Soft -Country Feet? VERY relevant article for horses in the UK!

This article from Easycare's blog by Duncan McLaughlin is so very appropriate for barefoot horse owners in the UK. Most of the year, we experience wet conditions and this has led to comments from some camps that this is a reason that horses can not be expected to cope barefoot in this country. This article disproves this theory and reinforces our belief here at Trelawne Equine that as long as the trim is correct for the individual horse a sound and healthy barefoot horse is just as easily achievable in our wet climate as in the arrid areas of the world.

Soft-country Feet?

by Duncan McLaughlin
Who wants soft-country feet? Not me! Until recently I lived in an area that was perfect for barefooting. Hard, dry, often rocky terrain meant achieving gravel-crunching soundness was possible for a majority of horses. Last November, I moved to an area with much higher rainfall and with rich, deep, often wet topsoil; perfect for dairy farming (with energy-rich grasses like kikuyu and paspalum) but not ideal for developing solid functional horse hooves.

Large areas of my paddocks have standing water for weeks on end. Even where they are dry, the soil is either soft and sandy or wet and muddy. The horses are often standing in water for hours, even days, at a time.

Not surprisingly, these conditions are renowned for producing soft, undeveloped feet that are prone to infections. Thrush and seedy toe/white line disease are common in this area and hoofwall separation is almost a given. These were pathologies I almost never experienced in my work as a trimmer in the hard, dry country where I used to live. However, I thought this new environment would be a great opportunity to test a basic tenet of barefoot hoof-care: if the biomechanics and physiology of a hoof are correct, then biomechanical stress – such as hoof wall separation – and physiological stress – such as thrush and seedy-toe – should not manifest.

Soft-country feet (here a Cumberland Island feral horse – photo from Cindy Sullivan’s Tribe Equus website) are usually characterised by longer walls, often accompanied with a forward stretched hoof. Hard-country feet (here a mustang) are usually characterised by a hoof wall that is abraded, often passive to other hoof structures (frog and sole), with a short toe.

Much of the debate around styles of hoof trimming focuses on concerns about which hoof part(s) should be active or passive (eg, should the sole be passive to the wall, are the heels passive to the frog, or vice versa) – I believe all this debate is largely irrelevant. Rather, we should focus on the position of the coffin bone within the hoof capsule. In soft-country the toe digs deeper into the forgiving terrain; in hard-country it digs in little, or not at all. In wild horses, the hoof capsule grows to best enable correct breakover and optimal coffin joint rotation according to he amount of ‘give’ in the terrain.
And there arises my problem. Although my horses live on soft, wet terrain, ALL of my riding is on somewhat rocky to very rocky, hardpacked trails (I moved here for the fabulous trails!). The longer toe and forward breakover suited to their living conditions is not suitable for the conditions I want to ride over.



This is the off fore of my 2year old Starab filly before a trim. I chose this horse for the trim photos simply because she is not in work, loafs around all day with very little movement, mostly in soft, wet paddocks. Even so, by trimming the hoof to maintain optimal coffin bone position (forward and high in the hoof capsule), the integrity of her internal and external hoof is maintained: no hoof wall separation, thrush or seedy toe here.



Only a slight bevel on the toe wall (45 degrees from underneath, vertical from on top). The bevel is sufficient only so the correct breakover is maintained (evident in the lateral shot) and to keep a check on toe-flare. What is most evident in the solar view is that everything is trimmed passive to the frog. Here I have taken off a small section of abrading frog. For horses in work I rarely if ever remove any frog – I make the frog active and allow it to compress through movement.
This trim is typical of how I trim my horses in their current circumstances. The lack of frog stimulation and development was the most important change I noticed when my horses moved from hard-country to soft-country, so I like to emphasise frog contact when I trim them. In this instance, as is often the case, the outer-edge of the sole and the outer wall are both slightly passive to the inner wall. But I dont care if the sole is passive or the wall is passive – I care that the trim fosters the optimal placement of the coffin bone in the hoof capsule (high and forward).



Same horse, same trim with the pre-trim, mid-trim and post-trim photos of the near hind. This is to demonstrate that during the trim I am more than happy to bring the toe back behind the pre-trim white line to restore correct breakover. Indeed it is OFTEN necessary in domestic horses. Inevitably the toe wall becomes passive to the sole when this is done. Remember, I am not trimming in order to make the wall passive (that is irrelevant), I am trimming to ensure correct coffin bone position within the hoof capsule.
People often ask if aggressively trimming the toe makes the horse sore – I have never found this to be the case on a good footed horse. Horses that go sore when trimmed aggressively at the toe, would also go sore when trimmed cautiously. It is simply a case of understanding the anatomy of the hoof.
As an aside, the above trim photos highlight why, in my opinion, adherents of ‘lamellar sling’ or ‘SADP’ models of hoof function, where the hoof wall must be the active solar surface, are unable to produce barefoot performance horses (see my previous post on concussion for a discussion). Proponents of this model will not trim the wall passive to the sole and so are unable to correct breakover if the hoof grows too far forwad, as domestic horse hooves inevitably do. As the wall gets longer (either with toe flare or with a stretched forward hoof capsule), the breakover gets further and further forward and the coffin bone is situated increasingly lower and further back within the hoof capsule. To add insult to injury, some schools lower heels, and remove sole and bars, bringing the coffin bone even further back down in the hoof capsule – the very opposite of optimal.

This is the near fore and near hind of another of my horses, a five year old Arabian gelding. The main difference between these two horses is that this one gets ridden (in Easyboot Gloves on all four feet), currently two or three times a week, for an hour or two each time. Facebook users can also view a thermogram of this near fore. You can see the extra stimulation and development of the frog when compared to the unridden filly above. However, both of these horses had much greater frog development when they lived in hard country.

All my horses are trimmed in the same manner – to optimise coffin bone position, breakover and rotation around the coffin joint for hard-country riding. None have hoof wall separation, seedy toe or thrush, despite living in soft, wet muddy conditions. But I am not suggesting your horses be trimmed like mine – I am suggesting that if your horse is trimmed in a manner that respects the biomechanics and physiology of the hoof, and in accordance with his unique living and work conditions, hoof pathologies will be a thing of the past.