Dear Clients,

I wanted to take a minute to thank all of you for taking the leap of faith to entrust me with the care of your horses. I am thrilled and hugely optimistic about the barefoot hoofcare revolution based upon the sheer numbers of owners taking the time to educate themselves on the subject, and then embark on the sometimes scary, sometimes lengthy, and still largely controversial road to barefoot rehabilitation.

Your continued trust and faith in me is critical through your horses' transition. The changes you will begin to see are often strange -- hooves start to look oddly misshapen, frogs that have been carved for years grow in weird and asymmetrical shapes and then shed out in one big hunk, soles become thick and lumpy only to shed out in great chunks, toe angles look startlingly different, toeing in or toeing out briefly (or permanently, if the horse's natural conformation has been "corrected" to the detriment of the rest of the horse by the previous farrier) is not uncommon, among other oddities...it is all part of the process, and your patience and faith will be rewarded. Some horses weather the regrowth with hardly a bobble; some transitions are tougher. With your cooperation, the goal is to keep them all as comfortable and productive during their transition as is humanly possible.

Be patient not only with the process, but with your horse. He is HEALING; there is no other word to describe this process.

My dedication to barefoot hoofcare and to each and every horse I am blessed to be given the opportunity to help is no less than 110%. The fact that most of the horses I am transitioning are at Sun Coast or very close by makes it possible for me to monitor their progress very closely, and be available for your questions and concerns on a daily basis...that's something I'm pretty sure none of your farriers even came close to offering. That means that they are trimmed not a day sooner or later than is optimum, whether that happens to be weekly, every ten days, every two weeks, but rarely longer than every four weeks. I pay very close attention to their overall condition, not just their hooves. Please understand that I cannot possibly catch, halter, and examine all four feet of every horse on a daily basis, and must rely upon you to help expedite the healing process by cleaning, medicating, and booting your horse's hooves as prescribed. I absolutely welcome your questions, but encourage you to continue availing yourselves of the excellent resources available through Pete Ramey's hoofrehab.com, my own website, and other sites I've listed on my links page as well as below for your convenience.

Sincerely,
Maria

Please BOOKMARK these links for your convenience:

Pete Ramey's site

Website of No. CA trimmer Linda Cowles, who practices a very similar trim to mine


The website of trimmer Paige Poss has some excellent material, although her trimming philosophy differs slightly from Dr. Bowker's physiological trim, and therefore my trim:


And an excellent article by Pete Ramey on the subject of the politics of barefoot hoofcare that is a must-read.