These pages share personal experiences and opinion and do not constitute advice or professional services. No responsibility or liability can be accepted from anyone choosing to use the material for their own benefit. Any factual errors can be corrected by emailing us. Material is non-copyright and may be shared.
The trim we use is consistently effective and safe, allowing us to have happy horses, with balanced feet, that are as capable, or more capable of high performance than they were when shod.
A UKNHCP trimmer/farrier can give you good advice as the trim is individual to each horse.
Principles of a correct trim
It should NEVER invade or remove live tissue or live sole
It should NEVER cause bleeding
The trim should follow the parameters of the live sole, and respect internal structures.
The horse should be at least as comfortable, and probably more comfortable, after the trim than he was before the trim.
The hoof should be balanced and allow for a correct breakover and a heel first landing
This horse had every problem going, B UT they are the sort of feet that can be transformed by going barefoot!
You can see that the day his shoes came off the highest point of his foot by a long, long way was his frog. His soles were convex. He had no hoof wall. But he did have an abscess at the toe, caused by the toe pressure of the shoe.
He also had white line disease, as you can see from the black trench where the
hoof wall should have been. You can see from the side shot that to cap it all he had collapsed heels and the bulbs of his heel were nearly on the floor.
His foot was misshapen, he had pointed this foot constantly for 18 months before he went barefoot, and he was pulled from his last 2 events (as a shod horse) because his owner was so concerned about his soundness.
The photo on the left was taken after his shoes had been off, and he had been correctly trimmed, for 20 weeks. His feet had improved dramatically but it took several more weeks before he was 100% capable on every surface.
The photo on the right shows his feet over a year after he was first de-shod.
He is now out eventing again, and going better than ever. Here’s his case study.
