There are currently a number of so- called modern developments sold to you as a requirement for your horse to live a happy and useful life. Most of these are not new, and certainly not necessary to the well being of your horse in most cases. These so-called modern developments come in three flavours. The first is put about by the bare foot group of people, the second by the special developments in shoes that you and your horse supposedly requires; the third by a mixture of the first two. Each of these systems can be divided up into three parts. The first is that by devising and proposing this method it will enhance any reputation the proposer may have in the horse world. Secondly it will be a money spinner and boost their income with a minimum of effort, learning, and experience. Thirdly it is to be good for the horse. Though in my opinion, although this is touted as the primary reason for these fads, the reasons used are in the order I have given, and the last is to impress the horse owner. Though it is proposed as the main reason to impress the owner, the first two reasons are nearer the truth.

First lets look at the "bare foot brigade" These come in various flavours, some better than others, though none produce anything new in the method used. If these proponents believe what they are preaching they show a lack of diligence in their research, and if they don’t believe it is new, then, they are miss leading the horse owner. Some of these methods are given names in order to enhance them. In actual fact apart from the Strasser method, there is not a great deal of difference in most of the others. They will tell you there is and have written books to prove it, but apart from the obvious plagiarism of Farrier training manuals, there is very little difference from the trim that your ordinary well trained Farrier will give to your horse as a matter of course. The major difference is that the practitioners of these special trims do not have to be registered and have very little training, usually 2 to 3 days with possibly a week later on to give them the title of approved trimmer of whatever flavour they are adherents. Because the trim is supposedly special they will charge you more for it, in fact usually twice as much as a Registered Farrier, who will do it quicker, better, with more practical experience, and a lot better training.

One of the trims that is proposed is one taught and demonstrated by K.C. La Pierre. It is called "The High Performance Trim" and if you go on one of his courses then you will soon realise if you have any knowledge of Farriery that it is the standard trim that has been taught to UK Farriers since I was an apprentice (58 years) He says that the high performance is achieved through applied equine podiatry. Now there is a high falutin name to give a trim, though it should impress the horse owner with the erudition of the trimmer at the very least. He did say that you should not need shoes at all, whatever you are doing. That, to me, shows that there is a lack of understanding of the terrain and use we put our horses to in the UK. I do not say that there are not horses that cannot go without shoe’s, in fact I advocate a shoeless regime wherever possible. Unfortunately this does not work for the majority of serious competition horses in hard work. Also it is not helpful where maximum foot protection and, even more important grip is required. Studs are not an option with a bare foot.

Another type of trim is the "Natural Trim" The use of the emotive word "natural" is used indiscriminately by bare foot advocates and some shoeing styles. This is to impress horse owners with the importance and goodness of the proposed method. The reason they will tell you the trim is "Natural" is that some wild horses were found in north America with feet this shape. Firstly, the horses were not wild, they were feral horses. They were grazing in a restricted area so as not to disrupt Farming and were rounded up in the spring to get rid of some of the surplus animals to "good" homes free. It was noticed that the toes of the animals were worn back at an angle to the plain of the sole, and from this it was deduced by several people, plus a few more that jumped on the band wagon, that this was the natural way that a foot should be trimmed. If this was always the case then this could possibly be so, except, in the autumn (fall) it was found by other researchers that the foot was now more rounded, with very little excessive wear on the toe. The conclusion reached by the second group was that the wear observed by the first group was induced by the animals having to scrape through the frozen snow and ice over the winter to obtain food. When the summer grass was readily available then the wear no longer happened, and so the Natural foot was in fact an unnatural foot induced by the animals being confined to an unnatural area over winter. In other words it is now an unnatural trim that is being advocated.

