It’s okay to admit it…we often get by on the bare minimum of knowledge when it comes to hoof care. We all learn the basics of how to tend to the hoof—keep its environment clean, pick debris from it—at our first riding lesson, and depending on our later equestrian pursuits, we might accrue a bit more understanding…or that might just do it. After all, that’s what trimmers, farriers, and veterinarians are for, right?
The thing is, we don’t HAVE to blindly allow those who have made hoof care their life’s work make all the decisions when it comes to OUR horses. With a little extra study time, we can engage in conversations with our hoof care professionals that may actually lead to better health, comfort, and performance from our horses, while ensuring their soundness and happiness over time.
THE ESSENTIAL HOOF BOOK by Susan Kauffmann and Christina Cline (check out the excerpt in the February issue of Horse Illustrated) provides the most complete equine hoof care education you can get, all with hundreds of color photographs and simple language that is easy to understand. And you don’t have to take our word on this…just check out some of the reviews we’ve been getting from horse owners:
So what kinds of things will you learn from Kauffmann and Cline? Well, did you know that:
- The heels, aided by the frog, are designed to bear the brunt of the impact forces generated when the hoof makes contact with the ground.
- A horse that gets plenty of correct, heel-first landings on varied terrain is likely to grow hoof wall at a faster rate than a horse that is standing around in a stall, and its horn is also likely to be of better quality.
- Horses can have any number of variances that will make one foot a little different than the other, but the most commonly encountered is that one front foot will be slightly more upright than the other. This difference is often due to the fact that horses, like people, tend to have a dominant side.
THE ESSENTIAL HOOF BOOK is available now from the TSB online bookstore, where shipping in the US is FREE.
CLICK HERE for more information.
Trafalgar Square Books, the leading publisher of equestrian books and DVDs, is a small company based on a farm in rural Vermont.