Barefoot trimming or shoeing? What's right for you?

Wild horses never visit a farrier. Bands of wild horses in many parts of the world travel on average 30 km each day and their hooves adapt to the demands of their environment. In Mongolia and parts of South America domestic horses remain unshod in the present day. Why do we shoe our horses? What happens to their hooves if we don't? What could be an appropriate regime for healthy hooves under New Zealand conditions?

The mechanics of lower leg function

The shapes of shoes and hooves have an impact on how comfortable the leg (and the whole horse) can work. The horse walks on what to us are the tips of the middle finger and middle toe. Their hooves are equivalent to our finger and toe nails.

From the cannon bone down, three pedal bones are aligned like the bones in a human finger. The coffin bone (pedal bone 3) and the navicular bone are encased by the hoof wall, sole, and heel. The coffin bone is usually level with the coronary band (the hairline at the top of the hoof). The shape of the coffin bone largely resembles that of the healthy hoof wall. It is "velcroed" to the hoof wall by filaments called white line. The white line extends all the way to the sole and can be seen at the underside of the foot.

In horses with laminitis, the white line has become inflamed and can weaken enough to cause founder. The heel side of the coffin bone is surrounded by cartilage on both sides and cushioning tissue in the middle. All structures beneath the hoof wall are alive and blood circulates throughout. The sole of the hoof is roughly 1cm thick and lies directly under the coffin bone.

When the horse moves the row of pedal bones must be able to extend forward before the hoof hits the ground. The hoof has to be allowed to land heel-first, rather than toe-first. In this alignment the joints are under the least amount of stress in a shock absorbing curve. To try for yourself, tap your middle finger tip on a hard surface to experience if it is more comfortable landing "heel"-first (palm side-first) or "toe"–first (fingernail side-first)!

The lower leg in action: When the hoof lands toe-first, as shown on the left, pedal bones have to alternate between downward curve and upward curve during each stance. Compare with heel-first landing shown on the right: Pedal bones remain in shock-absorbing upward curve alignment.

Heel-first landing of the near hind foot. It is easier for the hind feet to land like this, because of the concertina-like arrangement of the hind legs' joints.

Heel-first landing of the off-fore, seen from the front and the back. In this extended position the pedal bones are aligned in a shock-absorbing curve.

To facilitate heel-first landing the hoof needs the correct shape. Badly shaped hooves interfere with the movement and can lead to lameness. The shape of the hoof affects not only the landing of the hoof, but also its unrolling. As the horse moves, it lifts the heel before the toe. The time between heel and toe lift is called breakover. The length of the toe in proportion to the whole foot has an impact on breakover time. The longer the toe, the longer it will take before the toe can lift off the ground. If breakover is too slow, due to a long toe, the tendon at the back of the foot will put undue pressure on the navicular bone. This can lead to heel pain and navicular syndrome. Slow breakover also gives the limb less time to swing forward and land heel-first.

The hoof capsule (hoof wall and underside) grows, wears and re-shapes constantly. If the hoof capsule develops a distorted shape, then the mechanical action of the lower limb can quickly become compromised.

Shoeing

The majority of domesticated horses in New Zealand are shod. This includes racehorses, sport horses, many larger ponies and hacks. Our horses are shod, because shoes provide protection for the sole, heel support, traction, and facilitate breakover. A shod horse can be worked on most surfaces. Shoes provide convenience, because the hooves don't need to be conditioned to the type of terrain they needs to work on. It is a quick and efficient way to align the coffin bone with a correct weight bearing surface, so that all lower limb bones are optimally balanced and under minimum stress. This is especially useful, if the hoof capsule is rather ill-fitting around the coffin bone. Orthopaedic shoeing is applied to unsound horses to help in healing and correcting.

The barefoot trimming method

The thousand year old European tradition of shoeing horses has come under fire from advocates of alternative approaches to hoof care in recent decades.

Barefoot trims are specially designed for working horses as a ‘natural’ alternative to shoes. Conventional pasture trims involve giving the horse a pre-shoeing trim, without shoeing. It is mainly applied to brood mares and spelling horses, that don’t get worked. Two barefoot trimming strategies have become popular. One is Dr. Hiltrud Strasser's basic trim from Germany. The Strasser method was originally developed as a veterinary treatment for unsound horses and is practised at Strasser’s hoof clinic in Tubingen since 1993. She offers degree courses for owners and hoof care practitioners worldwide. Strasser's method may be regarded as more controversial, because in order to achieve optimal hoof function the practitioner may purposefully weaken parts of the heel and sole to force re-shaping of the hoof as quickly as possible. Strasser not only promotes having horses go barefoot, but also advocates changes from traditional hoof angle and heel height.

