I took a chance and advertised again this year. It didn’t get me that many new horses last year. It did get me some horses that were dangerous to work under. It won’t take much to get where I would like to be. Just another 150 horses on my customer list, most of who are trims.

One of the horses I trim is older with some hind leg issues and tends to walk on the medial, or outside, of the hoof on the left rear leg. This one hoof grows too much foot on the medial side and it distorts the hoof wall. The horse has too much toe on all four feet, but has soft spots just back from the point of the toe. That makes it difficult to get the toe cut back. Even though this horse does not grow much foot, it needs to be trimmed regularly to keep those two issues in check.




As far as trims go, I seem to be popular with people who have geriatric horses and foundered ponies. This pony was rescued and placed into a good home, but they could not find a farrier to come out for one trim. He ended up going without hoof care for almost a year.

The owners have been willing to have the horse trimmed every six weeks until we get the damaged hoof grown out. They are also feeding and dry lotting the horse to help maintain the condition. I have not been able to get as much foot off as I would like, but we are making progress.

The owners of older horses are so thankful that I don’t beat their horse for being a senior citizen. A good growl and thump on the side gets the attention of spoiled horses or horses that are bullies. But it generally doesn’t make arthritis go away. Ponies are difficult to work on because they are so short it makes them uncomfortable to have their leg between a horseshoers knees. That means you have to trim one handed. In addition, a lot of ponies don’t stand well, so you can’t kneel down and trim them for fear of them trampling you or rearing and getting struck in the face with a hoof.

Last year, I worked on four miniature donkeys. One of them is a year old. She is passive aggressive and lay down on her shoulder while I was trimming her front hoof. At first I thought that was OK and just kept trimming. But after she kicked me in the same hand twice I revised my opinion of that. I should have broken bones in that hand. The owners’ son spends his recreational time bulldogging. Before I could object, he picked the donkey up and laid her not very gently on her side, laid his chest and shoulders over her, grabbed three of her legs in one hand and held a hind leg up in the air for me to trim. It worked great. By the time we got her up to do the last front foot, she didn’t argue at all. I thought about hiring him for the summer, but I don’t think I could afford to feed him!

One of the new ponies I have kicked me pretty hard in the right calf, just to the right of my pirates face on my tattoo. I told everyone that I had been kicked in the tattoo. Hubby wanted to put up hurricane signal flags because he said it looked like there was a hurricane behind the pirate.