Hoof Trials and Tribulations

Lately Cherry's hooves have been on my brain. She grew in some awful, crappy weak hoof last winter, and now it's reaching the ground. Thus we have been dealing with tenderness, cracks, chips and big hunks of hoof wall breaking off. It's not pretty or fun.

Now, Cherry's barefoot, and I have every intention of keeping her this way. I believe a barefoot hoof is a healthier hoof, and if at all possible to keep shoes off. Cherry (normally) has excellent feet, and lives quite happily without shoes.

Back in the day though, Cherry had shoes. Either all four or front shoes. Why? We rode on rocks, lots of rocks. Though tough, her feet weren't that tough. When I got her, she had front shoes. I kept her shod b/c I didn't know any better and figured I should just keep shoeing her.

Then, still not knowing any better, I figured I could save money if I pulled her shoes. I did save money, but she got less surefooted on our rocky terrain and was downright ouchie on gravel. My 14 year old brain didn't really make the connection until after one fateful ride.

This experience will haunt me forever, yet it is the best example of just how much heart Cherry has.


We went out for a trail ride with my friend Kate one sunny Saturday. Being teenagers, life was more fun at the canter and gallop. We toured through the local regional parks at high speed, our horses racing each other down the trail. Our horses sweated, we sweated, and we had a blast.

Coming home after this particular 6 hour ride, something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It felt like Cherry was tired, not something easily accomplished with a fit 1/2 Arab.

Well, we had been riding for 6 hours, most of that at a speedy trot or faster, so maybe she was tired. On the final 1/4 mile skirting the road down to the stable, Cherry's walk felt a little strange, but nothing to be concerned about. I'd put some lineament on her, hose her legs and all would be well, right?

Wrong.

The moment we got into the graveled stable yard, Cherry's legs began to shake and she almost went down. Now I was concerned. I jumped off and tried to lead her to the grooming stalls. She refused to move, her legs shaking even worse now.

Alarmed, I tried to drag her forward, thinking that if I could just get her moving everything would be okay. She took one step and almost collapsed again. Slowly, painfully slowly, I got her into the grooming stalls. Each step was agony and it took 10 minutes to go 20 feet.

I checked her over. Aside from refusing to move, she seemed okay. She ate the bran mash I made her and drank the water I lugged over from the hose. She stood quietly to be untacked and groomed.

Clearly she wasn't ill, but something was very wrong.

I don't remember who suggested it, but the conclusion was that she's suffered a stone bruise on the way home. Two days later the farrier confirmed it. With a grim face, he looked at me and said. "This horse has massive stone bruises in all four feet. I'm surprised she's standing. What have you been doing to her?"

Thoroughly abashed, I muttered something about trail riding. What had I done to my poor horse? She was fine out on the trail, she'd felt a little tired starting about 1/2 mile from the barn on the way home, but that was it. She couldn't possibly have gotten so bruised in the last mile of our ride.

Then it hit me. She'd been getting progressively more and more bruised throughout the entire day, but had gone on as if nothing was wrong. She'd been determined to get us home, and that's what she did.

As soon as we were home, it was safe to show weakness, to shake and drop all stoic pretense. She's a horse, how would she have known that should she have come up lame on the trail, a trailer would have come to pick her up and take her home? Or that I would have gotten off and led her? I can't imagine how much pain she was in, with no relief from the rocky ground and getting worse with every step. She didn't buck, didn't balk, didn't rear, didn't give me a single sign that she was in pain.

She nearly killed herself to get us there, but she got us home. That thought shook me to the core. Before that, Cherry was a horse that I rode, we sometimes had fun and sometimes we did not, and I owned her, but nothing more. Afterward, she was my horse. She'd clearly proven her loyalty, for lack of a better word, to me, and I was determined to repay her in kind.

When her feet healed, she was shod all around. We didn't have problems with stone bruises again, but I'm more careful now about what I ask her to gallop over and far more observant of hoof tenderness.


Now I take good care of her feet. We've been away from the rocks for several years now, and up until this summer her hooves have been great. I'll be putting her on a hoof supplement soon and I'm also researching hoof boots. I'd like to be able to ride on rocks occasionally, and I don't want to shoe her.

Regardless, that's the first thing that springs to mind whenever someone asks me why I've had her for so long or why she's definitely a forever horse.

She got us home.