Transitioning the Dressage Horse to Barefoot

This post shows the initial transition from shod to barefoot for Beretta, a then-four year old Australian Warmblood. He had been shod for a relatively short time (probably less than 3 months) and has excellent, healthy hooves so the process has been ideal and without any pain or discomfort for Beretta.

Beretta has quite upright front pasterns and shoeing had exacerbated this conformation issue, causing an almost 'clubbed' hoof on one side. Initially, when the shoes were removed, no trimming or other balancing or the hooves was done to allow them to 'release' and the hoof capsule to spread as it bears weight without the restriction of the shoe.

Shod Fronts

Shod Backs

Near front

The photos aren't great! But you get the gist of the upright front pasterns and high heels with toes that are a bit long, and the clubby backs with steep angles.

Off front

Off fore after shoe removed

Near fore after shoe removed

You can see, in the near fore photo above, the toe clip section and how far this has protruded into the white line area. The toe clip is the site of significant pressure as the shoe works against the hoof during movement and has been shown to quickly cause permanent changes to the structure of the hoof, including the tip of the pedal bone. But Beretta has a nice healthy frog and a fairly good shape to his hooves post-shoeing. His heels are a little contracted and high, but not too bad.

Near fore 4 weeks post transition

Near hind 4 weeks post transition

Near hind showing some concavity at 4 weeks

Off hind 4 weeks post transition

The photos above show Beretta's hooves at 4 weeks post removal of shoes. You can see how the hoof wall has grown and the hoof has 'flattened' a little as the hoof capsule adjusts to increased movement and working properly again. The heels have opened a little and the frog is already expanding and callousing. Everything looks great for this stage. This is, of course, pre-trimming.

8 weeks. Trimmed on the right, before trimming on the left

Trimmed and looking great about 8 weeks post-transition

Near fore 8 weeks post-transition

3 months post-transition

This set of photos shows the 'finished' barefoot hoof. Beretta transitioned quickly with a low sugar, high fibre diet, a lot of exercise on hard, dry ground, and frequent trims using correct technique. The results speak for themselves and show a much tighter, smaller hoof capsule, big fat frogs and heels starting to make contact with the ground. Beretta never suffered a sore day, and this is not that unusual with the right preparation and transition plan. He has now developed correct heel-first landing in all four limbs and this will only lengthen his performance life, lessening the chance of concussion-related injuries and lameness.

More photos in another blog of Beretta 9 months on. Stay tuned!

The Muppet Journey Part 1

It's been another long stretch between posts. A lot is happening in the barefoot eventer world - mainly a new long journey I am on with the 'new' horse (though he's been with me for over 9 months now!), Muppet. I have had a post about Muppet's transition from shod to barefoot sitting in 'draft' for ages, and will post it once I re-add the photos. But the new and somewhat more daunting journey has now begun - taking Muppet from a very anxious horse with gut issues and chronic back soreness to the future superstar he will become.

When I bought Muppet, he had pretty significant behavioural issues. Most noticeable was his tension and anxiety. This manifested in the following ways:

• Random and severe head tossing/shaking (this is how Muppet got his name - he would throw himself around at random and I would call him a muppet!)
• Significant tension when first mounted. He was completely unable to stand still when mounted, would rear and paw the ground and often leapt around.
• A real reluctance to go forward, though once going he would run and fight.
• Bucking and pig-rooting.
• A lot of grinding and playing with the bit, pulling and reefing, and very little stop response to rein pressure. He would also be extremely reluctant to take offered rein out and would literally go around with his head curled under and a loop in the reins, like an OTTB.
• Lots of stress and anxiety in new places - pawing and pacing when tied at the float, inability to eat, high reactivity and alertness.
• Diarrhea and poor condition.
• Sore back, particularly the loin area and sacral area over the croup area.
• Marked differences in behaviour depending on location - when tied up he would fidget and stress, when out on the arena (in hand) he is the picture of relaxation.
• Extreme sensitivity to being brushed and touched.

Some of these symptoms have improved or disappeared - he no longer tosses his head or reefs the reins. He rarely leaps around and only occasionally rears - usually when first mounted and asked to remain parked. Bucking and pig-rooting are rarer, though creep in when his back is sore, for obvious reasons. He has filled out beautifully in the spring and now looks a million dollars on a fraction of the feed.

However, the gut issues and back soreness have remained, and sometimes has been quite bad. Twice I have simply gotten straight off after mounting due to obvious soreness. Muppet has good times when he is just amazing to ride and handle, but this is about 15-20% of the time and has been so intermittent it is more frustrating than anything.

In winter, Muppet had developed loose poo - not diarrhea but not normal manure. I had him assessed by our equine vet, Alison Arnott, who diagnosed hindgut acidosis - not stomach ulcers per se, but definitely issues with the hindgut. She was the one who prescribed Equishure, and it helped, but I'm still feeding it three months later and it's not really designed as a maintenance supplement. We need to treat the underlying issue, not just give him horse Mylanta.

In an effort to control his behaviour, his diet was cut from 1kg of Low GI pellets (KER), 0.5kg lucerne chaff, 1kg soaked speedibeet, 1 cup of Micrbeet and a scoop of Equishure TWICE a day, to 1/2 scoop Low GI pellets and 0.25kg lucerne chaff with a scoop of Equishure. This did improve his over-reacting but not enough. And the back soreness continued.

So, I called in the big guns. I had a long and informative discussion with the local WOW saddle fitter and seller, Mel Earl, where we picked apart the possibility of the saddle contributing. We confidently ruled this out due to the way the WOW works and the Flair panels. It's not that it's impossible, but it just doesn't account for all the other symptoms. Mel suggested I get in touch with a bodyworker/nutritionist. So I called Di Snow, who I have used over the past 18 months but in a fairly limited capacity due to low funds.

Di came out a week ago and put Muppet on a pretty impressive diet with about 8 different supplements, including a pre/probiotic, apple cider vinegar, Magnesium Oxide, Lysine, Vitamin E and some special powders of her own invention. I'm also red-lighting key areas of Muppet's back and pectoral muscles, doing carrot stretches and in-hand exercises and giving him a basic massage every few days. Not much time for riding! But no riding for a couple of weeks, anyway, to give him time to start seeing the benefits of the new regime.

He's supposed to be eating hay at wither height, too, but the little bugger just won't do it at the moment. He just winds himself up and stares around at everyone! Muppet.

