Pictures Barefoot experts please! Horse always sore after trim

The horse is walking on its soles (looking particularly at the hind sole pics here), with little wall support. The walls are being over thinned and over trimmed all round but particularly at the toe. If the soles are also thin, this puts the full weight of the horse on the tip of the pedal bone, compromising the blood supply/living tissue between bone and sole. Another vote to change farrier/learn trimming!
 
New farrier I think. If he's not willing to adapt his technique to support the horse in front of him then he isn't the man for the job I'm afraid.

The fact that every horse is sore after a trim by him suggest his technique isn't great.

I had a farrier leave my old stallion sore after his first trim with him. I spoke to him on his next visit and he took on board what I said. Pony wasn't sore footed again.
 
The farrier is trimming to fit a shoe - taking the walls down to sole level, and rasping back to the white line. Your friend needs a reliable barefoot trimmer to take a less aggressive approach, and also she needs to treat the deep thrush cracks in the heels and frog. At the moment, the horse appears to be loading the frog and sole. The heels are well developed, but are starting to contract - there should not be any cracks, folds or indentations between the heels. The hoof has been cut back so far that the horse's weight bearing ability and balance are being compromised. Please cancel the farrier appointment, and look for a good trimmer.
 
I’ve had barefoot and shod horses over the years. The TB ex racer had typical flat feet with thin soles. We went barefoot as he kept pulling shoes. Anyway.. every time he was trimmed and I mean very lightly, he would be foot sore/lame. In the end, I stopped and let him self trim, we used to hack on the roads. His hooves never looked pretty. But he was always sound. And used hoof boots if necessary.
 
100% time to find a new farrier, no horse should ever be foot sore after a trim. My horse had thin soles, flaring, and used to abscess a week after having his feet trimmed, so I swapped to an Equine podiatrist and couldn't recommend moving any more if I tried! the service is completely different to what is provided by a farrier and they watch the horse moving before and after the trim! in 6 years of moving away from farriers, he's feet have dramatically improved and he now has the best feet of all 3 of mine, no longer has thin sole and the flare is under control
 
paddy555 said:
I would suggest that for this particular horse the owner gets a rasp, could be something like a radius rasp to start with if they won't use a proper one.
Then give the horse couple of weeks, start riding BF again, use boots when necessary and then let the horse go onto 'self trimming" based on the riding. You can vary the surface to either trim or preserve hoof as appropriate. Then simply keep the feet well rounded and smooth with whatever rasp.
I dont think they will be a any worse off and the horse may become sound all the time. That will give them several weeks to find some other trimmer.

It is perfectly possible for the horse to manage self trimming. My first barefoot riding horse managed for 31 years self trimming. It must be better than being sore after each trim.
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A lot of people on here including me have gone to trimming their own after coming up with problem with farriers laming their horses.
 
Gloi said:
A lot of people on here including me have gone to trimming their own after coming up with problem with farriers laming their horses.
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Add to that having horses lamed by an Equine Podiatrist (a very overly hyped ‘qualification’) and that is how I ended up trimming my own horses too. Little and often is the way.
 
I would get a rasp and learn to tidy up the rough edges yourself conservatively, otherwise leave alone to self trim. The horse will tell you how comfortable it is. I have 2 tb mares, neither can cope with too much toe being rasped back. Both are far happier with longer toes than the text book would like.
 
As Landcruiser said, the walls are being rasped way too much for a thin soled horse to cope with being dumped on its soles.
That type of foot needs some hoof wall length beyond sole, and full wall thickness remaining to distribute load weight.
It looks like the trimmer is trying to carve a perfect foot shape, using 1 technique on all horses, instead of trimming to individual hoof needs.
There’s no need to drastically round off the hoof walls all the way around a hoof that doesn’t have overly thick walls or flaring or acute lami.
There’s some balance issues on one of the rear heels, where the ramp of the bar is higher than the heel base, so bar is loading full weight at stride and that usually is ouchy.

As multiple horses at the yard are sore after such a trim, I’m not surprised if that method of trim is the same on every horse. There needs to be some wall remaining somewhere to land on. Some trim techniques can be quite aggressive toward wall trim methods, but the horse was given a hoof wall to be used, not drastically removed.

I don’t like the outer wall rasped high up the hoof either, as it removes the shiny protective coating of the hoof. Like our nails have a shiny exterior, if we sanded that off, it would allow water to soak in easier aswell as allow potential ingress of bacteria. Trimmers that do this are trying to carve a ‘ideal’ foot shape rather than let the foot grow INTO that individual horse’s ideal foot shape.


I hope your friend manages to find another trimmer who’s able to let the hoof grow into a sound hoof.
 
No wanting to sound like I'm on commission but I use Hoof Armour on mine and this horse might find it helpful. It puts a thin layer of hard wearing material over the sole which helps the horse grow more sole. I used boots previously as mine wore his feet down too much on our rough roads without, but now rarely need them.
 
clearly the horse hasn't read the text book on what feet should look like.

I think over a 9 month period - comfort over form has to become a bigger consideration.

I've found the same with saddles that definitely "fit" but the horse hates them and goes horribly in them -

Clearly this style of trimming is nor working with this horse. I too would be tempted to try self management over someone who is making the horse lame 50% of the time (3 weeks out of 6).

Mine are at home and when our excellent trimmer cut down on numbers I tried several before deciding that I had to learn to trust myself over "qualified" people who might have read all the books but didn't listen to the horse in front of them
 
Why are you needing to trim this horse? Road work will almost certainly do the job for you. I would not be letting that farrier near my horse ever again. For multiple, various reasons we have been unable to get our farrier out to our ponies recently. My mare is badly pigeon toed and I was cringing at the way her feet were growing but then they started breaking up and now are absolutley fine, good shape and only a little tidying up needed. I really didn't think it was possible given her being so pigeon toed. With the ground so hard at the moment horses are self trimming all the time. Give your horse a long break from trimming at the very least and see what happens.
 
poiuytrewq said:
All those suggesting learn to trim can anyone give pointers as to where to look/learn please?
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You could have a look at some online videos, but be selective. This is a good one although you won't be using nippers. And Hoof Geek website has loads of info on hoof care.

Barefoot Trim Video - Horse Boots, Hoof Boots, Saddle Pads & Equipment

cavallo-inc.com cavallo-inc.com
hoofgeek.com

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tda said:
Go for a decent walk regularly on some tarmac! If there is excess hoof wall it will break off. Use a small rasp to just round the edges
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Mine are non ridden old ponies. They grow such little foot anyway, The three of them together took my farrier about 15 minutes tops and cost me £120 last time. They only usually need a rasp and tidy up! I was a bit 😬

I’ll look up those suggestions, thank you Landcruiser and Gloi!
Hood Geek Debs used to live just down the road from me she was a huge help when my little TB at the time had laminitis. Sadly they moved!
 
I haven't read all the answers but I think I'm on the same theme - the hooves are being trimmed to look pretty, not to function. I made this mistake with my big TB who had horrible feet - I could make him pretty and sore or ugly and functional. He had great flat dinner plates and he was never really able to hack without boots however he was sound in the field and school without and made it to 27. I suspect he had been shod very early in life because whatever I did I was never able to develop a decent digital cushion or sole depth. For yours I would leave the feet alone for a while and find out what they want to do - the celery series on the Rockley blog is great!
 
poiuytrewq said:
I’ll look up those suggestions, thank you Landcruiser and Gloi!
Hood Geek Debs used to live just down the road from me she was a huge help when my little TB at the time had laminitis. Sadly they moved
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I am very lucky to live near enough for her to be my trimmer although these days I rarely see her as I mostly trim my own :)
 
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