- shoes dont flex like a horses hoof normally would
- shoes don't allow the hoof to flex and pump blood
- shoes reduce circulation in the leg
- ALL kinds of horses can go barefoot
- people say shoes are okay for their horses it doesn't hurt them, but with the loss of circulation how do you even know? Your horse cant even feel his foot because theres not enough circulation down there for him to feel ANYTHING
- people say their horse is lame after taking shoes off and they put them back on.... idiots! If you wear shoes all the time and start walking around without them your feet take time to adjust same with horses, except they are even more sensitive, they havn't even been able to feel their feet for how long????
- cheaper
- its better for their legs
- less likely to cause lameness issues
- their feet can move and expand without the constriction of a shoe
- your horse can compete just as well without as he can with if not even better
- even police horses who go around on concrete and marble all day can handle barefoot so can your horse especially if he only gets ridden for a few hours everyday
- if your ground is horrible and rocky and it makes the foot tender investing in riding boots is much better alternative, they last longer than shoes and your horses hoof can still flex and bend and circulate blood
- A shod horse going at a walk on concrete gets 3 times more shock through their legs than even a barefoot horse at a TROT
- Nails holes in the wall for bacteria therefore making the horses more likely to get an abscess
- To those who only shoe front feet, this is even worse, a horse carries about 70% of their weight on their front feet, causing even more damage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7YuzTTOhp8
This next one shoes one with a shoe and without a shoe, but the back of the leg is still on, you can see the beads barley move on the hoof with a shoe, but when the shoe is taken off it moves quite a bit if I do say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O37dmmofJiU
If this doesn't convince you to go shoe-less I don't know what will, for the well being of your horses please remove shoes!
There are none so blind as those who are unwilling to see.
Did
you know that a horse’s hoof is supposed to flex with every step taken?
And that simple act of flexing is just about the most important thing a
horse can do for good health and long life? The flexing provides shock
absorption for the joints, tendons and ligaments in the leg and
shoulder; acts as a circulatory pump for hundreds of blood vessels in
the hoof mechanism; and helps the heart get that blood flowing back up
the leg.
Without flexing, the
hoof mechanism will not have good circulation and will not be healthy.
And the heart will have to work harder to get the blood back up the
legs. Without flexing, there will be no shock absorption.
And with a metal shoe nailed to the hoof, no flexing can occur.
Kerwhap! I was slapped right in the face with a piece of indisputable logic.
How insensitive to my inertia.
Four years later I
discovered this thermograph (displayed below) which actually shows – in a
real-life horse – what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is
nailed on. This horse is wearing one metal shoe, on his front right. The
other three hooves are barefoot. The thermograph is set to show blood
circulation (or lack of it). He was walked around in a big circle and
then the thermograph was taken.
The article in Horse & Rider went on to explore the results of Jaime Jackson’s
study of more than one thousand wild mustang hooves. All barefoot
hooves, of course. All very much alike, healthy and as hard as steel.
The original Wild Horse Trim which now means to replicate the
trim the horse would be giving itself if he or she were in the wild.
Remember, the horse has survived for something like 52 million years,
and being a flight animal, a prey animal, his feet are the most
important part of that survival (Read an amazing article about Pete Ramey’s trip into wild horse country).
I was immediately off to
websites, gathering books, soaking up information and knowledge. And one
item I found puts to rest what so many were telling me: that the foot
has been bred right off the horse, that the so called “domestic” horse
no longer has the same foot as the horse in the wild. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Actual science tells us that it would take a
minimum of 5000 years – probably closer to 10,000 – to even begin to
breed change into the base genetics of any species, including
the horse. I also discovered a study confirming that every “domestic”
horse today retains the ability to successfully return to the wild and
be completely healthy. In other words, you do not really have a
“domestic” horse. Genetically speaking, you have a wild horse in
captivity. All horses on this earth are genetically the same (see Chronology of the Horse’s Evolution)
“If all that’s true, why does my horse appear to feel better with shoes on his feet?” I was asked recently.
Have you ever crossed
your legs for such a long time that your foot goes to sleep? It’s
because you have cut off the blood circulation to your foot. Essentially
that’s what’s happening when a metal shoe is nailed onto a horses foot.
The hoof no longer flexes. Which means a substantial loss of blood
circulation in the hoof. Which mean the nerve endings go to sleep. And
the ill health the hoof is suffering from lack of circulation is no
longer felt by the horse. In other words, the “ouch” never reaches the
brain.
That’s also why some horses
are tender for a time after shoes are taken off. The hoof that has been
unhealthy because of shoes now has blood circulation once again, and he
can feel. Two of our horses were good to go right from the
first minute the shoes came off. Two took a month or so, one about three
months, and one took almost eight months. But all are happy campers
now, with rock solid feet, on the trail, in the arena, on concrete and
asphalt, wherever (See our hoof photos above).
It takes approximately
eight months for most horses to grow a brand new hoof, from hairline to
the ground. So with proper and consistent trimming, that’s should be the
maximum time to have terrific feet unless there are serious lameness
issues, imbalances, or the like, in which case it could take longer. But
most of the time, during the transition, the use of hoof boots allows
the horse to be ridden with no pain while still allowing the hoof to
flex and and heal and grow as it was intended. Our gelding who took
eight months to grow a whole new hoof was fine on the trail and the
street with boots during his transition. He’s now fine without them.
No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, the
horse living in the Ice Age, the present-day wild horse, and the
high-performance domestic breeds of today are all anatomically,
physiologically, and psychologically alike. They all share the same
biological requirements for health, long life, and soundness. In
other words, we could not only be making the horse’s life as good as it
is in the wild, we could be making it better. At least as healthy. And
happier!