In the so called Natural trim the break over point is moved back under the foot. You, as a customer will be told how good this is for the horse, but is it? It can be if the horse is suffering from Osteo Arthritis of the pedal joints such as ring bone, but if it is not it is rather like wearing a bandage in case you cut yourself-not likely or necessary I think. The toe of the foot provides grip and propulsion. Taking it away is a retrograde step in a competition horse, and is not desirable if the best is to be got out of the animal. Earlier this year I was at a seminar given by several eminent foot specialists, one of whom was Gene Ovnicek, a Farrier who travels all over promoting this type of foot and the "Natural Balance Shoe". I asked him twice why he advocated the removal of the toe, and both times he told me it was because this was the way it wore. I don’t know about you, but my car wears its tyres and when I replace them I use tyres with plenty of tread and grip so that I may drive it using its full potential, even more importantly with safety.

Now we come to the Strasser trim. This is a type of trim proposed by a veterinarian from Austria who lives in Germany. She gives herself the courtesy title of Doctor that is commonly used in Germany by people with a college degree. But let us not mistake it for a doctorate degree, this it is not. She proposes a trim that lowers the heels so that the lower border of the pedal bone (3rd Phalanx) is parallel to the ground. As a qualified Radiographer as well as a Farrier, I have taken innumerable X-Rays of the foot. I have found that in all normal feet the angle of the pedal bone in relation to the ground when at rest is

3 % to 5 % . If you trim the foot so that the angle is less than this, then, when loaded , i.e. when galloping or jumping, the pedal bone will over- rotate causing damage to the underlying tissues, and possibly rupturing of the Suspensory ligament or Extensor Pedis Tendon.

An interesting part of the theory of this trim is that quite often the horse, will go very lame after it. The excuse given for this is that the horse though previously sound, is recovering from problems caused by shoeing, or a normal trim, and has nothing to do with what I call the butchery applied to its normal feet. The cost of learning this type of trim is exorbitant and charges made by people who have done the course is excessive to say the least. The system has been condemned by The Royal College of Veterinary surgeons, The Farriers Registration Council, The R.S.P.C.A. and innumerable other bodies. This is a method I would approach with a great deal of caution, after all you may be condemning your horse to a great deal of unnecessary pain, all in the dubious name of so-called progress. All I can say is, don’t regret something that is completely unnecessary being proposed by someone with no Farriery qualification and very little training or experience.

This may sound like blowing the qualified Farriers trumpet but, in fact, I think I am pointing out the patently obvious. If you already have a Farrier, then it stands to reason that it will pay you to get him to do the trimming if that is what is required. While he must be registered by law, he will also be insured, something that a lot of these amateurs are not. In fact they cannot obtain insurance, no insurance company will insure a un-qualified person. Of course while you have a Farrier you also have the option of fitting shoes as and if required, something your trimmer will not be able to do by training and the law. As it matters very little to the Farrier, only to the welfare of the horse, the advice he gives should be completely unbiased. Something those with only one axe to grind will not be liable to give, except in the case of the trimmers who advise the use of boots when the purely bare foot course of action doesn’t work

You will, I am sure be told that Farriers cant trim, don’t trim, won’t trim , or that they make more money by shoeing. None of these is the truth, but with very little going for pure trimmers, some form of propaganda has to be used. The obvious silly statement is "can’t trim". Well a Farrier cannot work in the UK without being qualified, and the main part is how to trim. Without an ability to trim a Farrier will not be able to fit the shoe. There is very little difference in the various trims advocated by the Bare Foot brigade and that which your qualified Farrier does as a matter of course. The Basic trim follows the line of the sole for obvious reasons to the widest part of the frog at the heels. Trained Farriers make it look easy and quick, but like a lot of things it takes a great deal of practice and experience to do it correctly and quickly every time. Your newly trained Farrier has at least 4 years supervised training. Ask yourself what training has your trimmer had, and what qualifications has the person supervising it.

The don’t trim and wont trim Farriers are a myth repeated ad-nauseum with no foundation in fact. All you, as a horse owner, has to do is look around you at the Farriers in your area. Can you find any at all who don’t trim or won’t trim-I very much doubt it. The old saw about the Farrier making more money by shoeing and that it why he will not trim, is when you think about it, a silly statement. I wonder about the people who make these wild accusations. Do they believe it themselves or do they rely on you, the owner, not spotting the lie. Shoeing costs at the moment between £45.00 to £65.00 across the country, and trims in the region £15.00 to £20.00. So, as a Farrier can do 3 to 4 trims in the time it takes to shoe a horse correctly, then you can see that a Farrier makes more money when trimming, especially when you take into account the cost of shoes, gas and nails etc.