Muppet September 2018

The photo above shows Muppet just as spring started to kick in. You can see how week he is in the hindquarters and how developed his pectorals are. He has literally been pulling himself along and trying not to use his hindquarters. He had been very stiff and hard through the back. The photo below was taken the day I bought him:

Muppet January 2018

As you can see from the two photos, something is not right! Though Di is sure the issues we are now treating existed before I bought him, he was clearly not as sore through the body when this photo was taken.

So, for the next few months, I'll be blogging about Muppet and our journey to health!

First HRCAV Comp - January 2018

Well, that didn't go quite as I thought it might. Annie and I headed down to Bulla HRCAV Dressage Comp last Sunday (about a 3 hour drive) and things were very different than the usual dressage comp in many ways. For starters, the whole thing has a very amateur middle-aged woman (MAW) feel about it. Equestrian Australian competitions are awash with women, sure, but most riders are under 30, let's be real. And there are lots of big flashy trucks and goosenecks - all the professionals and more committed middle-class competitiors!

I don't remember seeing one truck and only a couple of goosenecks in the whole place - everything else was a plain old double float. Fancy ones, a lot of them, but just doubles.

That being said, we weren't in banjo country, either. The Adult Riding Clubs competitions I had been to in Canberra were rough and ready affairs with a good smattering of ex-trotters and pretty ordinary riding going on. This was definitely not like that, either.

What I witnessed was what MAWs with a bit of cash and a free rein (pun intended) can do. Lots of nice horses (nothing much flashy like in EA dressage), lots of prim and proper MAWs efficiently running about the place checking gear, looking after judges and making sure things ran to time. And it did.

The draw at HRCAV dressage comps is a little odd at first glance. A 'jackpot' event, as this one was, involves riding in two or more events over a competition. The draw puts the first test only half an hour before the second. The first time this happened, I was pretty annoyed - 30 minutes isn't long enough to hop off and give the horse a break, but too long to just keep riding around. This is something I will need to work on as it worked against me, in the end.

I assumed the 30 minutes is designed to give a buffer to arenas that run late but allowing riders to just get on with their tests without waiting around all day between tests. EA comps can involve a test at 9:00am and the next at 3pm, if you're unlucky. Not HRCAV!

I actually thought Annie did two pretty good tests. Certainly we would have done well in an eventing context, I feel. The second test was not as polished, for sure - Annie was pretty over it by then as we'd been going for an hour by that stage. There's only so much dressage Annie is likely to cooperate with, especially when trying to operate in a paddock full of cross country jumps! But, alas, the judges weren't with us. We only scored a 61.7% for the first and a disappointing 58% for the second. I didn't bother waiting around for the class to finish and pick up my tests - I found the marks breakdown online anyway and they were as I thought. Not sure why, but we just couldn't get much beyond a 6.

Annie is just a delight to take out and about, though. I am appreciating her more and more now I have baby Beretta to deal with. Everything scares him, he's difficult and complicated to ride as his natural talent is undone by his weakness and baby attitude. But Annie just gets on with it like an old hand. Stands at the float eating hay, warms up like we're at home. Does the test and goes back to stand at the float like a pro. Self-loads and eats hay all the way home. Love it.

Beretta's shoes come off in 12 days. Not like I'm counting down! I can't wait for them to come off - I find horses with shoes on inherently worrying but a young horse prone to leaping sideways when scared is really nerve-wracking! I value my feet and toes a lot! Other than that, I feel Beretta's shoes are interfering with his way of going. With heels too high and landing toe-first, he is not balanced and is struggling to lock his 'landing-gear' as he strides out. He often stumbles on the hard ground. We'll see if the transition to barefoot helps him, but I firmly believe it will.

Welcome to Baretta

The dressage queen journey is now begun. The rather handsome Baretta (by 00 Seven) is now ensconced at Pine Hill after what feels like a whirlwind romance and a marathon 8 hour drive in near-40 degree heat!

Silver Hills Skyfall (Baretta)

 Baretta is just a baby - 4 years old - and is literally at the start of his ridden career. I had my first ride this morning and it really felt like I was on a toddler! I established a good stop response with some ground work and I'm glad of it because he was all over the place, bless him! It's amazing the difference riding a well put-together horse with natural ability compared to the average horse, especially at this stage. Baretta carries me relatively easily and is balanced for his age, lack of strength and lack of suppleness.

And another plus is Baretta will need to be transitioned from shod to barefoot (well, I consider that a plus!). I will blog about this transition over the coming months, starting in just under 3 weeks when a new trimmer will arrive to take off his shoes and start the process. His feet are in good condition, though he has a little 'high-low' going on with his front hooves (the near fore heel is higher than the off fore) and it will be interesting to see how barefoot management assists in achieving symmetry.

Baretta was used to being in a private paddock and its been fun watching him make some friends with his paddock-mates. The current BFF, understandably, is the only other gelding on the property belonging to Pine Hill, Fui. Fui is a lovely old soul and he and Baretta are already mates. 

 Fui on the left, Baretta on the right. Koko the dog in the background

 

Baretta

 It will be interesting to see how Baretta transitions to barefoot. Given his age and comparatively short time in shoes (no more than a year, off and on), as well as his overall health and diet, and what appear to be strong, functional hooves, I don't anticipate major problems. I have started feeding him Hygain Ice, lucerne chaff and hay, and a little Hygain Balanced. He also has a tube of Succeed digestive paste to keep his gut healthy.

Baretta having a little play with Fui.

Annie and I head off to the Bulla HRCAV Dressage comp this Sunday and I'm looking forward to it. Let you know how I go when I get back :)

A new year dawns

Happy New Year! Like everyone, it seems, I am quite glad to see the back of 2017 and pretty excited about 2018. Lots of exciting new projects!

Well, first things first, the gorgeous Annie is up for sale and it's been quite a wrench. I absolutely detest selling horses - not because its a sad parting (though it often is) but because I have to deal with buyers. Very rarely are buyers serious about buying. Even more rarely are they genuinely interested in paying what you're asking. Now, fair enough, a horse is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, but if you're not even in the ballpark, budget-wise, it's pretty pointless ringing up, going out to try the horse, then starting to haggle from a point significantly below what the sticker price is. Just frustrates everyone...

Not that I'm having that much trouble with Annie. Just a lot of tyrekickers and normally this isn't a drama for me, but Annie is special. I don't like random people just inserting themselves into Annie's life if they're not serious about being her new partner. Weird, maybe.

Annie is up for sale because I have made the decision to pull back from eventing and focus on dressage. I am a competitive person - I have written about this before - and I don't ride for 'fun.' Riding is fun, don't get me wrong, but I will never be a bush-bashing, trail-riding kind of rider. If I'm riding, it's because I want to be the best at it. And eventing is not an option at that level for me. I don't have the ticker for it.