This addresses the concerns
of some who are worried that the domestic horse has had his true
genetics bred out of him. A few generations of selective breeding simply
cannot erase the genteics of fifty-two million years. I have found no
scientific or medical authority who even considers the possibility. The
genetics are there and will take over, given the opportunity and the
proper lifestyle, diet, and trim for recovery. Folks like Pete Ramey, Eddie Drabek, Jaime Jackson, James and Yvonne Welz, Mark Taylor
and others, are proving this every day. They are saving horses who are
at the end of their rope by pulling the shoes and easing into the Wild
Horse Trim. Letting the horse grow the healthy, rock solid, hooves that
nature intended them to have all along.
The entire Houston Mounted
Police Patrol is now all barefoot with the wild horse trim. All 40
horses! Varied breeds and backgrounds. Thriving. Healthier than ever.
And working on concrete, asphalt and marble all day every day! That
pretty well shoots holes in the theory that all horses cannot go
barefoot. All of theirs did. Read more.
Emile Carre, a past president of the American Farriers Association was quoted as saying “The
(horse’s) foot was designed to be unshod, Anything that you add to the
foot, like a horseshoe that is nailed on, is going to interfere with the
foot’s natural process. Most horseshoes have six to eight nails,
possibly one to three clips, all of which constrict the foot’s ability
to expand and contract. Add pads, packing, any number of alternatives to
the shoe, and you create a gait alteration. It all interferes with the
natural process of the mechanism.“
Walt Taylor, also of the
American Farriers Association, was quoted in an article in the American
Farriers Journal (November, 2000) saying that 90% of the domestic horses
in the world (that’s 122 million horses) have some degree of lameness
and are still being used.
So the nailed-on metal
shoe, in effect, becomes camouflage for what is actually happening
within the hoof mechanism. The lack of circulation which dampens the
feelings in the nerve endings hides the illness and pain the horse is
actually experiencing.
Horses in the wild do not
have hoof lameness issues. Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick (who has studied wild
horses most of his adult life) says that virtually every case of
lameness he’s seen in the wild is related to arthritic shoulder joints,
not hoof problems.
Natural Hoof Specialist Eddie Drabek
says, “I’ve had horses brought to me from owners who swore their horses
had feet that grow abnormally, had bad genetics, could never be
barefoot, have brittle hooves, heels grow but toes don’t, toes grow but
heels don’t, have cracks that will never go away, and so forth… (I’ve
heard it all)….but I’ve never met the horse who can’t be taken
successfully barefoot with the proper wild horse trim and diet, and have
beautiful feet to show for it. And I’m talking hundreds. I
simply wouldn’t have dropped everything and changed my entire career if I
wasn’t amazed with the results I was having. I was just at a horse show
this past weekend watching many of my clients’ horses compete. Not a
little po-dunk show, rather a big time show with competitors from as far
away as Canada and Australia. By popular belief about their high
performance bloodlines and their ‘genetically bad hooves’, these horses
should not be able to be barefoot, but they all are (most for 3 years
now), competing right up there with the shod horses, and they have
better feet than ever before.”
National Championships in virtually every discipline have been won by barefoot horses. Barrels, cutting, jumping, racing, etc.
Arizona veterinarian Dr.
Tomas Teskey says,”One of the greatest damages that occurs because of
the application of steel shoes to the horse’s hoof is the greatly
reduced circulation within the hoof, and the diminished return of blood
back up toward the heart through the veins of the lower leg. Shoes
interfere with the hoof’s natural blood-pumping mechanism. The natural
hoof expands and contracts with each step, letting blood in as it
spreads upon impact with the ground, and squeezing blood up and out of
the hoof as it contracts when it is not bearing weight. If this sounds
familiar, like the blood pumping mechanism of a heart, that’s because it
is–natural hooves perform a critical function as supplementary
“hearts”. This vital heart-like mechanism is greatly restricted by
immobilizing the hoof with steel shoes.”
Convince yourself. Try this test. On a cool day, or under cover, feel
the hoof and lower leg of a shod horse, and another that is barefoot.
The barefoot horse’s lower leg and hoof will feel warm to the touch,
because of the blood circulating within. The shod horse’s lower leg and
hoof will be cool, not warm, because of the blood that is not
circulating within. Or simply study the thermograph above.
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
But… please don’t take our
word for all this. Do the research yourself. Start with the many links
below, and then branch out on your own. There is an enormous amount of
solid research out there. Gobble it up. Then, don’t let others who have
not done the research dissuade you. Someone once said that all truth
passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is
opposed violently. Third, it is accepted as self evident. Give your
horse the gift of barefoot. Then stand back and watch him frolic.
- See more at: http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/the-gift-of-barefoot/#sthash.tBiG9M23.dpuf
Did
you know that a horse’s hoof is supposed to flex with every step taken?
And that simple act of flexing is just about the most important thing a
horse can do for good health and long life? The flexing provides shock
absorption for the joints, tendons and ligaments in the leg and
shoulder; acts as a circulatory pump for hundreds of blood vessels in
the hoof mechanism; and helps the heart get that blood flowing back up
the leg.
Without flexing, the
hoof mechanism will not have good circulation and will not be healthy.
And the heart will have to work harder to get the blood back up the
legs. Without flexing, there will be no shock absorption.
And with a metal shoe nailed to the hoof, no flexing can occur.
Kerwhap! I was slapped right in the face with a piece of indisputable logic.
How insensitive to my inertia.
Four years later I
discovered this thermograph (displayed below) which actually shows – in a
real-life horse – what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is
nailed on. This horse is wearing one metal shoe, on his front right. The
other three hooves are barefoot. The thermograph is set to show blood
circulation (or lack of it). He was walked around in a big circle and
then the thermograph was taken.