Lastly, a lot of these fads are taken up because the owners feel they must have something different to show other horse owners, and it has nothing to do with the welfare of the horse in question. Rather like the dressage queens who think that bigger is better. In other words, being better than the joneses. It could also be something to do with curing a problem they haven’t got but might get, in other words though it isn’t broke they insist on fixing it.

Giles

 I have been having a few thoughts about Balanced feet. Like a lot of you I suspect I have gone along with the current theories and teachings on the subject, but just recently not being under the horse but standing back and looking at other Farriers work, I have noticed a few things that maybe bring into doubt the current trend in all it’s entirety, at least for me.

Standing away from the side of the horse and looking at the way it is standing before and after shoeing with corrections applied to the angle of the foot to compensate for the apparent low heel syndrome, I have noticed a significant difference in the angle of the leg in relation to the ground from before to after. If the horse’s leg is directly under itself and perpendicular, after correction has been applied it moves to the rear, (posterior). The reason for this I think is that the animal is trying to re-balance the tension being applied to the Extensor pedis tendon, and the flexor pedis tendon. All this tells me that the horse with the leg vertically under itself when at rest is the one with the most natural foot angle, and therefore it’s foot is naturally balanced for the conformation that it has.

Over the years I have found that to obtain the natural stance as above all I needed to do was to trim the feet to the natural plain of the sole of the foot, and forget all the high falutin theories that have been put about recently. The results have been NO lame horses, a natural gait for their breed, and animals that have performed better than most in their chosen field. I am sure that many will say this is wrong, but you can’t argue with results, and as my Granddad said "If it an’t broke, don’t fix it" or if you like "if it works why change"?

It seems these days that if it is new it must be better. Why this should be I don’t know, but it does seem to convince the punters out there (even Farriers). I agree that some of the old ways need to change, but the old boys had got the job basically right. After all if they didn’t then they didn’t eat, the horse owner just went somewhere else; you were out of work. and with no modern state help, you died. I wonder if the modernist would be so quick to change if their lives depended on it?

So, as I see it this balance thing is alright provided you take the whole leg into consideration not just the hoof when you start changing things. If when you change something it puts something else out of kilter, then leave well enough alone, at least the horse is used to being that way. You change something, and now the horse has to get used to two things different. I don’t think this will improve its performance or it’s comfort. Don’t forget that the top horses perform at the top in spite of their deformities. You may think you are improving things, but I doubt it - all you are doing is changing things, causing a little discomfort perhaps and taking his/her mind off what it should be doing (winning) and, as I said before, "if it aint broke, don’t change it"

A lot of feet that are described as "Long toe/low heel" are really long toed and when the toe is taken back and trimmed properly the low heel apparently disappears.

In fact the low heel is an optical illusion and only looks low because of the long toe. So, in my opinion, before you start trying to raise the heel, shorten the toe and see where you are. Leaving unsupported heel on will only get you crushed heels due to the extra weight applied to the heels when the foot lands, and if you start with weak heels then you only exacerbate the problem. Long toe/low heel is a modern term when in fact they would be better used separately, that way we would know what is being described. If the horse has both, so be it, but its funny that when you get rid of one the other disappears by magic. My customers think it is wonderful when I perform instant miracles like this and it certainly does my reputation the world of good.

The last couple of months I have had a group of barefoot fanatics on a forum that I have on my website. I call them fanatics due to their statements that all horses can go without shoes whatever they are doing, and wherever they are doing it. I can’t go along with this, though I do recommend horses to be shoeless whenever possible. This is conveniently forgotten by these people when they put their ideology forward as the way to go according whichever messiah they happen to be following. I can understand the reasoning for ignoring this, after all how can they sell a theory that agrees with a properly trained and experienced Farrier. I think they must promote it as something different and so earn money or prove how important they are or would like to be-or in some cases I’m sure they would like to promote both. I suppose it would be nice for them, if not the horse.

