of them, and I promise both of them, walked off without a care in the world the very instant the shoes came off. It was almost as if they breathed a sigh of relief and said "Cor, that feels better - thanks for that." They never looked back.

• "My horse's soles are too thin so we can't possibly go barefoot." This was my Murf, and trust me - farriers like this excuse. But it's the very reason why a horse should go barefoot. Thin soles are a classic sign of zero hoof stimulation and/or function, as well as a reflection of poor diet and lack of nutrients as well. Transition them to barefoot and you'll see those soles become strong and robust, able to stomp over anything.

• "My horse goes lame when he loses a shoe so we can't possibly go barefoot." Ditto above, but for sure this is going to happen to a shod horse, because the hoof has been encapsulated in metal and not been allowed to function as a hoof should. The entire structure - sole, hoof capsule, inner soft tissue - has become atrophied, inflexible and soft. No different to us if we break a leg, and I speak from experience - when the cast finally comes off, the tendons/ligaments/cartilages will have tightened and shrivelled, never mind the vanishing calf muscle. We literally have to re-learn to walk again and it takes time.

• "Our area is too stony so we can't possibly go barefoot." This was a big one for me, living in sharp, flinty Wiltshire. Three points here:
  
  
• First, while your horse is transitioning, use hoof boots - they're amazingly effective and a life-saver; I used them with Murf regularly until he decided it was time for him to retire in 2018.
  
  
• Second, as your horse transitions with the right diet, environment and exercise, and provided you allow plenty of tarmac conditioning, those hooves will eventually become strong enough to cope with any sharp/rocky surface.
  
  
• Third, I've seen it with my own eyes. Not long after Murf's shoes came off, my very lovely trimmer at the time, Sarah, trailer'd her horse, Boy, over to me for us to both go out for a Salisbury Plain trail-ride together. As we approached one of the sharpest, flintiest tracks ever (Murf had his boots on), Sarah grinned at me and said "Watch this!", and loped Boy into the smoothest canter ever - right over those flints. I was seriously impressed - green with envy, but seriously impressed. It only encouraged me all the more to push on with this barefoot mullarky.

Back to those objections, and I hear you, truly. But here's a thing. The fact is that any and every horse can go barefoot; it's us humans who can't. I promise you, any horse can be sound on any surface without shoes after proper transitioning - it's us that stops it happening.

To sustain rock-solid unshod hooves, which can perform on any surface, takes absolute commitment and hard work on our part to achieve healthy, strong, robust and conditioned hooves, and it relies totally on 3 factors -

• The right Diet, and we're talking crucial nutrients here, as well as how, and what, we feed our horses, because there are good, species-appropriate feeds, questionable feeds, and downright bad feeds. In addition, our UK grasslands are deficient in many of the important, hoof-strengthening nutrients, so we need to feed a mineral balancer as well. Without a forage-balanced mineral supplement to add in the missing nuts and bolts, you won't achieve strong, robust hooves.

• The right Environment, as in addressing grass turnout, toxins, and removing stressors.

• Finally, the right Exercise, as in plenty of smooth tarmac conditioning.

• Oh, and time. Lots of time, and a ton of patience, even when you're losing the will to live, because trust me, you will. Taking a horse barefoot can sometimes feel like two steps forward, three steps back, and it can be so easy to get disillusioned and throw the towel in. But keep the faith and stick with it - these days there are hundreds of barefoot support groups on the socials to help you through helping you get our horse comfortably barefoot-sound.

4. A barefoot hoof doesn't lie

"The negative side of nailing a shoe to a hoof is that you automatically lift the hoof from the ground and therefore take away support from the underside of the frog and sole."

Peter Glimberg, farrier at Peder Fredricson's training farm, Olympic team rider Tokyo 2020

We’ve had countless client enquiries over the years whose barefoot horses have been sore after a trim, and again this is another time when you think you're failing and it's all going pear-shaped, and to hell with it, let's just shoe them again.

Keep the faith though. This is a common scenario for many of us, but consider the one good thing that comes out of this situation – you’re getting immediate feedback from your horse. If your horse had been shod you may never have known – until maybe it was too late – that your farrier had caused harm. Immediate feedback is a powerful by-product of the barefoot horse.

Equine soundness doesn’t happen overnight, with many underlying causes of lameness often overlooked. Lameness may be subtle at first, but can then turn into a bigger problem over time. In a shod horse, if you're even lucky enough to see those subtle signs, they're often ignored, or considered just minor problems.