However, I have developed a strong ambition to take a horse to FEI level dressage. Go figure. I'm now a boring dressage bitch! I'll keep eventing a bit - just low level to keep the dressage pony on its toes, but it's going to be more about dressage now. Not sure if I can change my blog name!!

Going to look at a very promising pony tomorrow. Keep you posted. :)

So, I've been trimming the two colts' feet for a bit now. It's so damn dry and hot all the horses have very hard hooves (which is theoretically great but bloody hard work!). I have a couple of pics of Jack (2yo ASH colt) below.

Little Jack hooves

Jack

Some interesting wall separation on the right

You can see the small size of his hooves after a trim. Barefoot horses have comparatively tiny hooves compared to shod horses. The hoof capsule is tight, strong and correctly angled. You can see, in the last pic, the lack of symmetry in Jack's hoof, though. Some of this is due to me leaving the hooves too long between trims, allowing flare to get a bit out of control, particularly in that right side. This places stress on the hoof wall, pulling it away from the laminae and causing problems.

This is about a week after the trim, but you can see the bars of the hoof haven't been trimmed back enough. It was so bloody hard that was literally the best I could do! Have to sharpen my hoof knives!

Our web page is up and running! If you haven't had a look, please take 5 minutes to have a browse. The pics are definitely a work in progress, and I really appreciate feedback.

The addy is www.pinehillequestrian.com.au

See you out there!

Summer!

Merry Christmas! The summer has been a bit all over the place, so far. We've had a couple of very hot days followed by torrential rain and a week of single-digit overnights, which has been disconcerting, to say the least! It has been abscess weather but luckily (or by fantastic good management!) only one of the Pine Hill horses appears to have had an abscess. Phew.

It has been a frustrating couple of months with Annie's feet. About September, Annie started to become sensitive in her hooves - something she only exhibited for the first two weeks after her shoes came off. At first, I assumed it was the spring grass, or a change in feed. I had changed her from KER Low GI Cube to Hygain Balance as she was in with the young horses and they were all being fed Balance. Annie has not been particularly sensitive to feed in the past - certainly not in her hooves.

It got to the point where I simply couldn't ride her on anything but grass. The one comp we managed to go to was our first HRCAV dressage day and, after warming up beautifully on the grass, she could barely manage to get around the first test on the sand and I retired her. So disappointing. And not a great day to exhibit a lovely big barefoot horse. Reckon I was in with a chance to win the damn thing, too!

This went on for two months until I got Di Snow, a local bodyworker and equine nutritionist, out to give Annie a treatment. While chatting during the treatment, and whingeing about Annie's newfound hoof sensitivity, Di asked what I was feeding her. I said, "The usual - Hygain Balance, lucerne chaff...oh, and Rose-Hip Vital for her joints." Di said, "Ah. Rose-Hip Vital is just sugar, basically. It's made from fruit sugar. Could be your problem."

And it was. I took Annie off it and within a few days there was a marked improvement. A month later, Annie is back to walking on gravel and working comfortably on our hard, dry arena. Just goes to show how even a couple of tablespoons of sugar a day can dramatically affect a horse's hooves.

These are Annie's hooves now:

Fronts

Hinds

Front near. Note the big frog but also the wall separation.

Annie's hooves are now about 80%. There was some hoof wall separation and no doubt getting back to true rock-crunching will take a little longer. I'm pretty annoyed at myself! But you live and learn, don't you?

Things are ticking along at Pine Hill. We are now taking a limited number of agistees, and have started our ambitious water project. We will be linking our three dams and pumping stock water up to a header tank at the top of the property. Water will then be gravity-fed to troughs around the property. Once again, an Equicentral design is our template but, since we are also setting up a working stud with resident stallions, there are ergonomic factors that need to come in that aren't really addressed in Jane Myers books.

So, we have a mare and foal paddock right out the front of the house, and another paddock that adjoins it. These two back onto the very large 'Back Country' paddock with its spring-fed creek and rocks and wildlife where the youngstock and broodmares are spending their summer. It's lovely. We also have a more Equicentral 'cell' of three paddocks that use a central 'loafing' area.

The next four months will be spent on the water and fencing more paddocks up the top end of the property. We will create another 'cell' of three or four paddocks around a central 'loafing' area. These areas are like big yards with shelter and the only water source. They are surfaced (we are using plumbers grit) and the idea is that horses are only every in one paddock at a time and use the loafing area for all the standing around they do under trees or around water. This saves the paddocks and minimises those horrible bare dust/mud areas created by this behaviour.

Pinehill Ellen

And here is our little filly, born mid-November to one of our Stock Horse mares. This girl is just a bit gorgeous and loves a scratch!

Merry Christmas and have a safe and happy New Year. Lots more to come at Pine Hill next year, no doubt!

We now have a website so feel free to have a browse - www.pinehillequestrian.com.au

Two weeks in and our first comp in over a year looms

Well, it's been nearly two weeks since hubby and I started the Blood Sugar Diet. It's definitely been a challenge! But, we have both lost a significant amount of weight and, more importantly, centimetres off our waistlines. We are eating a shitload more vegies and zero bread and pasta. We are both very energetic now - it's actually the best part of the whole thing - and I'm riding more, gardening more, just doing lots more. Hubby has fenced a whole paddock!

Downsides are not to be sneezed at. This is a huge change and it's been a massive challenge to avoid foods I would normally just shovel in without thinking about it. Bread and toast are things I miss a lot on some days but not at all on others. Buying lunch is an absolute nightmare - we can't have bread or rolls, or rice or whatever. So, no sandwiches, wraps, rolls or sushi. What's left, I hear you ask? Sashimi. Soup. Green salad with tuna or chicken. Eggs. That kind of caper.

Last night, we had a blowout and had takeaway with the kids. Burgers, chips and beers. It was pleasant, but not really fantastic. Both of us were so full afterwards, and the glow had worn off by this morning. But, neither of us feel at all bad about it, which is also a big change. We needed to let the leash loosen for a night and now we're back on track. It's quite a lovely, forgiving way of going.

Mindfulness and exercise are a big part of the diet. I have started brief mindfulness sessions using an app I downloaded and I think it's helping quite a lot with anxiety, hunger, generally getting through the day. It's an interesting journey.