Of course there is a lot of other disinformation they spread around in the hope of convincing other horse owners that their particular brand of barefoot is the only way to go. I don’t see people actually believing this load of cods wallop, but then I suppose I have an advantage, being a Farrier myself, with a certain amount of practical experience all over the world. One of the oft quoted so called facts is that Farriers do not want to trim horses as they earn more money shoeing. I don’t know what it is where you are, but here a trim is about 1/3 rd the price of a set of shoes. So all I need to do is about 2 trims per hour. Plus I don’t have to buy or make shoes and I don’t use nails or gas etc, and I will make as much as shoeing. Now that sounds, and is a lot easier than shoeing a horse. So out the window goes that lie masquerading as a fact.

They will also put about that they use a special type of trim as taught to them by whatever guru they happen to find expedient to follow. Basically there are two main types of trim out there, one is the Strasser butchery, the other is K.C. La pierre’s, and as many variations as there are trimmers in between. Any one who follows Strasser, who as far as I can see says that if they lame a horse then it is alright because this is the way they get better from the harm you as Farriers have done to them. Their contention that cutting open the hoof capsule of a sound foot is OK, and any abscesses caused by this is normal, must be ever so slightly abnormal, in my opinion. K.c.’s high performance trim as he calls it is the same as I was taught over 56 years ago, and as he is not even that old I don’t think he could have invented it, though I am sure he did the name. He may have discovered it, but as he has been out of the main stream of Farriery then I suppose anything like this would be new to him.

So of course when they pass of as a fact that Farriers don’t trim the same as they do, it is the one thing that is true, in that no Farrier trims or even shoes every foot of every horse exactly the same. Certainly I don’t do the same trim on every horse as all horses are different in what we make them do or most of all in their conformation. So how these people can say that the trim they propose is the only way it can and must be done I don’t know. Or perhaps I do, it is probably because of the lack of experience and training that this is the only way they know how to do the job, therefore any variation is wrong in spite of the fact that no two horses are the same so "ipso facto" it is impossible to trim them the same.

The next big lie is that shoes cause lameness. This easy to debunk, as all you have to do is look at TV of races, or show jumping, and all of the horses are sound, so out the window goes that one. They say of course that the injuries are caused by shoes over the long term, and this could be true with bad shoeing, BUT it could also be true over the long term with trimming so I cant see it advancing their cause. I have two mares which could be delicately described as aged, in fact one is nearly 30 years old. One is and has been shod most of its life from 4 years of age. The other has not had a shoe on in its life. They have been sound all their lives and never a problem, so what have I been doing wrong? According to them everything, so you cant win. If they are sound, it is certainly your fault as this shows there is a problem as the shoe has made the foot numb. If you believe that you will believe anything. If the horse is lame of course from a stake or rock then it is still the fault of the shoe.

You know they are out there, harping on the same old things in the hope that you will get fed up with pointing out the lies, and so let the propaganda filter into the subconscious of the owner as true. Don’t let it happen in your area, it is your duty to protect the owner, but most of all the horse from these charlatans.

Giles

First Published April 2003 Loose Shoe Magzine

 Dr. Giles Holtom

PhD.  FWCF.

Negative thoughts.

Looking through my web site it would seem that the points and thoughts that I have had are mostly negative, and this  is going to  follow this route, though I will try to change in the future, no guarantee though.

Square toe shoes
These shoes and style of shoeing come with a variety of names from natural balance to Cytek but, with slight variations they are very much alike, though don’t tell the adherents, they get very upset that anything else is like their methodology in any way.  They ALL seem to come from the time that someone (we wont say who) caught some feral mustangs and found that they had square toes.  Without a thought as to why they had square toes. It was the spring and they the horses had been digging through snow and ice to obtain food in the un-natural environment in which they were forced to live.  They assumed and told the world that this was the natural state in which to live and for a horses foot, in spite of the obvious fact that nearly all horses including wild and feral horses all over the world have round feet. These people quietly dismissed this fact, and that later in the year the feral horses that they caught returned to rounded feet and so joined the rest of the horse population who hadn’t had the dubious honour of living in un-natural conditions. This can be confirmed by a well respected, professional and experience Farrier of at least 35 years. He is a Certified Journeyman Farrier, Chairman of the AFA Certification Committee (Western Region), and was paid for shoeing his first horse in 1968.  His name is Steve Stephenson CJF and can be contacted on:-stephensonforge@aol.com.

