Why Bare Foot is Good For Your Horse

A horse going bare foot is healthier for the animal and for the environment, as the horse's hoof will adjust to the proper hardness without wearing shoes and there is less of a chance of infection. Consider letting a horse go without horseshoes with helpful advice in this video on training horses.

Hi, I'm Rick Gore out here at the Travis Equestrian Center. Today we're going to talk about why barefoot is good for the horse, and basically cover what's called a Mustang Roll. I'm not a farrier, I do my own horses feet, I think barefoot is much more healthy for the horse. I think it's better for the environment. You don't have a bunch of old rusty horseshoes and nails getting pulled off in pastures. You don't have horseshoes starting fires, hitting rocks, sparks starting fires and burning down fences. When a horse gets a shoe on, there's a chance of him getting in a hot nail, to where the nail will puncture the lamellea or do some damage to the hoof wall. It also lets bacteria and other stuff in there when you compromise the hoof wall by putting a nail through it, so I'm not a shoe fan. I don't promote shoes, I don't like them. Barefoot, I think--this is a Mustang, out in the wild, they don't have shoes, their feet are hard, they get harder if they don't have any support. I understand that out in the wild they're not carrying a 200-pound person, however a horse foot will adjust and it has a self-sculpting capability. But because we have them in our environment to where we have a soft footing in the arena, or we ride them on soft good ground and we don't want them over-walked, etcetera, because they are carrying our weight, you can make the hoof a little bit stronger by doing a thing called the Mustang Roll. So what I'm going to do here is just show you real quick, because I do my own horses feet, every once in awhile your horses will get chipped around there, and if you have your horse or your farrier come out every six to eight weeks, the horse can chip his hoof, you know, a week after he's here, and then he runs around with some chipped hoofs. So what I'm going to do here is with this file, and you can get one from your farrier, they'll give you an old file, it doesn't have to be that sharp, it doesn't have to be new, it doesn't have to be fancy, basically you're just going to round off the edges when your horse gets a little chipped. So if Tanner stands here and lets me get his hoof up here, so I'm going to get his foot sitting up here where it's nice and comfortable. I use a wild brush just because it--I think it just helps kind of get the mud and stuff off the hoof, gets any dirt you can hook underneath, gets the mud and rocks. It also keeps the dirt from messing up your file, so if your file is a little rough--so what happened here? He doesn't have very chipped feet because normally before I ride him or if I'm riding my horses, I will give them a little nice soft file, and just basically round the corners. Kind of what women do with fingernail files when they round their fingernails to make them strong, you're doing the same thing with a hoof. So I'm just putting a little curved round edge. I'm not taking off hardly anything. You're not going to see a big difference, but it's actually strengthening the horse's foot by making it--the chips are gone, and it's making it nice and smooth. Now I was using the rough end of the rasp. Now I'm going to use the smooth end. Again, I'm making nice round, I'm taking off any corners or chips. Doesn't take that long. I can do all four feet in less than two minutes probably. And then I'm just going to make a nice round finish, and that's going to make it stronger, it's going to take away the chips, make the hoof look nice, and you're going to have to do less work when you trim if you do this once a week, either when you ride or whatever, you just trim it down and keep it nice and filed. And that's called a Mustang Roll. Your farrier probably does it. And if your horse is barefoot, it's a good thing to know.