The article in Horse & Rider went on to explore the results of Jaime Jackson’s
study of more than one thousand wild mustang hooves. All barefoot
hooves, of course. All very much alike, healthy and as hard as steel.
The original Wild Horse Trim which now means to replicate the
trim the horse would be giving itself if he or she were in the wild.
Remember, the horse has survived for something like 52 million years,
and being a flight animal, a prey animal, his feet are the most
important part of that survival (Read an amazing article about Pete Ramey’s trip into wild horse country).
I was immediately off to
websites, gathering books, soaking up information and knowledge. And one
item I found puts to rest what so many were telling me: that the foot
has been bred right off the horse, that the so called “domestic” horse
no longer has the same foot as the horse in the wild. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Actual science tells us that it would take a
minimum of 5000 years – probably closer to 10,000 – to even begin to
breed change into the base genetics of any species, including
the horse. I also discovered a study confirming that every “domestic”
horse today retains the ability to successfully return to the wild and
be completely healthy. In other words, you do not really have a
“domestic” horse. Genetically speaking, you have a wild horse in
captivity. All horses on this earth are genetically the same (see Chronology of the Horse’s Evolution)
“If all that’s true, why does my horse appear to feel better with shoes on his feet?” I was asked recently.
Have you ever crossed
your legs for such a long time that your foot goes to sleep? It’s
because you have cut off the blood circulation to your foot. Essentially
that’s what’s happening when a metal shoe is nailed onto a horses foot.
The hoof no longer flexes. Which means a substantial loss of blood
circulation in the hoof. Which mean the nerve endings go to sleep. And
the ill health the hoof is suffering from lack of circulation is no
longer felt by the horse. In other words, the “ouch” never reaches the
brain.
That’s also why some horses
are tender for a time after shoes are taken off. The hoof that has been
unhealthy because of shoes now has blood circulation once again, and he
can feel. Two of our horses were good to go right from the
first minute the shoes came off. Two took a month or so, one about three
months, and one took almost eight months. But all are happy campers
now, with rock solid feet, on the trail, in the arena, on concrete and
asphalt, wherever (See our hoof photos above).
It takes approximately
eight months for most horses to grow a brand new hoof, from hairline to
the ground. So with proper and consistent trimming, that’s should be the
maximum time to have terrific feet unless there are serious lameness
issues, imbalances, or the like, in which case it could take longer. But
most of the time, during the transition, the use of hoof boots allows
the horse to be ridden with no pain while still allowing the hoof to
flex and and heal and grow as it was intended. Our gelding who took
eight months to grow a whole new hoof was fine on the trail and the
street with boots during his transition. He’s now fine without them.
No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, the
horse living in the Ice Age, the present-day wild horse, and the
high-performance domestic breeds of today are all anatomically,
physiologically, and psychologically alike. They all share the same
biological requirements for health, long life, and soundness. In
other words, we could not only be making the horse’s life as good as it
is in the wild, we could be making it better. At least as healthy. And
happier!
This addresses the concerns
of some who are worried that the domestic horse has had his true
genetics bred out of him. A few generations of selective breeding simply
cannot erase the genteics of fifty-two million years. I have found no
scientific or medical authority who even considers the possibility. The
genetics are there and will take over, given the opportunity and the
proper lifestyle, diet, and trim for recovery. Folks like Pete Ramey, Eddie Drabek, Jaime Jackson, James and Yvonne Welz, Mark Taylor
and others, are proving this every day. They are saving horses who are
at the end of their rope by pulling the shoes and easing into the Wild
Horse Trim. Letting the horse grow the healthy, rock solid, hooves that
nature intended them to have all along.
The entire Houston Mounted
Police Patrol is now all barefoot with the wild horse trim. All 40
horses! Varied breeds and backgrounds. Thriving. Healthier than ever.
And working on concrete, asphalt and marble all day every day! That
pretty well shoots holes in the theory that all horses cannot go
barefoot. All of theirs did. Read more.
Emile Carre, a past president of the American Farriers Association was quoted as saying “The
(horse’s) foot was designed to be unshod, Anything that you add to the
foot, like a horseshoe that is nailed on, is going to interfere with the
foot’s natural process. Most horseshoes have six to eight nails,
possibly one to three clips, all of which constrict the foot’s ability
to expand and contract. Add pads, packing, any number of alternatives to
the shoe, and you create a gait alteration. It all interferes with the
natural process of the mechanism.“
Walt Taylor, also of the
American Farriers Association, was quoted in an article in the American
Farriers Journal (November, 2000) saying that 90% of the domestic horses
in the world (that’s 122 million horses) have some degree of lameness
and are still being used.
So the nailed-on metal
shoe, in effect, becomes camouflage for what is actually happening
within the hoof mechanism. The lack of circulation which dampens the
feelings in the nerve endings hides the illness and pain the horse is
actually experiencing.
Horses in the wild do not
have hoof lameness issues. Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick (who has studied wild
horses most of his adult life) says that virtually every case of
lameness he’s seen in the wild is related to arthritic shoulder joints,
not hoof problems.
Natural Hoof Specialist Eddie Drabek
says, “I’ve had horses brought to me from owners who swore their horses
had feet that grow abnormally, had bad genetics, could never be
barefoot, have brittle hooves, heels grow but toes don’t, toes grow but
heels don’t, have cracks that will never go away, and so forth… (I’ve
heard it all)….but I’ve never met the horse who can’t be taken
successfully barefoot with the proper wild horse trim and diet, and have
beautiful feet to show for it. And I’m talking hundreds. I
simply wouldn’t have dropped everything and changed my entire career if I
wasn’t amazed with the results I was having. I was just at a horse show
this past weekend watching many of my clients’ horses compete. Not a
little po-dunk show, rather a big time show with competitors from as far
away as Canada and Australia. By popular belief about their high
performance bloodlines and their ‘genetically bad hooves’, these horses
should not be able to be barefoot, but they all are (most for 3 years
now), competing right up there with the shod horses, and they have
better feet than ever before.”