Horse-wise, things are getting busy. I've been out judging all last weekend and now have my two sit-ins ticked off for upgrading. So close now. I have to admit, I have not developed a love for dressage judges through my time judging. I find them, on the whole, pretty condescending, unforgiving old women with very inflated senses of their own importance. No wonder riders dislike them. I am determined not to be like that, especially when I get more senior.

Annie and I will be off to our first dressage comp in Wagga next weekend. I had entered a Novice and Elementary test (eek!) but then the opportunity to do my last shadow judging arose and now we're just doing a Novice test at the end of the day. Luckily, we have a clinic with Manu Mclean next Mon/Tue so that should set us up nicely.

The grass is absolutely amazing at our property now. We put down lime and dolomite in Autumn and wow is it paying off. The mares are out in the driveway every day eating down the long grass and everyone is looking fat and shiny. I am a little concerned about the sugar content, though, and Annie showed a little tenderness walking on the gravel this morning, after only one day eating the lush grass. It's amazing how quickly they can react to a change in diet!

Cleo's baby is due in the next three weeks or so. She's looking so fat and shiny, still very athletic, despite starting to waddle. She's like that woman at work who runs marathons then gets pregnant and just keeps running every day until she pops the baby out. I wasn't one of those women. ;P

Day 2 of the Crash Diet

Well, the good news is, I've lost nearly 2 kilos already. Yey! And I'm feeling pretty feisty. And not hungry quite all the time. In fact, not even hungry much of the time, though I'm keeping as busy as I can and drinking lots of water. I am, however, starting to feel wistful for chips, and cakes and ice cream....But that's what got me here in the first place so I know sugar is the devil!

Spring is a crazy time on a horse farm - any farm, I'm guessing. The grass is growing which is awesome, but so are those hooves! I've been trying to trim a horse per day and it's hard work. I'm especially trying to get them all up to date before the weather dries up and their hooves turn to solid rock. I struggle with hard hooves as I just don't have the strength or endurance to rasp them forever. I don't own any nippers (though I'm seriously considering buying some!) and I try hard not to let their feet get long enough for nippers to be useful. But there are a couple of the paddock ornaments that are probably a bit far gone now....need to get on top of them!

Our first event that it looks like we'll actually make it to is the Irish Draught and Sport Horse Show in just under two weeks. Annie the big legend will finally be getting to go out and show those prissy show horses what a real Irish eventer can do (which will probably include winning exactly zero prissy show horse events, but potentially taking out the 'Working Hunter 100cm' class because we are the only ones in it). I need to dust off the fancy pants gear and I'm hoping I actually squeeze into it all by then given the current starvation regime!

Wagga Dressage the weekend after that we're I'm judging and riding the big girl. I really like the Wagga vibe. Probably since I went to uni there for a couple of years and had the time of my life!

Then we're heading to our first HRCAV (grown up pony club) event just up the rode. The ARCs run these great 'jackpot' weekends where you ride a couple of dressage tests on the Saturday, then a couple of SJ rounds on the Sunday. Points are awarded and you win a rug. A RUG. Woo! So, Annie and I are going in our first one and I'm quite looking forward to it. No plaiting allowed (not ALLOWED, I tell you!) and I get to wear a groovy club t-shirt rather than stock and jacket. Loving it already.

Lots of dressage judging in the next few weeks too. I'm really hopeful I finally get to complete all the shadow judging and sit-ins required to upgrade to the next level of judge. Fingers crossed - it's been a loooong time coming. Lots of support from the Jindera and Wagga Dressage clubs has been an absolutely fundamental factor. It makes a huge difference!

Then it's getting my country on in November for the Stock Horse boys' shows. There's a couple of them on before the end of the year so I thought I'd take the two colts and just do the led classes. It's interesting, the ASH community seem very keen on starting 2yo horses and riding them a lot. The ridden classes all start at 2yo and there's even campdrafts and other events for horses under 3yo. I really don't understand this mentality - the horses are not even close to being mature enough for that level of riding and work at 2yo. I'm sure there are lots of injuries in the 5yo and up ASHs. Come to think of it, you don't see many ASHs over 5yo for sale. Not real quality horses that would have been out doing shows and drafts as babies.

Maybe I should do a research paper for the ASHS....in my spare time!

Speaking of spare time, we are now very close to announcing the new business venture. I hope to get that all nailed down by the end of October. Exciting!

And another reboot ;)

So, it's been almost exactly a year since my last post. And it's been one hell of a crappy year! This will be a far more regular blog, I promise, though it may be taking in more non-horsey topics, which I will get to in a minute.

Moving to a whole new state where you know no-one, have no riding facilities and no money is pretty must the hardest thing you can do when all you want to do is what you were doing before! I fell at Lynton Horse Trials a year ago, tore the ligaments in my ankle (very painful and slow to heal) and then found that my confidence was really messed up. I basically struggled to get on and ride the whole year, and haven't jumped a jump since. I even sat out of the Lucinda Green clinic. Not good, right?

I am slowly getting into a better place. I have done a couple of Manu Mclean clinics which always help my self-esteem. I am definitely aiming to do the Lucinda clinic next February, and I'm now a member of an Adult Riding club down here (my god, ARCs in Victoria are huge - like Pony Club for grown ups!).

I am now a proud Australian Stock Horse breeder (Pine Hill Stud, baby) with my very own young colts standing next year. Though, I fell off one of the breakers and hurt my bloody back a couple of weeks ago, sheesh....

In the last year, amidst all the turmoil and, to be fair, loneliness, of leaving my friends and equestrian community behind in Canberra, I stacked on the weight. It's terrible! So, today I'm starting the crash diet developed (I mean to say, 'marketed') by Dr Michael Mosley, the Blood Sugar Diet. It is an 8 week torture fest during which I will live on 800 calories per day. But, I should lose about 15kg, re-set my blood sugar to normal levels, kick-start my metabolism again, and, most importantly, not look like a fatty on poor Annie. White breeches are unforgiving, people.

I plan to blog about it and share the torture. :)

I also have a busy few months ahead as I start a new business (details to come when they're finalised), take the ASH boys to my very first Stock Horse shows, take Annie to our first comps in over a year, and generally ramp up to Christmas. We have a little ASH foal due in 6 weeks, too. So, I promise this will not turn into an awful, over-sharing weight-loss blog. It will only be a tiny bit of that.

I want to blog about this because the equestrian community is all about appearances. We all want to be improving and doing fine all the time. We don't want to show we're scared, we feel fat or uncomfortable, or how intimidated we are by the pros and their bloody gorgeous horses. But we do feel those things - lots! And I want to share my experiences and do a bit more embracing of the amateurishness of those experiences.  I want to do a bit more showing how it really is, including the mis-steps, the bitching and the judging. Oh yes, I'm doing lots of dressage judging too - heh heh heh.