Metal easily covers up early signs of lameness, with substantial hoof damage created over time, the longer your horse remains shod. This causes damage to the circulatory system of both hoof and leg which leads to lack of proprioception, where the horse literally can’t feel their feet, as well as reducing traction. This is exactly what was happening with our Kelso, and why he kept tripping, because he literally couldn't feel his feet. I don't know about you but personally I’d want my horse to have every opportunity to be as surefooted as possible, especially when I’m going to be sat on top!

A horse’s soundness is also closely tied to diet. Shoeing can easily cover up subtle signs of low-grade laminitis caused by an inappropriate and unnatural diet.

Equally, a farrier can easily cover up a poor job with a shoe, giving a false sense of soundness by masking early signs of lameness, ultimately causing unseen damage to the hoof’s internal structures, and limiting the horse’s natural healing mechanism, preventing us from proactively able to address the issues. Despite what some in the equine industry think, it’s unacceptable for a horse to walk off less sound than they were before the trim – they should be the same or better. In short, an unshod horse will always give you feedback on the effectiveness of your hoof program.

For the record, when metabolic, footy Murf was being trimmed, I asked my trimmer to leave around a millimetre of extra hoof wall proud of his soles, so he had a tiny bit of sole-support for comfort, so he could regrow what he wore away, toughening his sole as he went before the next trim.

(Back in the UKNHCP forum days, Bruce, a well-experienced barefooter, was a great source of advice with a wealth of experience for us barefoot newbies. He coined the phrase perfectly; "They wear what they grow, and they grow what they wear."  It might have been the other way round - can't remember, but you get the idea.)

5. Taking your horse barefoot will be life-changing for both of you

It's an education for sure; time-consuming, incredibly challenging, and not for the faint-hearted. A client of ours whose horse, Foxx, had very challenging hoof issues, was advised by her trimmer that if she wasn't prepared to put in the hard work, not to even bother starting. Thankfully, our client was determined and went all the way to success, but full disclosure, not without its trials.

Not only is going barefoot a massive learning curve, but also factor in your own busy lifestyle - family demands, work, and not to mention variable livery yard restrictions or lack of facilities, because we can only work within the environment we've got. It's no wonder that for some of us it's incredibly challenging, and for others it may seem virtually impossible.

Don't beat yourself up though - there's nothing wrong with this! And remind yourself of that saying - "Far better a comfortable shod horse than an uncomfortable barefoot horse." I'm one of the lucky ones - because I work for myself I was able to juggle my time to commit, but we didn't own our own land so like many of us I was always at the mercy of livery yards' facilities (not to mention the very prevalent resistance from other liveries - thankfully of its time and long-gone now).

I also found the transition fascinating - I was hungry to learn the important stuff, with much of it eye-opening, especially on the subject of diet. But no denying that there were also times when it was hugely challenging - I spent many hours/days/weeks doubting myself, but Kelso's hooves relied on it so I pushed on, and thankfully the UKNHCP forum was an amazing resource, incredibly supportive, and with hundreds of members like me all going through the same thing together.

You'll also no doubt become a barefoot-nerd. As well as the re-education minefield, there's also the physical management changes and demands, which never stops. Barefoot plus our wet UK climate plus our crazy neon-green grasslands does that to you.

Every day, every ride out, even field-checking/poo-picking, I was focusing on the hooves. Did (horse) look okay, were they comfortable, was they gimping, were they sore, oh flip should I have put boots on, blimey why has he stopped, yikes is that a crack ... And so on, and so on - it n-e-v-e-r ends! Taking your horse barefoot will take over your life, but once you're there it becomes second-nature - you'll start going all mushy at the sight of a beautiful unshod hoof!

As it turned out, Kelso, thrived in his new metal-free world, and contrary to all the expectations regarding TB's failing miserably at barefoot, both our TB's didn't even notice their shoes had come off. Cookie, our adorable hairy traditional cob pony, also rock-stomped from the onset - every farrier/trimmer thereafter always said her feet were the best they'd ever seen, which was always lovely to hear. Then our adopted MacAttack (2017) also had the most perfect feet once we got them right. What's not to love?!

But there's always one.🤣 Dear old Murf was a work in progress from Day-1. Having been given the IR label at age 7 (2001, every year without fail he had the typical spring/summer footy hooves which no matter what I threw at them, I just couldn't get him comfy 100% of the time. As I hinted early, after a few years of barefoot v. hoofboots trial and error, in 2013 I swallowed hard and got him re-shod on his fronts. Livery yard restrictions meant I just couldn't provide him with the right environment to keep him sound as a comfortabe, functioning, barefooter.