National Championships in virtually every discipline have been won by barefoot horses. Barrels, cutting, jumping, racing, etc.
Arizona veterinarian Dr.
Tomas Teskey says,”One of the greatest damages that occurs because of
the application of steel shoes to the horse’s hoof is the greatly
reduced circulation within the hoof, and the diminished return of blood
back up toward the heart through the veins of the lower leg. Shoes
interfere with the hoof’s natural blood-pumping mechanism. The natural
hoof expands and contracts with each step, letting blood in as it
spreads upon impact with the ground, and squeezing blood up and out of
the hoof as it contracts when it is not bearing weight. If this sounds
familiar, like the blood pumping mechanism of a heart, that’s because it
is–natural hooves perform a critical function as supplementary
“hearts”. This vital heart-like mechanism is greatly restricted by
immobilizing the hoof with steel shoes.”
Convince yourself. Try this test. On a cool day, or under cover, feel
the hoof and lower leg of a shod horse, and another that is barefoot.
The barefoot horse’s lower leg and hoof will feel warm to the touch,
because of the blood circulating within. The shod horse’s lower leg and
hoof will be cool, not warm, because of the blood that is not
circulating within. Or simply study the thermograph above.
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
But… please don’t take our
word for all this. Do the research yourself. Start with the many links
below, and then branch out on your own. There is an enormous amount of
solid research out there. Gobble it up. Then, don’t let others who have
not done the research dissuade you. Someone once said that all truth
passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is
opposed violently. Third, it is accepted as self evident. Give your
horse the gift of barefoot. Then stand back and watch him frolic.
- See more at: http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/the-gift-of-barefoot/#sthash.tBiG9M23.dpuf
Did
you know that a horse’s hoof is supposed to flex with every step taken?
And that simple act of flexing is just about the most important thing a
horse can do for good health and long life? The flexing provides shock
absorption for the joints, tendons and ligaments in the leg and
shoulder; acts as a circulatory pump for hundreds of blood vessels in
the hoof mechanism; and helps the heart get that blood flowing back up
the leg.
Without flexing, the
hoof mechanism will not have good circulation and will not be healthy.
And the heart will have to work harder to get the blood back up the
legs. Without flexing, there will be no shock absorption.
And with a metal shoe nailed to the hoof, no flexing can occur.
Kerwhap! I was slapped right in the face with a piece of indisputable logic.
How insensitive to my inertia.
Four years later I
discovered this thermograph (displayed below) which actually shows – in a
real-life horse – what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is
nailed on. This horse is wearing one metal shoe, on his front right. The
other three hooves are barefoot. The thermograph is set to show blood
circulation (or lack of it). He was walked around in a big circle and
then the thermograph was taken.
The article in Horse & Rider went on to explore the results of Jaime Jackson’s
study of more than one thousand wild mustang hooves. All barefoot
hooves, of course. All very much alike, healthy and as hard as steel.
The original Wild Horse Trim which now means to replicate the
trim the horse would be giving itself if he or she were in the wild.
Remember, the horse has survived for something like 52 million years,
and being a flight animal, a prey animal, his feet are the most
important part of that survival (Read an amazing article about Pete Ramey’s trip into wild horse country).
I was immediately off to
websites, gathering books, soaking up information and knowledge. And one
item I found puts to rest what so many were telling me: that the foot
has been bred right off the horse, that the so called “domestic” horse
no longer has the same foot as the horse in the wild. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Actual science tells us that it would take a
minimum of 5000 years – probably closer to 10,000 – to even begin to
breed change into the base genetics of any species, including
the horse. I also discovered a study confirming that every “domestic”
horse today retains the ability to successfully return to the wild and
be completely healthy. In other words, you do not really have a
“domestic” horse. Genetically speaking, you have a wild horse in
captivity. All horses on this earth are genetically the same (see Chronology of the Horse’s Evolution)
“If all that’s true, why does my horse appear to feel better with shoes on his feet?” I was asked recently.
Have you ever crossed
your legs for such a long time that your foot goes to sleep? It’s
because you have cut off the blood circulation to your foot. Essentially
that’s what’s happening when a metal shoe is nailed onto a horses foot.
The hoof no longer flexes. Which means a substantial loss of blood
circulation in the hoof. Which mean the nerve endings go to sleep. And
the ill health the hoof is suffering from lack of circulation is no
longer felt by the horse. In other words, the “ouch” never reaches the
brain.
That’s also why some horses
are tender for a time after shoes are taken off. The hoof that has been
unhealthy because of shoes now has blood circulation once again, and he
can feel. Two of our horses were good to go right from the
first minute the shoes came off. Two took a month or so, one about three
months, and one took almost eight months. But all are happy campers
now, with rock solid feet, on the trail, in the arena, on concrete and
asphalt, wherever (See our hoof photos above).
It takes approximately
eight months for most horses to grow a brand new hoof, from hairline to
the ground. So with proper and consistent trimming, that’s should be the
maximum time to have terrific feet unless there are serious lameness
issues, imbalances, or the like, in which case it could take longer. But
most of the time, during the transition, the use of hoof boots allows
the horse to be ridden with no pain while still allowing the hoof to
flex and and heal and grow as it was intended. Our gelding who took
eight months to grow a whole new hoof was fine on the trail and the
street with boots during his transition. He’s now fine without them.