Until literally a month ago, I had this weird mindset of thinking I was a professional, that I had to be riding at a certain level, had to be going up the grades all the time. I had never questioned this - never even really acknowledged it. But, my unconscious seemed to have me pegged as a future Olympian (I'm not actually exaggerating here), and every time I didn't do well, I beat myself up for it. Which was obviously all the time, since I ain't winning no trophy rugs!

I stopped wanting to ride at all when I fell at Lynton. What's the point, I thought? And I was scared of falling. Really scared. I stuffed up the approach to a difficult jump and Annie just couldn't get high enough to get us out of it. There were a couple of things I might have done to avoid the same fall, but really it was just a mistake and they happen all the time. The prospect of making a mistake and getting seriously hurt still makes my stomach churn.

So, this blog will be my way of documenting my ordinariness. My life as an amateur, a grassroots competitor and an average punter. Don't get me wrong, I'm still competitive as fuck, but now I'm not focusing on 3*! And this blog will not be full of how awesome I am (well, not all of it, anyway :D), but will be full of honesty, self-reflection and journey. 

Barefoot Eventer is back!

Hellloooo out there!

After the longest hiatus, I thought it was high time to kick off this little blog again. Barefoot adventures await documentation, and there's a whole lot happening horse-wise now.

So, Annie the superstar continues to go from strength to strength. Lucinda Green came again in February and taught us a few things! She's such a gifted coach, very encouraging and non-judgmental. I enjoy her lessons immensely!

Lucinda demonstrating something - could've been the 'tube.' Riding your horse between your legs and hands like they're in a tube.

Tackling the skinny oxer

And the normal oxer!

 We stepped up to PreNovice (EvA105) at the start of this year - probably one of the most terrifying experiences of my life to date! Of course, Annie was a pro (a green pro, but still a pro) and looked after her frightened little middle-aged rider. It was pretty awesome, and that heady mix of relief and elation after completing our first 'big kids' event is hard to describe.

Us on our first EvA105 run

But, then we moved. After thinking and researching for a year or so, we decided to move the family to Beechworth, Victoria, about 30 minutes south of the NSW/Victorian border. This upset the applecart in a big way, and led to a period of about 6 months without riding. A dark time, indeed!

On the bright side, I finally got to the bottom of Uno's issues (see previous blog posts if you're wondering who the hell Uno is!). Rose had a gorgeous little colt called Onyx around Christmas last year.

Onyx about a week old

But Onyx started to suffer some problems very quickly. He had a muscle hernia to his offside flank (not uncommon according to wonder-vet Ian Neilsen), but experienced a slight fever and inflammation around his umbilical stump. Within three weeks he was dead lame on a hind leg. His joints became enlarged and he was very sad.

Onyx about a month old, having been shaved, x-rayed and osteo'd within an inch of his life!

The vets agreed he was suffering from physitis (inflammation of the growth plates caused by an imbalance of calcium to phosphorous in Rose's milk), but even after changing Rose's diet, he continued to show marked lameness. It would be another 6 or 8 weeks of expensive 'treatments' before wonder-vet Ian came out and said, almost nonchalantly, "It's still physitis - you need to wean him."

So, the poor little bloke got weaned at just on 4 months' old. Two things happened - the first was we moved to Beechworth and I took him with Annie to keep him company. The second was that Annie adopted him like her own, making it impossible to ride for months! It really helped his mental health, though, as he had a foster mum to make him feel safe.

The physitis disappeared within 3 weeks. Amazing!

Onyx at about 7 months old. Completely recovered!

This means we need to think carefully about breeding from Rose again as she seems to have this milk imbalance. Ian surmised that it was Rose's milk that caused Uno's difficulties, as physitis greatly increases the chances of fracture and injury to joints. At least we know now, but such a shame.

Since we've moved the herd as increased quite a bit. More on our new fur family in the next post, or this will be a whopper! The new farm is over 90 acres, with lots of rocks and undulating country. Perfect for barefoot!

Vale Uno

Uno, as many of you who read my little blog will know, is the son of the massive but gorgeous Rose, by a lovely Irish Sport Horse stallion, Highland McGuire. Uno managed to fracture his knee through the growth plate on the outside of the joint around two weeks of age and was not well managed for the first two weeks following the injury. There's more on that in the posts I wrote at the time in 2013.
After a year of intensive treatment and therapies, including body work, chiropractic work, monthly and sometimes weekly trimming and lots of love, it became clear that Uno's knee had not healed well and he was in apparently chronic pain.

Uno getting a massage from our wonderful friend Tatjana.

He was taken to Canberra Vet Hospital and the amazing Rebecca Walshe gave him a thorough examination, noting initially that his knee joint mobility was extremely limited. He could not bend the knee beyond about a 100 degree angle - no pain shown, it just wasn't happening. X-rays showed the fracture had essentially 'blown out' and a large piece of bone was now sticking out from the side of the knee. He had other changed to the joint that were not particularly obvious on the x-ray but Bec just kept shaking her head and saying, "That's not how the knee is supposed to look!"

I asked Bec what she thought his pain level was like. She and I have made some hard decisions before and I trust her implicitly. She also knows I'm a realist and I don't keep horses alive when their quality of life will be poor. She said his pain is probably quite chronic and as the arthritis in the joint progresses it will become more acute. We talked about managing it, but give his overall sensitivity to drugs (he scoured and became ill at the drop of a hat!), the fact we would just be delaying the inevitable, and the expense involved, it seemed a pretty pointless exercise.

I was taking him home to bury him. I can't describe the sadness I felt at this information. He was really the loveliest person and carried lots of hope and dreams for the future on his bony shoulders!

Uno on his last morning

The photo below shows the knee. The midline is obviously not straight and the 'knob' on the lower left part of the knee is where the bone fragment had come away and was essentially floating out on the edge of the knee.

 

 

This hock on the same side as the injured knee was continuously puffy with no heat or lameness shown.

I called the wonderful Robyn Larson-Shelton from Equine Miracles who has been my horses' bodyworker for over six years now. She had helped me treat Uno's initial injury and had worked on him his whole life. It was Robyn that triggered the decision to take him to CEH for a review and x-ray. When I told her the news she was upset but we made the decision to see if the vet who came to euthanise Uno would amputate his off fore and off hind for Robyn to dissect to see what the joints actually looked like. Then Uno could be contributing to learning into the future and his life wouldn't be wasted quite as much as it felt like it already was.

