Road to Hoof Rehabilitation

It's no easy decision and definitely not an easy deal,
been shod for almost 14 years, transitioning to barefoot requires a good plan, the best care, experience and endless patience.

In order to protect client confidentiality faces and dialogues have been removed

Hoof rehabilitation is complicated.
This video is not Disney channel.
If you expect to see horses suddenly transform into pink unicorns, because we removed the shoes, you will be disappointed.
You will see a real case, real people, honest progress

In addition to that, horse owners that choose barefoot, are educated owners that follow a different mindset. It's not a cheap choice and they don't care if a barefoot horse could jump a certain height, could run a certain distance etc. Not every owner thinks that a horse should only serve our egotistical goals.

Barefoot is a natural approach so don't expect it work in unnatural conditions.

You will probably recognize a lot of pathologies in this horse's hooves
If I try to list everything I will get desperate and I really hope I could manage to fix this horse to the best of my abilities.

Here's a few
Rotation and vertical displacement of P3, dishing at the toe, evident lamellar wedge, thin & flat soles, weak walls, underrun heels, contracted heels, deep central sulcus thrush, caudal foot failure

It's no wonder that this horse became lame last year, especially in his right fore and was also positive navicular syndrome test!

Removing horse shoes did not make the horse feel better in the beginning.
In both fronts I applied casting tape and ridding was prohibited
it was suggested to walk the horse by hand and do some light groundwork

Here's what I said to the owner
"try and remember what you see each day,
every day has to be slightly better than the one before.
if not, please call me immediately"

After the 2nd trim, we applied Hoof Armor
but asked the owner to be patient for another 2 months and restrain from riding
we took measurements and ordered hoof boots

After the 3rd trim, I heat fitted EasyBoot Gloves with Powerstraps and no pads
Normally I would have waited longer before going back to riding but I know that this can be hard
Since the owner works with kids, I asked her to start slowly and let me know how it goes

I did not expect this but from the moment the horse started working again, we saw lots of improvement. One more time I get to see the truth in the phrase, movement is medicine.

UPDATE: After my previous visit, the horse is doing terrific
my phone did not ring once,
every day must be better than the day before
just another happy, barefoot horse!

Видео Road to Hoof Rehabilitation канала Aura Horsemanship