The second barefoot trimming method may be subsumed under the umbrella term of "wild horse trim" from North America. It was modelled on wear patterns of feral horses by a mixed group of independent trimmers. The American wild horse trimming method has been popularised most by Jaime Jackson, Pete Ramey and Gene Ovnicek. Like Strasser, the philosophy behind the movement assumes that shoeing is harmful to the horse in many ways. It is less invasive than the Strasser method and is represented in New Zealand by the HOOFNZ association. The group also offers training and education for owners and practitioners. Proponents of the wild horse trim assume that the wear patterns of North American horses allow for maximum functional strength. This is unlikely and it has been found that feral horses show different wear patterns, living in different climates, on different diets and terrain. New Zealand’s wet climate leads to rapid hoof growth most of the year and soft ground conditions don’t wear the hoof as much as rocky ground. Feral horses generally have strong walled hooves of good proportion, because they travel as much as necessary to self-trim. The trims applied to the domestic horse in New Zealand need to be carefully adapted to local conditions. Jenny Lomas, for example, addresses New Zealand conditions in her book Natural Hoof & Horse Care.

Barefoot trims aim at shaping the hoof capsule to facilitate breakover and heel-first landing. Shoeing, as we have noted, has the same aim, but the two approaches to hoof health are incompatible. The toe callous protecting the sole of the barefoot horse is encouraged by barefoot trimming, but is removed by the farrier in the pre-shoeing trim, because it is in the way of the shoe. In the shod horse, toe callous is substituted for iron. In a shod horse, heel-first landing and breakover are determined by both the pre-shoeing trim and the placement of the shoe, whereas in the bare foot horse, this is achieved by the trim and the hoof wall and callous growth it enhances.

What happens if you don’t shoe?

Adapting to going barefoot involves a number of changes in the previously shod hoof and may take up to a year. Both horses and owners have come to rely on shoes and must be patient, if they wish to make the transition to going unshod. On a shod horse the hoof wall bears more impact and weight through the shoe. When unshod, the sole, frog, heel and bars must now adapt to bearing relatively more weight. Over several weeks one can observe the development of prominent sole callous for sole protection in a barefoot horse.

The hard wearing sole callous is most prominent at the toe and extends around to the quarters.

The frog will have more ground contact, which will increase its sensitivity. Initially, this can make the horse sore, but as it toughens traction and sure-footedness will be gained. During movement, the hoof wall expands and relaxes than when shod. This expansion and relaxation, known as reversible hoof deformation, increases blood circulation and the hooves’ shock absorbing capacity. All these changes to the hoof contribute, say the advocates of barefoot trimming, to the hoof’s cartilage being better supplied with blood, and thus better protecting the cartilage from degeneration. In search of these health benefits, some owners have made the transition. Successful barefoot performance horses are found in every equestrian discipline today. Those considering making the switch should bear in mind that their horse may be sore and unrideable barefooted for some time. Horses that are not immediately comfortable without metal shoes ought to be fitted with hoof boots for riding, which allow the horse to move comfortably and provide excellent protection.  

Which way to go?

Shoeing and bare footing each have their pros and cons. The decision which way to which way to go should be determined by the type of work your horse is doing, its health, the cost of each method, the availability of farriers and hoof trimmers, and your preference.

The advantages of shoeing are that it provides artificial hard-wearing protection to the underside of the hoof. Optimal breakover can be tuned precisely and immediately. Regardless of where the horse is stabled or pastured, a shod horse is readied for a range of work outs. Amongst the disadvantages of shoeing are that shoes do restrict the expansion and contraction of the hoof during movement and thus reduce blood flow. Like shoed humans, the loss of a shoe can immediately render the horse unsound. The current cost for shoeing at six-week intervals is about $1000 per year.

A well-trimmed barefoot hoof enjoys more natural ground contact, increased circulation and better shock absorption. The main disadvantage is that keeping a barefoot horse’s feet in sound condition for the work you require of it needs proper management. More attention needs to be paid to diet and the amount of exercise a horse gets in order to stimulate growth of healthy hoof horn. One must also take into account the potentially lengthy transition period from being shod to unshod. 

While there are some extreme positions taken by some barefooters, improved hoof health in properly managed barefoot horses has been demonstrated. Against conventional wisdom, one important insight from the barefoot movement is that weak hooves are likely to benefit more from a barefoot spell than from shoeing. A useful rule of thumb would be to shoe only horses with good hooves and allow weak hooves to improve while barefoot. The convenience of shoes cannot be disputed. However, for those owners who can cope with transition periods while bare hooves adapt, barefooting has much to recommend it.

Claudia Waldmann