Suzanne from CEH came out with a truly awesome Vet Nurse (who's name I never remember but I love her!). It was a horrible grey cold day to fit our moods. Once Uno said goodbye to my son Ben, and he was put to sleep, the grizzly but unbelievably interesting work of removing the two legs began. Suzanne gave me some fantastic insights into where the foreleg muscles attach into the shoulder, what muscles and tendons move which bones and was really interesting. Thank you, Suzanne, you made a horrible day into a valuable learning opportunity.

As an aside, Suzanne told me donations of horses for learning opportunities is rare and I was somewhat disappointed to know I could have actually donated Uno's whole body to vet science. Something to bear in mind if you need to euthanise a horse....

The dissection of Uno's joints was a revelation and a real confirmation I had made the right choice. His elbow and knee joints showed advanced arthritis - he had the knees of a 20 year-old, not a yearling, and it was clear he would have been in significant, chronic pain. Interestingly, his hock joint also showed evidence of an OCD - osteochondritis dissecans - which is essentially a piece of cartilage that had come away from the joint and was floating around. It can occur through injury.

I have included pics below of the dissected joints for those of you that are interested. They are graphic, however, so don't view them if you don't want to see that kind of thing.

Uno's muscular development was fairly poor and he was always very tense through his neck and withers.

Saying goodbye to his buddy Ben, my 4 year-old son with Down syndrome

Graphic pics

The off elbow joint. You can see the advanced wear of the cartilage and right into the bone. This would have been very painful

The elbow. The pink groove in the joint is simply not supposed to be there.

The hock. Robyn is pointing at a fingernail-sized piece of cartilage missing from the joint.

The knee. The piece of bone on the extreme left that isn't attached to anything is the fractured fragment.

The lower leg through the knee joint. The hole at the top is where the tendon passes.

So, Uno has gone and is no longer in pain. We planted an orchard of fruit trees (lots of apples which he would have loved), and he was joined by his mate Phoebe, our wonderful dog, who we lost to aggressive cancer only a couple of months later.




If you have any questions about the pics you see, please ask away. I will pass them on to Robyn if they're beyond my expertise. Or you can attend one of Sharon May-Davis' workshops on anatomy and ask her!

Hello again!

I can't believe how long its been since I posted an entry on my blog. It's been a long winter and I think I started to run out of things to say! Then, of course, lots has happened, meaning I got all procrastinatey about writing because I imagined it would be a behemoth of a post! So, strap yourselves in....

The last post I started writing was about Uno. I made the decision to put him to sleep a few months ago. He was in chronic pain and would never get better. I will finish the post devoted entirely to him and post it soon - the photos of the joints we dissected are unbelievable. I knew when I saw those photos that I had made the right decision.

On to happier things. Annie and I finally broke through our depressing bout of coming dead last in every event by coming a rather amazing 4th in one of the EvA95 classes at Canberra Horse Trials last weekend. After a great clinic (perfectly timed, I must say!) with Manuela Mclean a couple of weeks before, we finally scored a top ten dressage test. Annie was great and it was one of those weekends where everything just came together.

Showjumping was a little hairy but I think the main problem is I let her get too long and flat as the round goes on - that, and I need to ride her in the Peewee bit! She gets so heavy and dead to the hand when she's jumping. I think she genuinely enjoys the jumping and cantering - she certainly feels happy about it!

One of these days I'll drop some money on a decent photo of us at a comp and post it. :)

We've had some interesting hoof issues lately, though. Annie had to go almost 8 weeks without a trim as our current Wonder Trimmer Shelly went overseas on a much-deserved holiday. While Shelly was away, Annie's feet got a little long, but not too bad, and even more interestingly, she developed two small splints on the inside cannon bones just below the knees. They are gradually shrinking now she's getting her monthly trims, so I am confident the splints developed as a direct result of unbalanced hooves and long toes. Just goes to show how important it is to keep the trimming very regular in our performance horses.

I've got a lovely little Quarter Horse type staying with me at the moment while I ride him and sell him for our local Riding for the Disabled. He's been barefoot probably his whole life (he's 14 and from the Kimberley in Northern Australia where he was a station horse, we're told), but is the most sensitive of all the horses at my place with his feet. He is very short and mincey over gravelly or hard earth while Annie and Andy the dressage pony are quite happy cantering around on gravel. Particularly Annie who now has true 'rock-crushing' hooves after a year without shoes.

I will be very interested to see what Shelly thinks of his feet and what we might be able to do to improve his comfort-level.

Some pics from the last couple of weeks:

Hay-high was a feature of our winter and you'll note both horses standing square and engaging their backs as they eat their hay. This contributed to both horses' strength under saddle.

Annie about a month ago looking fit and shiny as we headed into an unseasonably warm spring.

Annie's dainty hooves post-trim. The near fore appears to be a little later than the off fore and we're keen to see if this will balance up over the next couple of trims. Might be a consequence of the long lapse between trims over winter.

It could just be the way she's standing, but the near looks very different to the off. Might be a bit of both!

So, next comp is Goulburn next weekend - hopefully our last EvA95. We're looking to make the step up to EvA105 at Silver Hills in three weeks. Our super showjumping coach Ben Netterfield managed to slam himself into the ground at speed while paragliding a month ago and will be out of action for the forseeable future (love ya Ben!), so we've been taking a bit of an ad hoc approach to jumping training for the last month. Will see how that pays off!

Our first Prelim at Equestriad April 2015

Well, after a long gap in blog posts, I am finally getting around to adding a few big ones about major happenings in the last couple of months. Annie's first EvA95 and our first appearance at Equestriad in Camden was definitely one of those!

I had never made the trek up to Camden and was assured that, a) it was a real family event and would be perfect to take Charles and the kids to and, b) it's a really great course and a good one to upgrade at. Both were not entirely true but it was still a really awesome weekend of eventing at probably the biggest event in the Southern Hemisphere!

So, with kids in tow, we set off for Camden very early (but not disgustingly so, thanks to a really nice dressage draw time) looking nervously at the weather given it was supposed to rain pretty much all weekend and the maximum temperature was about 29. In April?? Thank god I clipped her the week before!

The event is literally ENORMOUS. We pulled into one end of Bicentennial Park and had absolutely no idea where everything was and, more importantly, where my dressage test was! Turned out it was about 2km away....need some signage, people! But I was fine. It was poor Charles, pushing a pram containing the 2 year old with the 5 year old moaning along behind, I was feeling for!