Not only is the research carried out on the condition of the horses feet dubious and does not hold water or anything else to a thinking Farrier to say the least but, the research on Farriery in general does not hold any water either.  There is a certain amount of plagiarism as they all seem to go along the same lines, i.e. “Modern Farriery has only been around for 150 years”.  I have a Saxon and seen Roman shoes that were rim fitted as in the so called modern fashion with no discernable squaring of the toe.  I have seen and have (a copy) of medieval paintings at least 500 years old with what I would call a normal shoe, and if they had done there homework they would have seen them as well, so out of the window goes that one. 

Natural Break-over Shoes
now this is my own invention and it took at least 10 minute of thought to come to one conclusion, and that as horses are born with rounded toes and stay that way barring accidents or abnormal conditions then it follows that the natural breakover is at the rim of the foot so………natural breakover shoes.  That should make people happy who need the word Natural in the name somewhere.  I would have loved to have used the word GREEN as well but we cant have everything and I only had 10 minutes to think about it, about the same time that the square toed brigade used thinking out their theories probably.  So there you go for free, I won’t try to sell you a training course or a set of shoes, though with the gullible out there I should be able to make a fortune. lets face it there are owners out there who seem to believe that they have Fairies at the bottom of their garden so selling an idea that is obvious logical should be Childs play compared to NBC and Cytek.

Actual Breakover
Why the square toe brigade or even owners think that the breakover is at the centre of the toe I have no idea, even a half blind person can see that horse that wing or are pidgin toed breakover off centre, and even a perfect horses breakover moves laterally or medially if it is turning to varying degree’s, so the magical point as Dr Reddan calls it is not a constant, and other than having square toed shoes on a swivel I don’t quite know how they will get over it.  With a rim fitted shoe we have no such problem as the distance of the breakover point from the rotation point remains fairly constant however much the breakover moves through turning or deformity, a much nicer and elegant solution I would have though and funnily enough one that nature came up all by herself. By the way, Dr Reddans site does give a good anatomy lesson and even points out that given the application of square toe shoes over sufficient time we can club the horses foot ( now there’s something to aim for??).

Long toe low heels
Long toes have been with us as long as we have had bad breeding and lazy incompetent owners and farriers.  The cure is very obvious, trim more often and well. Like a lot of things in life when you take the trouble to think of it very simple, the breeding part you should have taken care of  (probably with a gun) before you bred from a horse with obvious deformities. As much as we may love our horse its as well to recognise that they are not all perfect. and some are better suited to being used as lawn ornaments than breeding.

 Low heels should be obvious as before square toe shoes we fitted the shoes for this condition over long and very wide from the quarters back, and if you look at NBS and Cytek shoes this is exactly the way they are fitted, so you don’t have to copy them after all as they are copying the way we did it long before they got a money making idea.  Don’t worry about the shoe coming off the NBS brigade don’t, after all you are now treating a condition and the owner must expect a few bumps along the road.???

Natural Balance and Cytek shoes
These shoes should not be used on horse used for athletic events (eventing,  show jumping, racing etc), As the toe is needed in a horse (or human) when moving in an athletic way. If you don’t believe me look at the imprint in a smooth sand school and see how the toe digs in as it rotates to propel itself and the horse forwards, this is what I call active rotation.  With the toe removed you can only have passive rotation with the horse falling on the for hand by weight shifting and moving its feet to stop falling on its nose.  In no way will it be collected.

  Now after all that I am going to tell you that NBS shoe ( or my variation of them before they are given a name) I use now, but only as a treatment for conditions you will come across eventually if you have not so far.  Old horses with arthritic joints are a good candidate, something that needs help with the rotation of the joints due to old age, bad feeding when young or just bad management and use. I have a book published in 1912 that advocates these types of shoes for Ostio-arthritis of the fetlock and lower joints i.e. Ring Bone.