No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, the
horse living in the Ice Age, the present-day wild horse, and the
high-performance domestic breeds of today are all anatomically,
physiologically, and psychologically alike. They all share the same
biological requirements for health, long life, and soundness. In
other words, we could not only be making the horse’s life as good as it
is in the wild, we could be making it better. At least as healthy. And
happier!
This addresses the concerns
of some who are worried that the domestic horse has had his true
genetics bred out of him. A few generations of selective breeding simply
cannot erase the genteics of fifty-two million years. I have found no
scientific or medical authority who even considers the possibility. The
genetics are there and will take over, given the opportunity and the
proper lifestyle, diet, and trim for recovery. Folks like Pete Ramey, Eddie Drabek, Jaime Jackson, James and Yvonne Welz, Mark Taylor
and others, are proving this every day. They are saving horses who are
at the end of their rope by pulling the shoes and easing into the Wild
Horse Trim. Letting the horse grow the healthy, rock solid, hooves that
nature intended them to have all along.
The entire Houston Mounted
Police Patrol is now all barefoot with the wild horse trim. All 40
horses! Varied breeds and backgrounds. Thriving. Healthier than ever.
And working on concrete, asphalt and marble all day every day! That
pretty well shoots holes in the theory that all horses cannot go
barefoot. All of theirs did. Read more.
Emile Carre, a past president of the American Farriers Association was quoted as saying “The
(horse’s) foot was designed to be unshod, Anything that you add to the
foot, like a horseshoe that is nailed on, is going to interfere with the
foot’s natural process. Most horseshoes have six to eight nails,
possibly one to three clips, all of which constrict the foot’s ability
to expand and contract. Add pads, packing, any number of alternatives to
the shoe, and you create a gait alteration. It all interferes with the
natural process of the mechanism.“
Walt Taylor, also of the
American Farriers Association, was quoted in an article in the American
Farriers Journal (November, 2000) saying that 90% of the domestic horses
in the world (that’s 122 million horses) have some degree of lameness
and are still being used.
So the nailed-on metal
shoe, in effect, becomes camouflage for what is actually happening
within the hoof mechanism. The lack of circulation which dampens the
feelings in the nerve endings hides the illness and pain the horse is
actually experiencing.
Horses in the wild do not
have hoof lameness issues. Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick (who has studied wild
horses most of his adult life) says that virtually every case of
lameness he’s seen in the wild is related to arthritic shoulder joints,
not hoof problems.
Natural Hoof Specialist Eddie Drabek
says, “I’ve had horses brought to me from owners who swore their horses
had feet that grow abnormally, had bad genetics, could never be
barefoot, have brittle hooves, heels grow but toes don’t, toes grow but
heels don’t, have cracks that will never go away, and so forth… (I’ve
heard it all)….but I’ve never met the horse who can’t be taken
successfully barefoot with the proper wild horse trim and diet, and have
beautiful feet to show for it. And I’m talking hundreds. I
simply wouldn’t have dropped everything and changed my entire career if I
wasn’t amazed with the results I was having. I was just at a horse show
this past weekend watching many of my clients’ horses compete. Not a
little po-dunk show, rather a big time show with competitors from as far
away as Canada and Australia. By popular belief about their high
performance bloodlines and their ‘genetically bad hooves’, these horses
should not be able to be barefoot, but they all are (most for 3 years
now), competing right up there with the shod horses, and they have
better feet than ever before.”
National Championships in virtually every discipline have been won by barefoot horses. Barrels, cutting, jumping, racing, etc.
Arizona veterinarian Dr.
Tomas Teskey says,”One of the greatest damages that occurs because of
the application of steel shoes to the horse’s hoof is the greatly
reduced circulation within the hoof, and the diminished return of blood
back up toward the heart through the veins of the lower leg. Shoes
interfere with the hoof’s natural blood-pumping mechanism. The natural
hoof expands and contracts with each step, letting blood in as it
spreads upon impact with the ground, and squeezing blood up and out of
the hoof as it contracts when it is not bearing weight. If this sounds
familiar, like the blood pumping mechanism of a heart, that’s because it
is–natural hooves perform a critical function as supplementary
“hearts”. This vital heart-like mechanism is greatly restricted by
immobilizing the hoof with steel shoes.”
Convince yourself. Try this test. On a cool day, or under cover, feel
the hoof and lower leg of a shod horse, and another that is barefoot.
The barefoot horse’s lower leg and hoof will feel warm to the touch,
because of the blood circulating within. The shod horse’s lower leg and
hoof will be cool, not warm, because of the blood that is not
circulating within. Or simply study the thermograph above.
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
But… please don’t take our
word for all this. Do the research yourself. Start with the many links
below, and then branch out on your own. There is an enormous amount of
solid research out there. Gobble it up. Then, don’t let others who have
not done the research dissuade you. Someone once said that all truth
passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is
opposed violently. Third, it is accepted as self evident. Give your
horse the gift of barefoot. Then stand back and watch him frolic.
- See more at: http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/the-gift-of-barefoot/#sthash.tBiG9M23.dpuf
Did
you know that a horse’s hoof is supposed to flex with every step taken?
And that simple act of flexing is just about the most important thing a
horse can do for good health and long life? The flexing provides shock
absorption for the joints, tendons and ligaments in the leg and
shoulder; acts as a circulatory pump for hundreds of blood vessels in
the hoof mechanism; and helps the heart get that blood flowing back up
the leg.
Without flexing, the
hoof mechanism will not have good circulation and will not be healthy.
And the heart will have to work harder to get the blood back up the
legs. Without flexing, there will be no shock absorption.
And with a metal shoe nailed to the hoof, no flexing can occur.
Kerwhap! I was slapped right in the face with a piece of indisputable logic.
How insensitive to my inertia.
