Pics!

My gelding has never worn shoes and that makes me very fortunate in that I never had to transition him from shod to barefoot. His hooves are very hard but I have noticed that the state of the hooves changes with the seasons, the weather and whatever he's eating. The first four pics below show his hooves coming into summer - lots of green grass (very dangerous for those prone to laminitis), hot and dry, creating faster hoof growth and chipping. The three pics at the end all show his hoof after trimming (not great pics, sorry - I was in a rush with the trimmer!). Note the strong hoof growth, the absence of cracks, the uniform shape and overall health of the hoof.

This hoof is the one shown in the pic of the underside of the hoof with lots of chipping. It's almost unrecognisable. That was all quite superficial.

As summer kicks off and I am upping the training and intensity, including more jumping, I have to bear in mind the state of his feet. With this horse, I have had virtually no issues in the last 12 to 18 months. What I do to maintain this hardiness is lots of walking on gravel roads and hard dry clay trails. If I can get access to sand arenas to train in, I take full advantage. Basically, the more wear the hooves see, the faster and stronger they grow. That being said, I don't jump on hard ground very often! This horse can now trot up a gravel road with no problems and gallops over hard ground with no sign it is painful. He has never had swelling in his legs after cross country or show jumping.

Feeding at the moment is purely related to getting his supplements into him - he's a fat bugger right now! This horse is quite sensitive to touch and needs joint support from the wear and tear eventing and general riding has on his body. I feed him a vitamin E and selenium pellet (Kohnke's E-Se is what I'm currently using) and MSM powder I buy on Ebay. I only feed lucerne chaff and a little low-GI pellet to make it worth eating!

I will write a blog on feed soon as I see it as the paramount issue. Out of trimming, exercise and feeding most people focus on trimming in the barefoot world because it's often controversial and seems to be the most important part. It is certainly important, but I consider feed, then exercise, then trimming the order of importance. More on that next time. Happy riding!