Not All Barefoot Trimmers Are Created Equal

When I first started trimming almost 10 years ago there were no fancy job titles like hoof care specialist or hoof care practitioner. There were farriers and barefoot trimmers. The former implied you were a blacksmith that could forge handcrafted shoes and the latter meant you were a horse obsessed hippie that thought all horses should should be barefoot in spite of their soundness. What I wanted to do didn't fit into either category so I decided to call myself a natural trimmer. Wild horses don't get their hooves trimmed every 6 weeks, they wear them off constantly because of their nomadic lifestyle. This is natures way of maintaining balance or what I would call "natural". 

Barefoot trimmers back then (and lets be honest even some today) tend to come across as a little bit fanatical. There have been well known trimmers who believed in regular aggressive trimming that made hooves bleed, drastic immediate angle changes to the hoof that left horses sore or caused injury and/or permanent damage and so on. These trimmers also tend to be somewhat overzealous trying to impress their views upon every unsuspecting horse owner they come across. This cult like mentality led to a general resistance in the horse world to the barefoot movement and created a stigma of sorts that all barefoot trimmers must trim aggressively regardless of how it affects the horse. 

I wanted to separate myself from that stigma and at the same time not confuse potential customers by calling myself a farrier. While it's true that farriers don't just forge metal shoes, but also trim hooves, I didn't want to have to explain over and over again that I was only a "barefoot" farrier. 

There it is again, that "barefoot" word. Another reason I have an issue calling myself a barefoot trimmer is that I don't think all horses should be barefoot all of the time. Let me explain. While I do believe the hoof is meant to be bare to be healthy, there are situations where a horse's comfort level needs to be prioritized over these beliefs. And really sometimes a weak or distorted hoof requires some intervention/protection to become healthy again so that it can function as nature intended ---> bare. So in saying this there are cases in my business where I use composite shoes, hoof boots or hoof casts to help rehabilitate hoof issues and therefore I cannot say those horses are "barefoot". 

What I believe is the difference between natural/barefoot trimmers and farriers is that farriers believe the hoof can function optimally with support when fixed with a metal shoe, and natural/barefoot trimmers believe the metal restricts the hoof function and circulation and compromises hoof health. Farriers that use metal shoes routinely restore usability to unsound horses via shoeing and horse owners appreciate this. My concern with is this: if a horse is unsound barefoot due to a weak or compromised hoof and you apply a shoe and the horse walks off sound, did you fix the weakness or just cover it up?

There will always be horse owners that prefer the ease of having their horse shod to maintain or "restore" soundness, and I have no issue with that. In this free world that we live in people are lucky enough to be able to choose what works for them and their horse. My approach to the same weak or compromised hoof might be to use a form of hoof protection when the horse needs it, but ultimately I want to restore hoof health and remove the weakness so that the horse doesn't require the shoe/boot/cast etc in order to be sound.

So ultimately I chose my own path, and called myself a natural trimmer in order to place myself in between what I saw back then as two camps divided. I like to think of myself as Pat Parelli would say as an "extreme middle of the roadist" in all aspects related to horses. And what that means to me is that I try to never become so overzealous in my views that I cannot appreciate another person's point of view, that I will not press my views upon others fanatically, but will share my knowledge openly when asked. I am also not afraid to continue learning and trying new methods and techniques. As Pete Ramey says, I try to "never say never or always" when it comes to trimming because as soon as you do you will encounter a situation where you end up doing something you never thought you would or straying from your usual tactics in the best interest of the horse.