Four years later I
discovered this thermograph (displayed below) which actually shows – in a
real-life horse – what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is
nailed on. This horse is wearing one metal shoe, on his front right. The
other three hooves are barefoot. The thermograph is set to show blood
circulation (or lack of it). He was walked around in a big circle and
then the thermograph was taken.
The article in Horse & Rider went on to explore the results of Jaime Jackson’s
study of more than one thousand wild mustang hooves. All barefoot
hooves, of course. All very much alike, healthy and as hard as steel.
The original Wild Horse Trim which now means to replicate the
trim the horse would be giving itself if he or she were in the wild.
Remember, the horse has survived for something like 52 million years,
and being a flight animal, a prey animal, his feet are the most
important part of that survival (Read an amazing article about Pete Ramey’s trip into wild horse country).
I was immediately off to
websites, gathering books, soaking up information and knowledge. And one
item I found puts to rest what so many were telling me: that the foot
has been bred right off the horse, that the so called “domestic” horse
no longer has the same foot as the horse in the wild. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Actual science tells us that it would take a
minimum of 5000 years – probably closer to 10,000 – to even begin to
breed change into the base genetics of any species, including
the horse. I also discovered a study confirming that every “domestic”
horse today retains the ability to successfully return to the wild and
be completely healthy. In other words, you do not really have a
“domestic” horse. Genetically speaking, you have a wild horse in
captivity. All horses on this earth are genetically the same (see Chronology of the Horse’s Evolution)
“If all that’s true, why does my horse appear to feel better with shoes on his feet?” I was asked recently.
Have you ever crossed
your legs for such a long time that your foot goes to sleep? It’s
because you have cut off the blood circulation to your foot. Essentially
that’s what’s happening when a metal shoe is nailed onto a horses foot.
The hoof no longer flexes. Which means a substantial loss of blood
circulation in the hoof. Which mean the nerve endings go to sleep. And
the ill health the hoof is suffering from lack of circulation is no
longer felt by the horse. In other words, the “ouch” never reaches the
brain.
That’s also why some horses
are tender for a time after shoes are taken off. The hoof that has been
unhealthy because of shoes now has blood circulation once again, and he
can feel. Two of our horses were good to go right from the
first minute the shoes came off. Two took a month or so, one about three
months, and one took almost eight months. But all are happy campers
now, with rock solid feet, on the trail, in the arena, on concrete and
asphalt, wherever (See our hoof photos above).
It takes approximately
eight months for most horses to grow a brand new hoof, from hairline to
the ground. So with proper and consistent trimming, that’s should be the
maximum time to have terrific feet unless there are serious lameness
issues, imbalances, or the like, in which case it could take longer. But
most of the time, during the transition, the use of hoof boots allows
the horse to be ridden with no pain while still allowing the hoof to
flex and and heal and grow as it was intended. Our gelding who took
eight months to grow a whole new hoof was fine on the trail and the
street with boots during his transition. He’s now fine without them.
No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, the
horse living in the Ice Age, the present-day wild horse, and the
high-performance domestic breeds of today are all anatomically,
physiologically, and psychologically alike. They all share the same
biological requirements for health, long life, and soundness. In
other words, we could not only be making the horse’s life as good as it
is in the wild, we could be making it better. At least as healthy. And
happier!
This addresses the concerns
of some who are worried that the domestic horse has had his true
genetics bred out of him. A few generations of selective breeding simply
cannot erase the genteics of fifty-two million years. I have found no
scientific or medical authority who even considers the possibility. The
genetics are there and will take over, given the opportunity and the
proper lifestyle, diet, and trim for recovery. Folks like Pete Ramey, Eddie Drabek, Jaime Jackson, James and Yvonne Welz, Mark Taylor
and others, are proving this every day. They are saving horses who are
at the end of their rope by pulling the shoes and easing into the Wild
Horse Trim. Letting the horse grow the healthy, rock solid, hooves that
nature intended them to have all along.
The entire Houston Mounted
Police Patrol is now all barefoot with the wild horse trim. All 40
horses! Varied breeds and backgrounds. Thriving. Healthier than ever.
And working on concrete, asphalt and marble all day every day! That
pretty well shoots holes in the theory that all horses cannot go
barefoot. All of theirs did. Read more.
Emile Carre, a past president of the American Farriers Association was quoted as saying “The
(horse’s) foot was designed to be unshod, Anything that you add to the
foot, like a horseshoe that is nailed on, is going to interfere with the
foot’s natural process. Most horseshoes have six to eight nails,
possibly one to three clips, all of which constrict the foot’s ability
to expand and contract. Add pads, packing, any number of alternatives to
the shoe, and you create a gait alteration. It all interferes with the
natural process of the mechanism.“
Walt Taylor, also of the
American Farriers Association, was quoted in an article in the American
Farriers Journal (November, 2000) saying that 90% of the domestic horses
in the world (that’s 122 million horses) have some degree of lameness
and are still being used.
So the nailed-on metal
shoe, in effect, becomes camouflage for what is actually happening
within the hoof mechanism. The lack of circulation which dampens the
feelings in the nerve endings hides the illness and pain the horse is
actually experiencing.
Horses in the wild do not
have hoof lameness issues. Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick (who has studied wild
horses most of his adult life) says that virtually every case of
lameness he’s seen in the wild is related to arthritic shoulder joints,
not hoof problems.