Cytek I am not even a little fan of, as they are badly made with inferior quality Iron badly holed for the nails and all together a real armature job. No wonder they say you should not need to alter them, if you do it cold they break.  Cytek will tell you they have done research but never let you see it ( I’ve tried) I think it is a cheap plagiarism of NBS shoeing theories and we know how flawed that is, and the really funny thing is that considering how alike the two are they hate each other.

Giles,  The inventor of Natural Breakover Shoes  ---- NBS-----oh dear I will have to invent another name but not this time..

First Published September 2002 Loose Shoe Magzine

WHITE LINE DISEASE

By

Dr. Giles Holtom,  PhD.  F.W.C.F.

 I run a small clinic for the treatment of foot and leg problems and even though I say it myself am quite successful.  We seem to have an abundance of “White Line” disease cases the last few years and I can only put it down to the use of deep litter type bedding used these days in combination with the use of wide web shoes.  The bedding encourages the retention of dirty infected pads in the sole of the foot and the shoe stops you from cleaning it out properly in the white line area, so encouraging the breeding of fungi and gradually infecting the white line.  We seem to have imported the worst of both worlds in the hope that it is an improvement and less work, this doesn’t seem the case to me. We certainly didn’t have these problems when I was young and didn’t do either.

  Treatment of “White Line” disease advocated by some people consists of the injection of a disinfection type concoction up the white line.  This does work in some cases where you have caught it before it has become deep seated, This does cut down the work which is the reason we have the condition in the first place, but I have found that once it has travelled any distance up the wall of the hoof then the only guaranteed cure is the complete debridement of the area affected.  Here after debridement we keep the horses on a rubber mat bedding with no shoes and a thin layer of saw dust in the toilet area, the whole being sprayed with a weak solution of disinfectant.  This treatment takes a long time, sometimes months, but at the end we have a completely healthy foot to shoe and compete on, and this as far as I am concerned is the name of the game.

  The current trend in the use of wide web shoes seems to be for the protection of the sole, and were commonly used on the continent as farriers tend to remove more or nearly all of the sole when shoeing there.  With the UK method of shoeing this is not the case and with narrow web shoes with a higher profile had very little problem with bruising etc.  The advantage of the older shoes was a greatly enhanced grip so quite why we have gone over to the European style of shoe I don’t quite know except as a statement of style which I am sure the horse is not pleased with, nor the rider/owner if they knew the reasoning behind the modern shoe or should I say lack of reasoning.

  At this point I might add my current thoughts or bee in my bonnet about horse ownership, and that is that so many people have horses as a social adjunct to their life style and not because they have been brought up with them or wanted them all their lives.  The result of this is that so many owners have no in-depth knowledge about keeping and looking after horses, except what they get from books with emotive titles written by so called experts with an axe to grind, and then only as a money making venture with no thought to the horse itself.  The next thing they have to have is their own personal trainer, quite a lot of them being self appointed experts with only a little more knowledge than the owner but a glib tongue.  I suppose it is a bit down market to have to have group lessons from a qualified teacher with what they and their trainer probably see, no hopers., at least this way they don’t have to be judged by their peers. 

  A major problem in this ‘instant’ age is a reluctance to allow sufficient time for a young horse to mature – both physically and mentally.  Instead people rush out and buy gadgets that only ever work for a short time and, if continued with, may well cause long term problems.  There seems to be a lack of understanding of the time it take to school a horse to a reasonable – let alone high – standard if one is to avoid creating difficulties caused by putting undue mental and physical strain on them.  This is especially true when dealing with young immature horses.  We now come to my point in that the current trend of instant fixes is spreading to shoeing.  In a lot of cases the “New” fixes are no better and in most cases worse than the old.  When the old ones worked why do we need the so called new except to make money for the people who hype them with no thought to the welfare of the animal and probable to reduce the amount of work involved (always a sales point).

So finally Farriers beware of quick fixes, reduced work load and trainers or Vets who apparently know more about your job than you do.

Giles

www.farrier-giles.co.uk

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