SO YOU WANNA GO BAREFOOTIN' ...
When someone tells his farrier he wants his horse to go barefoot, the response is generally, OK ... let's see if he'll do alright barefoot. However, more often than not one will hear the reply that the horse CAN'T go barefoot - "He doesn't grow any heel." "His sole is too thin - he NEEDS the support of shoes." "You can leave him barefoot but I guarantee you won't be riding him." "You can't ride him on rocky trails barefoot. His hooves will crumble (shatter, chip, wear away to nothing). Following these comments the owner most likely will concede and say, "Well, OK. Better put shoes on at least on the fronts." And on go the shoes. OR, the owner insists on trying the barefoot way so the farrier says, OK ... I'll trim him up for you and we'll be done. A little bit of toe gets nipped down a bit. The sole gets pared so it's nice and shiny, slick. The frog is trimmed away. The heels generally are shaved just a wee bit and left a good 1"or more. The bars are left untouched. Then the finishing touches of smoothing out the toes so they look pretty. The hoof is finished. A nice 4 ½" long standing with a bit of pretty flares to make it bell-shaped and all polished shiny. Just look at how pretty this hoof is to your left. Looks great, doesn't it? Well, I can tell you that this horse will probably be experiencing navicular pain within a year or two and then will have therapeutic shoes applied to no avail. The horse will meet an untimely death due to something that is so easily corrected by a PROPER barefoot trim that is close to the way nature intended the hooves to be. Let's take a look at a few points here:
RED: The angle of the pastern SHOULD end up the same as the angle of the outer hoof wall and the heel angle. This hoof shows a broken angle line which signifies what's called a "broken pastern". The green arrow points out a coronary hairline that when viewed from the side would be just about parallel to the ground. The ideal is a 30 degree angle which would show that the P3 (Coffin bone) would be ground parallel and provide a solid base for the horse. Horses are not meant, any more than we are, to walk on their toes. With the heel as long as it was left on this hoof (yellow) and the hairline at a perpendicular angle to the ground one can surmise that the horse is walking on the tips of its coffin bones. In no uncertainty this horse will be lame if left in this condition for long. A prime candidate for expensive, therapeutic shoes.