The humidity and heat when we arrive was quite overwhelming. I was dripping with sweat before I put my jacket on and it really didn't get any better. After warming up by walking the couple of kms to the dressage arenas, Annie warmed up really well - pretty calm to start with. It was interesting that, as we got over to the arenas, she started to get more and more tense. There was certainly a lot to look at, with cross country jumps right next to the arena and lots of people swarming over the cross country course situated a hundred metres from our arena.

I got lucky in that the arena next to ours had finished and I was able to use it to warm up in. After five minutes of lots of transitions and changing direction and gait, I felt like I had Annie's attention back. Then I went over and walked and waited next to the judge's car. Big mistake. She was back to 'tense giraffe' mode after just a couple of minutes of not working. In hindsight, I think that waiting and talking to the judge is a mistake for this horse. It's not a requirement and I think just trotting and cantering around the arena is something worth trying for next time.

So, the test was pretty tense. Not much else to say. Not many 'mistakes' but the whole quality of the test was pretty tense. We did score 8.5 for the free walk, but I have come to expect marks like that for her walk as it is really very good.

Showjumping in the stifling heat was mercifully quick. The course was actually a bit smaller than I would have liked. She's becoming a bit careless about smaller jumps and we had the first jump down which was a bit of a disappointment. It certainly cost us a few placings as the majority of our class went clear. If I'd been in one of the other EvA95 classes it wouldn't have been so bad - for some reason heaps of others had rails! Ah, well.

Off to walk the cross country while the kids and their ever-suffering dad munched on some afternoon tea and watched the EvA80 horses do their cross country, especially the water jump. The course proved to be unexpectedly technical for a Prelim course and would require a bit of jumping, especially for the young horses. I was both really excited to be jumping a course that wasn't 90% logs with the occasional ditch or rolltop, and also a bit worried about just how straight and confident Annie was.

The rest of the very busy Saturday was really fun. Catching up with friends, watching some of the best riders in the country do their thing and then watching the 2* and 3* showjumping under lights that night. What a difference the lights made to the horses (and probably the riders). The rails were certainly falling! We left during the 3* as the massive thunder storm promised by the BOM rolled in. We headed back to the comfort of our outrageously expensive hotel room and left them to it!

Cross country was a complete blast. The footing was very slippery after the downpour overnight, let alone the big rainfalls the area had been receiving over the weeks before. I rasped about 8 notches/hooks into each hoof, front and back, though we don't quite yet have enough wall to really work with in this regard. I'd like a good 8mm to 10mm but we have about 5mm right now. That will obviously change with time!

Annie was a machine. The only hairy moment we had was the little steps early in the course (fence 4ABC) where she was completely distracted by another horse coming down the course on the way out to the flat half and missed the first step to sprawl a bit. But she picked up and kept going. Silly girl.

The going was treacherous in places and many combinations fell or had near misses. The turn from 5 up the hill was simply awful and we had our own near miss there. But as far as technicality went, Annie made it seem easy. The water was ridiculous - heaps of people all over the place, Shane Rose driving a massive piece of machinery right next to the approach for the drop into the water...but Annie, after slowing down to a walk to make sure she got a really good look at everything (despite quite a bit of kicking on my part!) popped down into the water and splashed through to go out over the rolltop, then round the corner (now pulling and being a bit of a tool) to pop over the bounce of logs. Pretty good really.

We got time penalties, but practically everyone did. I don't think Annie found the going any more slippery than the shod horses with studs in. Overall, I was pretty stoked. Lots to like about this mare!

The only downside I'm noticing from the notches/hooks in the hoof is the need to rasp them off within a day or two. I really couldn't without bringing her wall to short for comfort (and frankly, I don't have the physical fitness!) so the end result is the breaking off of little bits of wall as the 'cleats' succumb to the pressure. It is all cosmetic at this stage, and I'll be interested to see if it's a real problem over time. I'm thinking of using only one hook in each hoof when the going is not too bad, but the going at Camden was awful and I needed all the traction I could get. Watch this space, as usual!

Sydney Three Day Event 2015

Ok it's been a hell of a long time between posts. I've almost been intimidated out of posting again because I have so much to write about!! So, I'm using my whirlwind visit to Sydney Three Day to ease myself back into it....

I was lucky to win a VIP ticket to watch the cross country at the Sydney International Three Day Event over the weekend just gone and decided to drag my erstwhile husband along for a crazy 24 hour trip into 'serious eventing' world. Add on a last-minute decision to take Jedi up to James Arkins' place near Moss Vale while we were just going past and it was a pretty nuts adventure!

That being said, I had a really great experience and came away feeling both energised and inspired to do more and be more. I'll start at the beginning....

Before last weekend, I had never been to SIEC. I know, for those of you reading this who are eventers in the Canberra/Highlands/Sydney region, this seems unbelievable. But, I've never been - it's unbelievably expensive to compete there and I've never felt the need to go to the S3DE before. Which is odd, because I've been to Melbourne 3DE!

So, to actually go to the home of the Sydney Olympics was really exciting. It's every bit as great as I thought, but also a lot smaller than I imagined. And a LOT hillier!

We turned up pretty early on Saturday morning. It has been raining cats and dogs in and around Sydney for the past week or two and the ground was sodden. I was really interested to see how the going would be after so much rain and, while it turned out to be way better than I thought it could be, it was still influential. More on that later....

There was some random showjumping going on in the indoor. Meh....moved on pretty quickly from that! Off onto the cross country....no idea where we were going....wandering....ended up on the road heading towards the steeplechase track looking uselessly at the S3DE site on my phone with only a vague idea of the direction we should be heading! Then, who should come cycling along behind us, but the lovely Sam Lyle. He not only remembered my name (isn't that the nicest feeling when someone remembers who you are when they must meet hundreds of people?), but also gave us directions over his shoulder after apologising for not having brakes on his bike. Luckily, he rode up a hill (which turned out to head up to the steeplechase track), managed to stop and eat the second of two bacon and egg rolls he was juggling as he chatted with me about the event and his horses and all that nice stuff.

Great start to our day. Thanks, Sam. :)

So, we get to see a bit of the course while we're walking up to our rendevous point at the water jump - one of two, as it turned out. The jumps were certainly big, but really nicely built and I was interested to notice that I no longer just stand mouth agape looking at the size of them, but have actually started to work out how one would jump such a thing. The line from 4 to 5 in the 3* looked pretty hairy, for example (a big table to a ditch with a big hedge behind it on an angle). The enormous table as jump 2 in the 2* looked just massive. But doable....

