If I were able to pick the ideal conditions for a barefoot endurance horse, it would have grown up and be living in a herd on an extensive range – say up to 200 m² of fairly arid, rugged, mixed terrain, lots of rocky kopjes, lots of stony gravel areas, a bit of sand here and there, a few pools of water far apart, and pretty sparse but nourishing grasses.

The herd would be constantly on the move, covering about 30 km per day. I would catch my horse two or three times a week to do training and, as my training programme built up and he had to work harder, I would feed him some concentrates to make up the extra energy burnt up in training. I probably wouldn’t even have to trim his hooves since, in this type of scenario, they would be self-trimming.

Beautiful hooves

About four or five years ago I was introduced to a small herd of feral horses living in a camp of about 150 ha. They had not been handled by humans for about three generations. Although their range was much smaller, many of the other conditions were there – rocky mountain slopes, coarse sand, sparse grazing; but there was only one drinking point. So, as the year changed, they had to move considerable distances over this terrain to graze and come back to water.

Their hooves were beautiful. It was amazing. From the sole out and over to the hoof wall, it was something like a stone that has been rolled – semi-polished. Not a chip or imperfection in the wall! That was the experience that led me to investigate barefoot riding. In the course of my investigations, I came across the books by Jamey Jackson and Pete Ramey, Pete Ramey’s follow-up reports on his website and later the DVD series by K C La Pierre.

I now have a little Boerperd mare named Arkab Zigzag who is just 14 hh. She has done nearly 1 400 km barefoot without boots. This includes Fauresmith, the Dullstroom 120 km, 100 km at Alma, 160 km over two days at Eiland on a very stony course and several 80k rides, many over pretty stony courses.

Unfortunately last year at Fauresmith, after going very well on the first day, and keeping up according to plan at an average speed of just under 20 km per hour, she had an accident on the first leg of the second day, resulting in a very deep bruise causing severe lameness. The hoof capsule, however, was so tough that the vets thought she might have fractured her pedal bone because externally they could find little sign of bruising with the hoof testers and rasping.

Stick to a plan

I have ridden Zigzag as any other novice horse should be ridden, building her up slowly according to a plan and her hooves have kept pace. One thing I do, however, is to try and vary the terrain where we do our training rides as much as possible, so that she trains on sand, gravel and stony roads and up rocky mountain trails.

In my conditions it has not been difficult to bring Zigzag on, and the more advanced she has become, the less I have had to trim her – just a quick touch up here and there to fix the odd chip in the walls and restore the mustang roll or break-over. Most of the work I have to do is cleaning and scrubbing her frogs, because with the very heavy clay soils on which she lives, we have a constant battle with thrush when the ground is wet.

For most of the year Zigzag lives out 24/7 in a small herd. They have about 50 ha of mountainside, bush and old lands on which they roam, coming in twice a day to be fed and inspected. In summer, because of African Horsesickness and the grass being too rich, they are kept in a small gravel-surfaced paddock at night. I longe Zigzag once or twice a week when she is not in a rest period, but have laid coarse pebbly gravel on the track of the longeing ring.

Horses are naturally lazy, and naturally prefer open country, so when the summer grass is flush, they hang out on the old lands all day and move very little. This is the time I have the most problems with their hooves. Clay mud that clings, soft surfaces, over-rich grasses and little movement are not good. Come winter, the grass on the lands is dry and depleted and the horses start moving up into the mountain which is rock-strewn and the grass fairly tough in comparison the old lands. The hooves improve enormously.

The right conditions

Conditioning is a holistic approach – if your environment and diet are not right, you are going to battle to get the sort of hooves needed for barefoot competition and especially for endurance. Use your ingenuity to try and create more natural conditions. Don’t stable your horses, but keep them in a large enclosure with a pea gravel floor, so that they can move around at night.

Lay stone chip paths from the stables to the paddocks. Lay a pebbly gravel track in your lungeing ring. Ride your horse out regularly on a tar road if you don’t have any coarse gravel roads around. Box your horse out into the countryside as often as you can, to ride on country gravel roads.

Watch your horse’s diet. Don’t over-feed concentrates, especially those containing substantial amounts of grains, sugars and proteins. Don’t keep your horses on rich pastures. Some people lay gravel tracks around their properties where their horses spend all day. Grass is put out at one end of the property and water at the other, so that the horses have to move around.

Don’t remove rocks and stones from your property. Let the horses move over and around them. Having dry hay available to your horses 24 hours a day is great, if you can. Rich green grasses are not great.

When to start

Ideally you would start with a young horse that, from the day it was born, has lived a life constantly on the move with lots of space to move and play in, and lots of hard and stony ground to toughen and trim the hooves, and build strong digital cushions.

A horse needs to move with a heel first landing. This is one of the vital parts of developing “rock crushing” hooves. To do so, it needs this tough digital cushion. If you don’t have the right conditions, make sure that you trim your foal's hooves regularly and keep those heels short. If your horse has been shod, you will have to take it through a transition period which is a subject on its own.

If you have a young horse that is just starting, follow a good novice training programme that builds the horse up gradually. Adapt your conditions as close as possible to the natural, train on varied surfaces, watch your horse’s diet, and trim as necessary – you will find your horse's hooves will in all probability keep pace.

Set up the hoof

I believe in working with nature and only doing what is necessary to make up for the less than ideal environment in which I keep my horses. I am a firm believer in the principle of setting up the hoof according to the live sole, as advocated by Ramey and La Pierre, in leaving the sole intact as far as possible. Strangely enough, I have found that the best way to shorten and thicken the heels, is to put in break-over at the toe, thus encouraging a heel first landing.

I have not had to take anything off Zigzag’s heels since I started this break-over, which is recommended by both Pete Ramey and K C La Pierre. If a hard ridge grows adjacent to the frog, usually when we ride a lot on sand, I will remove this since on stony ground it seems to cause sensitivity. In fact, when Zigzag is in full training, I don’t have to trim the walls either, since they are level with her soles, and all I do is take out any chips and restore the mustang roll.

I try and touch the frogs as little as possible. A nice fat frog filling in all the spaces, definitely makes for a tougher hoof over stony ground. This has to be balanced against the problems Zigzag tends to get with thrush if the frogs are not trimmed open.

Hoof shape

I have observed with my horses that the hoof shape tends to alter with the time of year. When winter comes on and they move up onto the stonier ground in the mountain, their hooves seem to become much tighter and more concave. When they are on the sandy or muddy surfaces of the old lands in summer, the hooves flatten and tend to spread out a bit.

I have noted, comparing the hooves of horses I have seen in other places, that the shape of the hoof is definitely heavily influenced by the environment. Horses living on sand usually have pretty flat soles and the hooves are wider. The white line seems to be softer than the sole and the wall and to be ground out by the sand giving the impression of separation, which is in fact not separation at all.

For endurance, where one may have to compete on all sorts of surfaces, it is wise to vary the surfaces on which you train, and just as you will do mountain work if you are preparing for a mountainous course, you should do work over stone or sand depending on the surfaces you expect to compete over. If you have a pebbly gravel road near you, take full advantage. Those pebbles will grind out, clean up, callus and polish the soles beautifully.

To sum up, conditioning requires a holistic approach, including the best environment you can adapt your premises to provide; a sensible diet consisting mainly of dry grass where practicable, only sufficient concentrates to make up for the workload (use oils or fat to build up energy for competition); constant movement; regular work over varied conditions over a period; and a sound set-up trim.