Step AWAY from the celery...

I had a right old rant in my "stick of celery" post last week about ill-judged trimming and the disastrous effect it can have.   Its been on my mind since then because its an ongoing problem.  Trimmers and farriers have a primal urge to jump in and trim hooves and in my opinion its high time they stopped and took a step back.  

For those of you who've read "Feet First", I apologise for re-stating the obvious, but overall hoof health and good hoof function owe very little to trimming.

By far the most essential elements for healthy hooves are correct nutrition and correct biomechanics; a trim is nothing more than the tip of the iceberg.

You can sometimes improve a hoof slightly with a trim, particularly if the horse isn't doing much work; I'd say the margin for improvement is (at the very most) 10% and with a healthy bare hoof in normal work its probably considerably less than that.

A safe, effective trim can make a healthy hoof look pretty and - if you are very lucky - it might even nudge the horse who owns that hoof towards slightly better biomechanics.  That is the most it can do.

Here is the dangerous bit, though.  If you trim and get it wrong, you can cripple a horse, upset its biomechanics and cause serious lameness.   The harm when it goes wrong FAR outweighs the benefits when it goes right so any trimming should be undertaken with EXTREME caution.

However much we'd like to think it, its just not possible to merely"trim" your way out of most hoof problems.  In reality, this means that you are HIGHLY unlikely to make a lame horse sounder just with trimming.  [Trimmers and farriers, please read that last sentence again.]

This is true of any barefoot horse, and its doubly true of a rehab horse, whose hooves are undergoing enormous change.  Even a well-meaning attempt to nudge the horse closer, faster towards better medio-lateral or dorso-palmar balance can backfire - possibly just because the right change has now happened too fast.

As I said in my last post, I know all about this because I've made these mistakes before...BUT there is a way of avoiding mistakes, and that's to listen to the horse.   Any horse which walks away worse from a trim shouldn't be trimmed again until something has changed and if a horse is already lame, think beyond trimming, because that alone probably won't help.

• If grass (or another nutritional problem) is causing sole sensitivity, the owner needs to discuss management options with the farrier or trimmer.

• If the trimmer or farrier has been over-zealous, they need to be informed that the horse didn't benefit and, unless they take that information on board, they shouldn't be allowed near the horse again.

• If the trim overloaded a weak structure of the hoof, that area needs to be strengthened before any further attempt is made to increase the load.

I can understand that owners want a professional opinion on their horse's hooves at regular intervals - that is completely understandable and is how it should be.  But the emphasis HAS to change.  The title "trimmer" should be abandoned for a start - although its so much snappier than "hoofcare professional" that we are probably stuck with it.

Nevertheless, there should be a clear understanding by owners and professionals that trimming is (or should be) only a tiny part of hoofcare for a barefoot horse.

A competent hoofcare professional should expect to spend most of their time on a visit advising on nutrition, biomechanics and management and may - or may not - end up trimming the horse.

In this sense, its more like being an instructor than a farrier (thanks to Wiola for this photo!).

The professional may need to assess where and how the horse is kept, will certainly need to evaluate the horse's diet, and should always observe the horse's movement and how the hooves are loading.    If trimming is necessary, it should be done only as part of a wide picture, with caution and the horse should be extremely closely monitored before and after.

Whereas with a shod horse the owner's responsibility for hoofcare may simply be to book the farrier at regular intervals, with a barefoot horse at least 90% of the horse's hoof health becomes the owner's responsibility.

Really, the professional's job isn't to trim, its to work with horse and owner and give THEM the tools to achieve optimum hoof health within the practical limits available.

It can be difficult for hoofcare professionals to get their heads round the idea of being paid for their time, knowledge and expertise rather than just for wielding sharp instruments but they need to start doing just that.

They should be talking to owners, giving them tailored and detailed advice on every aspect of hoofcare, not just billing £x for "a trim" and leaving the most important elements to chance.

The sooner we get away from the idea of hoofcare professionals being "paid to trim"and feeling they have to do a bit of cutting and rasping, no matter what, in order to justify their bill, the better for the horse...