A Barefoot Horse Hoof Trimming Mini Masterclass

[@hoovesbyviolet]

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[@mingram008]

Thanks for the work you put into these videos! You answered a couple of questions I had. Some farriers are a bit secretive on the art!

[@hoovesbyviolet]

Thank you! If you have any more questions feel free to ask 🤠

[@wilmoney4619]

The horse didnt know. His body just did what it needs to do because he is a healthy animal.

[@hoovesbyviolet]

Yes that’s why I said that the horse has intelligence in his body that knows when to let the sole go.

[@AmandaHoranGoBookYourself]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is he not walking on the sole at the toe? My horse is similar. I never have to take anything off her toes, and I'm wondering why. A group I follow said they need to be walking on the hoof wall the whole way around and the wall should be at the HSP. But mine seems to wear her toe and I wonder is she not landing heel first. But her heels are taken down to the butress line at every trim.

[@hoovesbyviolet]

That’s a great question. Unfortunately there is not a one size fits all answer here. It really depends on the thickness of the sole on the horse. This horse has nice thick soles and so I am able to take the hoof wall hight down farther and the fact that the toe callous has not popped out and is bearing some weight is not a big deal because of the over all strength of the hoof. Now if this horse had thin soles I would not want to trim like this as he would probably get sore. A basic check for sole thickness is the depth of the collateral grooves. The more shallow the grooves the thinner the sole. What I was taught and what I have found to be true and most helpful to the horse is that yes the wall is the primary weight bearing but the whole hoof shares the weight of the horse especially the frog in a hoof that is healthy and functioning properly. The bars will take on some weight as well when the horse steps and the hoof expands and lowers onto the ground. As far as heel first landing the best way to check is to have someone walk your horse for you and take a video and then watch it in slow motion and try and stop it right when the foot is landing to see if the horse is landing heel first or not. It can be tricky to see and takes a bit to train your eye but it’s really good practice. Another good indication is the frog of the hoof so if the frog is really big and robust and making ground contact then your horse is likely doing a heel first landing because the pressure from the ground is stimulating the frog to grow. If you’ve ever seen a horse with a frog all sucked up into their hoof it’s pretty much guaranteed that horse is not doing a heel first landing. Is your horse wearing her toe on the bottom of the hoof or is she kind of squaring off her toe in the front like she’s dragging her feet? I wish I could do a voice memo as a comment 😂 there is lots to say on this topic and really every horse is slightly different so it’s hard to give blanket statements.

[@hoovesbyviolet]

One more thing I want to mention is that there are certain circumstances when you actually don't want the hoof wall to bear much weight meaning you want to take the hoof wall all the way down to the sole plane. This would be in a case of laminitis where the hoof wall has started to separate and if the hoof wall is left to bear the weight the weight of the horse will just cause the lamina to separate more. That is the most extreme case reason. This technique may also be used for growing out flares (a flare is also the separation of the lamina and is often a symptom of sub clinical laminitis). It is also useful when growing out vertical cracks, especially at the toe. Some horses may need boots when doing this at first and to keep a good heel first landing going and some horses do not. This is can also be dependent on the time of year and how hard the ground it and of course the sole thickness of the horse. Hope this makes sense and answers you question!

[@AmandaHoranGoBookYourself]

@@hoovesbyviolet Thank you!! Do you not always take the walls down to the hard sole plane?? My mare does flare but she is a heavy cob and I've been told that's why she flare's on her front after about 3 weeks.

[@anne-grethemichaelsen5789]

@@AmandaHoranGoBookYourself That´s a good question! I really don`t understand: shouldn´t we always take the walls down to the sole? As far as I have seen barefoot trimmers use their rasp to rasp the walls down to the sole. Hope @hoovesbyviolet will give an answer to this.