Then, as life would have it, I ruptured my right Achilles tendon after 2 sets of Murf's new fronts, so all riding was off the agenda for what turned out to be nearly 6-months. So Murf's shoes came off again, and from then on he went back to being a barefoot boy with occasional boots as we were both starting to slow down a bit by then. Finally, in 2018, as he approached his 25th birthday and was making it very clear to me that he'd rather not be ridden anymore, I hung up his boots and reins and retired him. He'd given me a lifetime of fun and he thoroughly deserved it.

There's no doubt in my mind that looking back, taking my horses barefoot was the beginning of one of the most overwhelming - but worthwhile, not to mention educational - times for me in several decades of horse-care. These days I don't even think about it, other than to admire them on a daily basis, and of course an automatic Murf check each spring courtesy of the grass ...

6. A client enquiry

In January 2019 we had an enquiry from Sue, whose very lovely pure-bred ID mare, Gertie, had had the toughest of early years, with navicular, osteoarthritis of coffin joint, and kissing spine, and that was just for starters. She was just 5-years old.

During our discussions we suggested taking her mare barefoot, and the following is a chunk of one of my email replies to her. I'm only posting it on this page as Sue said she found it really clear and easy to understand, so here we go.

"The trouble is that sometimes the edges blur between what’s best for the horse, as well as the fact that transitioning a horse comfortably to barefoot-sound can be more difficult for the human than the horse – there’s more to it than just taking the shoes off, as in getting the diet, environment, and the right exercise to stimulate/strengthen the hoof are vital to success.

However, I’m going to touch on it here as personally, if it was me, I wouldn’t advocate shoes of any sort for your mare; with her degenerative bone and soft-tissue issues she needs her feet to function the way nature intended, in order to support the synergistic movement of bone/tendons/ligaments all working together as they should, to perform movement.

This might sound a bit barmy but trust me when I say that if a horse is allowed to walk on its own four feet naturally, each step is very different to that of a shod hoof. Specifically, the whole base of the hoof, i.e. the bottom of the peripheral hoof wall, the sole, the frog and the heels, all take the impact of the landing, instead of only the 'raised' peripheral wall in a shod hoof. As well as this, a hoof naturally lands heel-first compared to a toe-first landing in a shod hoof – if you see a natural bare hoof landing you’ll see the toe flick gently upwards before the heel then hits the ground before the toe. It’s a thing of beauty to watch when you're a hoof-nerd! 😊

This is completely how it’s meant to be, because it makes three vital mechanical functions happen naturally, as they're meant to, which a shoe prevents:

1. Firstly, the heel landing allows the frog to do its job of absorbing the landing impact.
2. Second, the frog stimulation then internally compresses the 'digital cushion' above the frog, which acts as a pump to push the blood supply through the delicate hoof corium and back up the leg. No frog stimulation = very poor blood supply through the hoof = poor-quality hoof integrity.
3. Thirdly, it’s all about the internal supporting soft-tissue structures, and specifically the DDFT (Deep Digital Flexor Tendon):
4. As the toe gently flicks up to allow the heel to land first to land, the DDFT flexes under the heel to perform the heel-first landing.
5. The sole and toe then flatten momentarily on the ground, which triggers the DDFT to spring back to its regular alignment.
6. Now the hoof prepares to lift off again - the knee bends which tilts the toe forward to lift off the ground as the heel raises up behind it, and the whole movement begins again.
7. The leg is now airborne, and as it comes down to meet the ground, the toe gently flicks back up again, and the DDFT stretches to allow the heel to land first.
8. The frog absorbs the impact, compresses the digi cushion, and healthy blood pumps/circulates through the hoof to head back up the leg.
9. The knee then bends again, the toe then tilts forward to lift off again to step forward, then flicks up for the heel to land, and so it goes on.

This happens with every step, on every hoof, on every leg, in perfect, beautiful synchronicity. Or, as an eminent farrier/barefoot guru says,

"As the horse begins to lean into its forward motion, the deep & superficial flexor tendons take up the strain, asking the hoof to lift & drive the horse forward; to a greater or lesser extent the whole hoof capsule, internal & external, begins to flex, which it can't do when metal is nailed to it."

So, how is it different when a shoe is nailed to the hoof? Remember I said earlier that the whole base of the hoof is meant to hit the ground with wall, sole and frog taking the full force of the landing?

1. When a shoe is fitted, it’s nailed to the hoof wall so instantly the weight-bearing of the whole body is only on the periphery (edge) of the hoof. And trust me again when I say that a horse is not meant to bear its entire body weight on the outer edge of the  hoof-wall. Imagine you walking on all fours on just your toe and finger nails. Yeeowch …
   
   
2. Second, the frog becomes redundant so the hoof wall is also absorbing all the impact via a rigid metal bar and the hoof capsule around the sole, so there's no 'give'; no natural shock-absorption where it’s meant to occur. As a result, over time and through lack of use, the frog eventually shrivels into a weedy, thin lump of gristle.
   