Natural Hoof Specialist Eddie Drabek
says, “I’ve had horses brought to me from owners who swore their horses
had feet that grow abnormally, had bad genetics, could never be
barefoot, have brittle hooves, heels grow but toes don’t, toes grow but
heels don’t, have cracks that will never go away, and so forth… (I’ve
heard it all)….but I’ve never met the horse who can’t be taken
successfully barefoot with the proper wild horse trim and diet, and have
beautiful feet to show for it. And I’m talking hundreds. I
simply wouldn’t have dropped everything and changed my entire career if I
wasn’t amazed with the results I was having. I was just at a horse show
this past weekend watching many of my clients’ horses compete. Not a
little po-dunk show, rather a big time show with competitors from as far
away as Canada and Australia. By popular belief about their high
performance bloodlines and their ‘genetically bad hooves’, these horses
should not be able to be barefoot, but they all are (most for 3 years
now), competing right up there with the shod horses, and they have
better feet than ever before.”
National Championships in virtually every discipline have been won by barefoot horses. Barrels, cutting, jumping, racing, etc.
Arizona veterinarian Dr.
Tomas Teskey says,”One of the greatest damages that occurs because of
the application of steel shoes to the horse’s hoof is the greatly
reduced circulation within the hoof, and the diminished return of blood
back up toward the heart through the veins of the lower leg. Shoes
interfere with the hoof’s natural blood-pumping mechanism. The natural
hoof expands and contracts with each step, letting blood in as it
spreads upon impact with the ground, and squeezing blood up and out of
the hoof as it contracts when it is not bearing weight. If this sounds
familiar, like the blood pumping mechanism of a heart, that’s because it
is–natural hooves perform a critical function as supplementary
“hearts”. This vital heart-like mechanism is greatly restricted by
immobilizing the hoof with steel shoes.”
Convince yourself. Try this test. On a cool day, or under cover, feel
the hoof and lower leg of a shod horse, and another that is barefoot.
The barefoot horse’s lower leg and hoof will feel warm to the touch,
because of the blood circulating within. The shod horse’s lower leg and
hoof will be cool, not warm, because of the blood that is not
circulating within. Or simply study the thermograph above.
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
But… please don’t take our
word for all this. Do the research yourself. Start with the many links
below, and then branch out on your own. There is an enormous amount of
solid research out there. Gobble it up. Then, don’t let others who have
not done the research dissuade you. Someone once said that all truth
passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is
opposed violently. Third, it is accepted as self evident. Give your
horse the gift of barefoot. Then stand back and watch him frolic.
- See more at: http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/the-gift-of-barefoot/#sthash.tBiG9M23.dpuf
Did
you know that a horse’s hoof is supposed to flex with every step taken?
And that simple act of flexing is just about the most important thing a
horse can do for good health and long life? The flexing provides shock
absorption for the joints, tendons and ligaments in the leg and
shoulder; acts as a circulatory pump for hundreds of blood vessels in
the hoof mechanism; and helps the heart get that blood flowing back up
the leg.
Without flexing, the
hoof mechanism will not have good circulation and will not be healthy.
And the heart will have to work harder to get the blood back up the
legs. Without flexing, there will be no shock absorption.
And with a metal shoe nailed to the hoof, no flexing can occur.
Kerwhap! I was slapped right in the face with a piece of indisputable logic.
How insensitive to my inertia.
Four years later I
discovered this thermograph (displayed below) which actually shows – in a
real-life horse – what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is
nailed on. This horse is wearing one metal shoe, on his front right. The
other three hooves are barefoot. The thermograph is set to show blood
circulation (or lack of it). He was walked around in a big circle and
then the thermograph was taken.
The article in Horse & Rider went on to explore the results of Jaime Jackson’s
study of more than one thousand wild mustang hooves. All barefoot
hooves, of course. All very much alike, healthy and as hard as steel.
The original Wild Horse Trim which now means to replicate the
trim the horse would be giving itself if he or she were in the wild.
Remember, the horse has survived for something like 52 million years,
and being a flight animal, a prey animal, his feet are the most
important part of that survival (Read an amazing article about Pete Ramey’s trip into wild horse country).
I was immediately off to
websites, gathering books, soaking up information and knowledge. And one
item I found puts to rest what so many were telling me: that the foot
has been bred right off the horse, that the so called “domestic” horse
no longer has the same foot as the horse in the wild. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Actual science tells us that it would take a
minimum of 5000 years – probably closer to 10,000 – to even begin to
breed change into the base genetics of any species, including
the horse. I also discovered a study confirming that every “domestic”
horse today retains the ability to successfully return to the wild and
be completely healthy. In other words, you do not really have a
“domestic” horse. Genetically speaking, you have a wild horse in
captivity. All horses on this earth are genetically the same (see Chronology of the Horse’s Evolution)
“If all that’s true, why does my horse appear to feel better with shoes on his feet?” I was asked recently.
Have you ever crossed
your legs for such a long time that your foot goes to sleep? It’s
because you have cut off the blood circulation to your foot. Essentially
that’s what’s happening when a metal shoe is nailed onto a horses foot.
The hoof no longer flexes. Which means a substantial loss of blood
circulation in the hoof. Which mean the nerve endings go to sleep. And
the ill health the hoof is suffering from lack of circulation is no
longer felt by the horse. In other words, the “ouch” never reaches the
brain.
That’s also why some horses
are tender for a time after shoes are taken off. The hoof that has been
unhealthy because of shoes now has blood circulation once again, and he
can feel. Two of our horses were good to go right from the
first minute the shoes came off. Two took a month or so, one about three
months, and one took almost eight months. But all are happy campers
now, with rock solid feet, on the trail, in the arena, on concrete and
asphalt, wherever (See our hoof photos above).
It takes approximately
eight months for most horses to grow a brand new hoof, from hairline to
the ground. So with proper and consistent trimming, that’s should be the
maximum time to have terrific feet unless there are serious lameness
issues, imbalances, or the like, in which case it could take longer. But
most of the time, during the transition, the use of hoof boots allows
the horse to be ridden with no pain while still allowing the hoof to
flex and and heal and grow as it was intended. Our gelding who took
eight months to grow a whole new hoof was fine on the trail and the
street with boots during his transition. He’s now fine without them.
