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"The horse is God's gift to man." Arabian Proverb
Frequently Asked QuestionsIn the Strasser Trim why is "It Depends" such a popular saying? How often will my horse need to be trimmed? How soon before I can ride/compete? My horse has always been barefoot and is sound now. What can I expect from this trim? Is this trim radical and invasive? My horse wasn't lame with shoes on. Doesn't it prove he needs shoes if he's lame without them? It's going to be in the 30's tonight. Should I blanket? Worldwide, what percentage of horses are lame?
In the Strasser Trim why is "It Depends" such a popular saying? This is one of the few things I can answer without saying "it depends." What makes the phrase so ubiquitous in a conversation about trimming is that there are so many variables to consider. How long will this take? That depends on you and your horse. It depends on your horses metabolism which is a short hand way of talking about how fast he can repair the damage done. It depends on how much damage there is. It depends on how much movement he gets. It depends on whether or not he has proper hydration for his hooves. It depends on whether or not you as the owner are diligent in doing the things required of you, like making sure your horse gets enough movement and gets trimmed as often as needed. Is it expensive? It depends. Compared to a 15 minute pasture trim that is not physiologically correct, yes. Compared to paying for your horse to be shod which will reduce his effective usefulness, no. And compared to the vet bill for colic and lameness related issues, most definitely not. How often will my horse need to be trimmed? From every other day to once every four weeks. It depends on your horse, what you're doing with him, what condition he's in, etc. I have foundered horses that have needed a trim every other day for a few weeks, then moving to every week, then every two weeks, etc. Some endurance horses need only to be touched up every four to six weeks. We as trimmers do for the horse what 15 to 20 miles a day of travel would do. How soon before I can ride/compete? It depends. From right away up to two years. In order to compete your horse will need healthy soles and tight laminar connection. He may have this on the first trim and every trim thereafter or he may need to grow two or three or four hoof capsules before he grows good sole and a tight laminar connection. My horse has always been barefoot and is sound now. What can I expect from this trim? A lifetime of soundness. Can you go slower? Yes, but I won't if your horse's health is what I have in mind. Many people, horse owners as well as trimmers of other styles, talk about going slower. I think they are deluding themselves. What this really comes down to is: Can we modify the trim to create more or less hoof mechanism, i.e., circulation in such a way as to lessen felt pain so that a) we can use the horse sooner or b) so we don't have to see the horse suffer. We cannot see inside the hoof capsule. We cannot know if going slower is helping or hurting. We can only apply a physiologically correct trim and allow the horse to heal his foot. If you need more reasons ask me about Decision Theory. Will my horse bleed? I hope not. I'll do my best to see that he doesn't. But there are times when the material being worked with, is, because of overlaid bars, for example, so thin that the smallest wrong move can produce a pin prick of blood. This is capillary bleeding and is no worse than cutting yourself shaving. Will my horse be sore? I hope not but it seems impossible for a horse not to be sore when decontracting. We are allowing the hoof walls to move out and grow wider and this means the tissue will be stretched and there is no way to gauge a particular individuals response to such dynamic action in the interior tissue of the hoof. Just be comforted in knowing that your horse is healing. The same is true for blood returning to tissue that has been under supplied. Its like your arm waking up after falling asleep or your fingers becoming warm after experiencing extreme cold. And if there is dead, necrotic tissue from pinching, for example, this material will have to be evacuated from the hoof capsule and that means an abscess and that means discomfort but the pain is a necessary component for many reasons. Is this trim radical and invasive? No, not at all. This trim has precedents going all the way back to Xenophan. This is, remember, a physiologically correct trim, based on the horse and not on what we'd like or need. Go back to the 50's and before that, before the fashionable trend to high heels and there are illustrations of correct hoof form that could be used as a guide for what we do today. My horse wasn't lame with shoes on. Doesn't it prove he needs shoes if he's lame without them? No. but it does indicate the analgesic effect of shoes. A horse that is lame without shoes is a lame horse. A shoe merely covers that fact up by numbing the horses foot so he doesn't feel it. It's going to be in the 30's tonight. Should I blanket? Depends. Is your horse out 24/7? Is he healthy, that is, not metabolically compromised? Has he been in this climate long enough to acclimatize? Then I'd say probably not. He can handle the cold much better than you or I. His problem is in staying cool, not in staying warm. Its common knowledge among people who own horses that when the weather turns cooler horses liven up. His range of temperatures where he feels comfortable is much, much lower than ours. And he has several mechanisms for keeping himself warm even in temperatures below 0. He has fewer square inches of surface area to dissipate the heat per cubic inch of volume. He likes it colder! Worldwide, what percentage of horses are lame? Hard to say. The only #'s I've seen have come from a farrier's journal and they claim 90%. If you have or see any statistics on this question, please pass them along to me.
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