Barefoot was not something I had considered and had just assumed from childhood that if you were riding distance or going over rough ground then you should put shoes on your horse. This same childhood experience quickly showed me that if I did not have shoes on, then my horse often finished up lame. I had no mentor or other information available to me, nor did I seek other information, to challenge this belief.

What an eye opener the barefoot clinic was. This whole new world opened up before me. Suddenly I found myself watching whether a horse landed heal first, paid particular attention to hoof angles and heel height. Quickly I discovered that I had been very naive and I set about changing that status.

The clinic showed me how to trim to natural parameters, and gave me a good overview of the dynamics of the horses hoof and leg. Further research at home mainly on the internet led me to some amazing sites and barefoot trimmers and advocates such as Pete Ramey and John the Vet along with Barefoot for Soundness, Natural horse trim and the Strausser method of trimming. I’ve spent countless hours pouring over this information to the point where my partner finds it very rare to find me on the computer without at least 5 websites up with information about horses feet!

I am in the fortunate position where I have access to 10 sets of feet practice my new found skills on and now that the endurance season has commenced it was a natural progression to move into hoof boots. I had been training barefoot, but the terrain I train on compared to the terrain where the endurance rides are held are chalk and cheese. Home terrain is soft lush grassy laneways and fields, endurance country is rocky and mountainous, riding this country without protection on a horse not trained on it is asking for lameness.

So a few weeks ago a trained professional barefoot trimmer came in and measured us up for boots. I was very pleased when she commended my hoof care, it was a real buzz. We fitted two horses for easyboot gloves and one for easyboot epics. The only reason we went epic for the other was because gloves dont come in size 4! The horse in question is a clydesdale appaloosa cross and has big feet.

I will be capturing each horse’s progress in boots in further articles.