No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, the
horse living in the Ice Age, the present-day wild horse, and the
high-performance domestic breeds of today are all anatomically,
physiologically, and psychologically alike. They all share the same
biological requirements for health, long life, and soundness. In
other words, we could not only be making the horse’s life as good as it
is in the wild, we could be making it better. At least as healthy. And
happier!
This addresses the concerns
of some who are worried that the domestic horse has had his true
genetics bred out of him. A few generations of selective breeding simply
cannot erase the genteics of fifty-two million years. I have found no
scientific or medical authority who even considers the possibility. The
genetics are there and will take over, given the opportunity and the
proper lifestyle, diet, and trim for recovery. Folks like Pete Ramey, Eddie Drabek, Jaime Jackson, James and Yvonne Welz, Mark Taylor
and others, are proving this every day. They are saving horses who are
at the end of their rope by pulling the shoes and easing into the Wild
Horse Trim. Letting the horse grow the healthy, rock solid, hooves that
nature intended them to have all along.
The entire Houston Mounted
Police Patrol is now all barefoot with the wild horse trim. All 40
horses! Varied breeds and backgrounds. Thriving. Healthier than ever.
And working on concrete, asphalt and marble all day every day! That
pretty well shoots holes in the theory that all horses cannot go
barefoot. All of theirs did. Read more.
Emile Carre, a past president of the American Farriers Association was quoted as saying “The
(horse’s) foot was designed to be unshod, Anything that you add to the
foot, like a horseshoe that is nailed on, is going to interfere with the
foot’s natural process. Most horseshoes have six to eight nails,
possibly one to three clips, all of which constrict the foot’s ability
to expand and contract. Add pads, packing, any number of alternatives to
the shoe, and you create a gait alteration. It all interferes with the
natural process of the mechanism.“
Walt Taylor, also of the
American Farriers Association, was quoted in an article in the American
Farriers Journal (November, 2000) saying that 90% of the domestic horses
in the world (that’s 122 million horses) have some degree of lameness
and are still being used.
So the nailed-on metal
shoe, in effect, becomes camouflage for what is actually happening
within the hoof mechanism. The lack of circulation which dampens the
feelings in the nerve endings hides the illness and pain the horse is
actually experiencing.
Horses in the wild do not
have hoof lameness issues. Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick (who has studied wild
horses most of his adult life) says that virtually every case of
lameness he’s seen in the wild is related to arthritic shoulder joints,
not hoof problems.
Natural Hoof Specialist Eddie Drabek
says, “I’ve had horses brought to me from owners who swore their horses
had feet that grow abnormally, had bad genetics, could never be
barefoot, have brittle hooves, heels grow but toes don’t, toes grow but
heels don’t, have cracks that will never go away, and so forth… (I’ve
heard it all)….but I’ve never met the horse who can’t be taken
successfully barefoot with the proper wild horse trim and diet, and have
beautiful feet to show for it. And I’m talking hundreds. I
simply wouldn’t have dropped everything and changed my entire career if I
wasn’t amazed with the results I was having. I was just at a horse show
this past weekend watching many of my clients’ horses compete. Not a
little po-dunk show, rather a big time show with competitors from as far
away as Canada and Australia. By popular belief about their high
performance bloodlines and their ‘genetically bad hooves’, these horses
should not be able to be barefoot, but they all are (most for 3 years
now), competing right up there with the shod horses, and they have
better feet than ever before.”
National Championships in virtually every discipline have been won by barefoot horses. Barrels, cutting, jumping, racing, etc.
Arizona veterinarian Dr.
Tomas Teskey says,”One of the greatest damages that occurs because of
the application of steel shoes to the horse’s hoof is the greatly
reduced circulation within the hoof, and the diminished return of blood
back up toward the heart through the veins of the lower leg. Shoes
interfere with the hoof’s natural blood-pumping mechanism. The natural
hoof expands and contracts with each step, letting blood in as it
spreads upon impact with the ground, and squeezing blood up and out of
the hoof as it contracts when it is not bearing weight. If this sounds
familiar, like the blood pumping mechanism of a heart, that’s because it
is–natural hooves perform a critical function as supplementary
“hearts”. This vital heart-like mechanism is greatly restricted by
immobilizing the hoof with steel shoes.”
Convince yourself. Try this test. On a cool day, or under cover, feel
the hoof and lower leg of a shod horse, and another that is barefoot.
The barefoot horse’s lower leg and hoof will feel warm to the touch,
because of the blood circulating within. The shod horse’s lower leg and
hoof will be cool, not warm, because of the blood that is not
circulating within. Or simply study the thermograph above.
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
Hopefully all this will stimulate you to study more and discover how you can enhance your horse’s health in a big way! Our bottom line is that, even though we lived at the top of a big hill with three turnouts that are heavily sloped and rocky, we (slowly, cautiously, and with abundant knowledge) took all six of our horses barefoot with the Wild Horse Trim, and they were then all as happy as clams, healthy as, well, a horse, and did fantastic… and now our eight continue to be happy and healthy in their new steep, hilly home in middle Tennessee (see our new place and our old place).
But… please don’t take our
word for all this. Do the research yourself. Start with the many links
below, and then branch out on your own. There is an enormous amount of
solid research out there. Gobble it up. Then, don’t let others who have
not done the research dissuade you. Someone once said that all truth
passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is
opposed violently. Third, it is accepted as self evident. Give your
horse the gift of barefoot. Then stand back and watch him frolic.
- See more at: http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/the-gift-of-barefoot/#sthash.tBiG9M23.dpuf
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