Hunting For Arrows

  **In pulling together pictures for this blog I know see the importance of photographing hooves on a regular basis. My mentor continually reminds me to take more heel off the right front and I now see that I had it lower in March of 2019 than it is today. I now have a dedicated folder for hoof pictures and have them all dated. *** My barefoot hoof journey started 3 years ago when I had Joe's shoes pulled and learned how to maintain his hooves myself. It was the answer to one of the deepest layers in the onion of his unsoundness. For the past 3 years I’ve been balancing his hooves on my own on a weekly basis. I have my own set of hoof knives and a few favorite rasps. Every few months I spend a Sunday at a clinic with the mentor that taught me how to balance hooves. He checks my work and usually tells me I’m still leaving too much heel. He makes a comment on how Joe’s front hooves almost look like they belong to a horse now, instead of a pony . I spend time on those Sundays watc...

        I started working with one of my barn owners horses during the Christmas break. The barn owner has 7 retired AQHA show horses that range between 18 and 27 years old. They get turned out in large pastures when the weather is good, but this time of year they spend their days in stalls with attached paddocks. Holly, one of the youngest at 18 was moved into stall with no paddock when a few new boarders moved in. With the weather changing to mostly rain in the past few weeks, she wasn’t getting turned out on a regular basis. I had handled Holly a few times over the past year; I brushed her out in the spring, gave her a bath or two over the summer and gave her another beauty session in October when winter blankets went on. I always found her easy to work with, she is a rock star in the cross ties for grooming and bathing but seemed a little weird when I would hand graze her. Holly would be happily eating grass and then out of nowhere would look up at me with wide...