The water jump, when we got to it, was really interesting. It took me a while to figure out where all the lines were for each of the classes (there was a CCI and CIC for 1* and 2* as well as the one 3* class) and they all looked pretty technical, or at least difficult! This is the view of it from the VIP tent where we hung out:

The dude walking through the water with the bike is Shane Rose. The dude in the grey top and jeans is Stuart Tinney. Nuff said.

So, the green and white numbers were the two 2* classes and they had a pretty full-on bounce into the water. Funnily enough, the first half of the riders just made it look easy. Then there was a rash of refusals and near-falls. I suspect the going didn't help as it did deteriorate over the class, but I think a lot of it was psychological. More on that later too...

After helping set up the VIP tent (they weren't exactly ready when we got there!), we headed off to the start, following on behind none other than Mike Etherington-Smith (the course designer and designer of such hallowed grounds as Burghley, Badminton and Kentucky), and Wayne Roycroft (Olympic gold medallist and Australian coach, now TD extraordinaire). I was hyperventilating under my cool exterior!

The course walk was so interesting and I learned an enormous amount in just over an hour with these luminaries of the sport. Say what you will about the old white guys crusted on to elite eventing, they still know a huge amount and it was a gift to be able to hear it from them on Saturday.

Starting with the mounds that Mike had to take out of the course because of the going...(I took no pictures other than the one above. Just goes to show how enthralled I was!). They were just two hanging logs on top of quite prounounced mounds. The ground around them was a quagmire so that's why they were taken out, but I walked the distance for them to show how it should ride (got a gold star from Wayne *blush*) and they talked about how the terrain affects a horse's stride and how riders can tend to override or underride a fence.

Mike talked about the tendancy these days for horses to be over-disciplined and unused to getting themselves out of trouble if a mistake is made. He, like Lucinda Green, thinks horses are no longer being ridden on grass and different terrain that is not a manicured arena, to the detriment of horses then asked to gallop over cross country courses. I couldn't agree more and felt a bit smug about my complete lack of arena work. Which of course has nothing to do with the fact we can't afford to build an arena with a surface....

Then on to jumps 4 and 5, which I had thought would cause carnage but of course didn't at all. When I had looked at it on the way up to the water jump, I had assumed it would be ridden on a curving stride. Not having stopped to actually look at it as a combination, I hadn't seen the straight line that Mike intended the riders to take. When he pointed it out, it seemed so easy, so obvious. Well, not easy....but certainly not impossible or particularly frightening. Just big. BIG.

When Mike talked about the going I was really impressed with how much thought and preparation he puts into it, and I assume all course designers and builders of that level are the same. To Mike, the going is everything. Without good going the whole course is stuffed. And, it wasn't the obvious 'going' that I thought he meant - the hardness or softness - but the consistency of the going. He scoffed at the idea that we were all freaking out about the soft going (as he said, this was pretty good going in the UK!), but he did talk at length about the need for the going to be as consistent as possible throughout the course. That horses get suspicious when the going changes a lot and a suspicious horse is not a good thing!

When we got to the water (photo above) he talked about the 3* jumps. They're the red, white and blue houses at the top of the picture, designed to be jumped on an angle, then down over the fish and exit to the right of the picture. It looked quite difficult at first glance, but when Mike explained the line he had in mind when he built it, the question looked completely doable. As long as you got the right line, and your horse did not deviate but jumped where you put it, the line to the fish was easy. Make a mistake and you will pay.

The other thing I learned at that jump is about the distance between two angled jumps. When I walked it (I became Wayne's designated walker after my gold star effort at the first jumps), I said it was one short stride. Not so, says Mike. When walking the distance between angled jumps you must ignore the front and back of the jumps but look to the middle of the effort. That is, don't think the stride is short because it'll ride pretty normal. And he was right. When the horses started coming over it, as long as they were placed in the spot Mike saw as the sweet spot (somewhat to the left of A which put you in the middle of B then on down to the fish), the one stride was easy. It was only when horses came in too far right they struggled.

The last lesson was at the second water jump. For the 3* horses, this was a big brush-type fence up the hill, then on down the hill to turn a little and jump over a hanging log on an angle out from the drop into the water, then two or three strides to a skinny in the water, then two or three to the bank up out of the water, then one stride to an angled narrow brush and away. The two things that struck me out of the conversation with Mike and Wayne at this combination were: a) the importance that big fence way up the hill has in preparing the horse for the water jumps down the hill, and b) the idea that this combination was essentially gridwork for the horses.

Wayne talked about using the spread fence further up the hill to open the shape of the horse up and provide some momentum down the hill. He says the tendency for riders to slow and hold the horses coming down the hill means they actually wash a lot of impulsion off when they need to keep a forward, active stride coming into the jump over the log into the water. It's not just a drop off a bank. The horses needed to jump over the log which means they still needed a bit of power. Interesting. He even talked about the shape the horses make jumping a jump like this and how that feeds into the design of the jumps.

The idea of treating a 4-element jump in water as a gridwork exercise was a bit revolutionary for me. It takes the complexity out of it and gives me some exercises to do at home. All combination fences are just gridwork when you boil it down. An opportunity for the horse to be left alone but kept straight and just pop through.

So much easier said than done!

Watching the horses go around the track was inspiring. I had a great little chat with Wayne and felt like a contender....heh heh. Annie can definitely do this one day and I'm starting to feel like maybe I can too. One day!

The going was quite interesting from a barefoot point of view. I am starting to work out the best and worst surfaces for the barefoot horse to gallop and jump on. Frankly, I don't think barefoot is a detractor from a traction perspective as the horses' hooves basically dug right into the grass/soil/mud and not having shoes on would have made no difference. Studs are helpful but I think the hooks I rasp in would be equally good. I will need to start really planning for soft going before events and making sure there's lots of wall available to rasp deep notches in.

But on hard going, barefoot beats shod hands down. The concussion caused by shod hooves is so damaging to the horse's legs and joints and barefoot is clearly preferable on hard ground. In slippery conditions like dry summer grass it's hard to see how anything would help - studs wouldn't pierce the hard ground and barefoot notches are probably more effective but there's not much that can stop the sliding once it starts.

Interestingly, Peter Gillis, a TD of note, who was doing the course walk with us, mentioned that horses actually need to slide a little when they gallop and the trend to put massive studs in is actually causing injuries and fatigue. Mike E-S agreed and said that, when horses are used to galloping and turning on different surfaces, slipping is really not something that concerns the horses. It's only the horses that have little or no experience off a prepared surface that really struggle. Noted.

So, look out for a few more posts coming by the end of the week. There is news! Some good, some very sad.