   
3. Third, as a result of no natural shock-absorption via the frog, the digi cushion isn’t being compressed to pump the blood through the hoof and back up the leg. Published studies show that a shod hoof has a loss of perfusion (blood flow) of up to 50%, which means the hoof isn’t being fuelled/nourished/nutrified by the blood supply as it should be. This also makes the limb very prone to being cold right up to the knee. There are thermo-images all over the web showing this - it’s convincing stuff.
   
   
4. Most noticeable though, the hoof lands toe - and not heel - first, so the DDFT isn’t performing its natural stretch/release the way it’s meant to. A toe-first landing actually forces the DDFT to shrink, so when it has to stretch it’s less able to do so. Cue one torn DDFT.
   
   
5. Another very common syndrome of a loss of perfusion in a hoof is lack of proprioception – this means the horse basically can’t feel his feet, a bit like when we fall asleep on our arm and it goes numb, or we have to pull gloves off because we can't 'feel' what we're trying to do. For the horse, if they can't feel their feet they stumble, often.

This is what was happening with our Kelso - he got to the point where he stumbled badly on every ride out, crashing to his knees with me invariably ending up on his neck. But never mind me – we’d come back home to find his knees cut and bleeding, and usually the shoe hanging off with a chunk of crumbly hoof still attached.

His hooves were in such poor condition from lack of a decent blood supply fuelling his hooves, that there was barely any capsule remaining to re-nail a shoe back on. This is what started my whole journey to taking my horses barefoot; it led me to research everything there was out there to achieve healthy hooves, and along the way I found the UKNHCP forum. Kelso took to it like a duck to water, so much so that I took our other three barefoot, and we’ve never looked back.

That’s not to say it’s been easy – the first few years were challenging for sure, as there also wasn't the knowledge we have today regarding diet/nutrients/toxins in the environment and so on, so I muddled through getting the routine right, but we’ve been there for well over a decade now, and these days it’s absolute second nature.

As further evidence for you, I’m going to give you a link to the wonderful Rockley Farm, run by Nic Barker - it was Nic who first started the UKNHCP barefoot forum that I discovered when I was desperately googling a hoof solution for Kelso. Rockley is the place to go for barefoot hoof lameness rehabilitation, where she takes in significantly lame horses, usually with DDFT and navicular issues from previously shod horses and where the vets have given up. Many vets now refer horses to Rockley, and it can be covered on insurance as well.

Nic's website and regular blog posts are an amazing source of eye-opening enlightenment, and a great resource of advice and reassurance along with great photos and videos. I’ve followed Nic since 2006 and have witnessed remarkable barefoot transitions with many top-level competition horses, as well as those with a PTS prognosis, who have gone on to compete again fully barefoot! Many of Nic’s clients have become my clients too, which is so lovely for me having seen the horse in question on Nic’s blog arrive lame and landing toe-first, then having the shoes off and recovering to achieve rock-solid performing bare hooves!

Have a look here: https://rockleyfarm.co.uk/ - her blog: https://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/ - her FB page: https://www.facebook.com/Rockley-Farm-129496323778726/

Prepare to be amazed! And if you’re brave enough to say No to all the professionals telling you to shoe her, Gerty, I’m sure, will thank you for it."

NB - you'll see this exact, completely natural, toe upward flick/heel first landing in the YouTube video. As nature intended!

7. Update - Sept'22

There's new research! 😉. For decades hoof rehabilitators and horse owners have experienced extraordinary results with taking previously shod horses barefoot, but there has been very little research done to support these results scientifically.

We know that studies so far have shown that iron shoes increase concussion when the horse lands, that they interrupt the blood supply to the hooves, and inhibit the hooves’ ability to contract and expand. Equally, the renowned podiatry researcher, Dr. Robert Bowker VMD, has also shown that shoeing can be the direct cause of caudal heel pain, also referred to as our old friend navicular disease.

However, with next to no specific research comparing the performance of a barefoot hoof to a shod hoof, the debate between pro-shoe and anti-shoe has relied mostly on belief, tradition and personal experience. Until now.

A new, comprehensive research project by The Swedish Agricultural University (SLU) and Agria Animal Insurance, scientifically determines the difference between the barefoot hoof and the shod horse hoof.

See the study here: New Research on why Barefoot Horses remain Sounder than Shod Horses