Posts
An important part of the natural barefoot trim is how the sole of the hoof is trimmed. This horse was in shoes, I should say a shoe as only one was still on, and I am going to do a natural barefoot trim. As you can see in the photos, the sole was not trimmed as there was no reason to take any sole. Live sole should be left intact, any cracking powdery sole can be removed, but live sole should not be removed as the horse needs it for protection, support and proper hoof function. I trimmed the hoof wall and bars, balanced the heels and rolled the entire wall. I set the horse up to heal and for the hoof to change from long toe and under run heels to a correct, balanced hoof. 
Again a long stretched toe, you can see the stretched white line, the heels are too far forward, look at the heel and then look at the back of the frog, the heel bulbs are sticking out, also notice one is bigger than the other. The next photo is the same hoof three trims later. Again, only trimming hoof wall and bars, balancing the heels, rolling the hoof wall and not removing live sole. This horse is starting to develop a calloused sole and instead of being flat its starting to have concavity, the contracted forward heels have come back to where they should be aligning with the heel bulbs. There is more happening inside that we can't see, the changes on the outside show us the inside is realigning for correct bone alignment and a correct balanced, functional hoof.
This oblique view of the hoof shows us the toe callus that is building and the concavity this horse is developing as he grows in a new healthy hoof. The weight of the horse is supported by the frog and heel bulbs combined as he lands heel first, then the combination of the hoof wall, and the sole that is along the hoof wall. You can see in this photo where the horse is landing and building that calloused sole around the outer rim of his hoof. Again, there is no reason to remove the live sole, if I did I would make the horse sore. Think of your own feet. If you were to take off your shoes and start walking around barefoot, at first you would be tender footed, then you would start to develop callouses and soon you would be able to walk around on most anything. If you then went in for a pedicure, had all your callouses removed plus a few layers of skin, your feet would hurt and you would have to rebuild all that skin and callous before you could walk on most anything again. This is how it is for the horse. To remove live, and or calloused, sole will make a horse sore and require shoes.
Makes you wonder, why are we trimming and thinning the soles of horses when they need that sole? There is an old saying that form follows function. The form of a healthy, balanced, bare sole has some concavity, thickness and callus. The function is to allow a horse to move in comfort and is an integral part of a healthy bare hoof.
