Why Bare Foot Horses

A lot of people shoe their horses and they actually don’t even know why – often just because it is a done thing and everyone is doing it.

This is a controversial subject and here is some of what I have found. Some of this is an extract of an article by Joe Camp, who researched the subject of hooves.

Personally, I have never had shoes on any of my horses, I ride them over rocky terrain and have not had a horse go lame, other than all of 2 stone bruises. Here is an excerpt from a horse magazine and it makes a load of sense:

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.

Makes a whole lot of sense to me and when you see a hoof working in action, such as in this video clip you will understand it even more:

Have a look at this thermograph, which actually shows - in a real-life horse - what happens to circulation when a metal shoe is nailed on. On this horse 3 hooves are natural and the off front is wearing a metal shoe. Circulation on the shod foot and leg is severly restricted.

If you want to look into this further, you can look at 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 The 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 54 million years, and being a flight animal - a prey animal, his feet are the most important part of that survival

There is a thought 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 to breed change into the base genetics of any species, including the horse. 
"Domestic" horses retain the ability of return to the feral state 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.

"If all that's true, why does my horse appear to feel better with shoes on his feet?"

An answer that came back from the experts was:  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. This means 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.

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 the maximum time it might take 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 heal and grow as it was intended.

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.

Less than 5% of horses in the wild have any kind of lameness, and 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.

Something to think about.

As for my horses – they get a wild horse trim and I have never had a complaint from any of them. Keep it natural....