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Home > Articles > Trusting Our Own Strength
Trusting Our Own Strength
how understanding the natural hoof function
transforms the horse and steward
by Stephanie Baker
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It's a brisk Sunday morning in April and I'm sitting outside on a lawn chair, facing the green and voluptuous hills of the south San Francisco Bay in a group of about 15 horse people, most of whom are women. A freshly severed horse foot, hoof side up, rests between my knees. A large tendon dangles from the severed end, and someone gives me a plastic bag to place around it so the blood will not stain my lap or legs. Covering the dripping end also makes the leg seem a little less like butchered meat. Shuddering involuntarily, I realize that these horses have been recently killed---the lower limb hardly smells-and because there is no muscle in this section of the leg, there is no stiffening of the body part. When I plant the hoof on the ground, the joints move freely. My neighbors to either side of me have also chosen white-haired feet from the large, plastic garbage bag filled with cadaver hooves.
By mid-afternoon, we will have sculpted, shaved, trimmed, cut, maneuvered, handled, perhaps named and gotten to know these feet very well. Because at least three of us have the feet of the same horse, this animal-in death-will have healthier feet than s/he did in life. The toe of the hoof is very long and overgrown, and as I begin to dig into the dead tissue covering the sole-next to the dirt line-I realize how "dead" the substance of this misshapen hoof really feels-like a kind of lightweight wood. Ironically, this kind of re-shaping and trimming is what could have saved this horse from the knacker. A tell-tale ring shows where the sensitive, usually blood-rich inside of the hoof-the laminae-has separated from the hoof wall and caused this horse to founder.
Founder is a hoof condition resulting from nutritional imbalance, lack of exercise, poor hoof care and other factors. Imagine the feeling of walking on 4" high heels when your toenail has been pulled away from the nailbed. Now imagine that this condition has been getting progressively worse for so long that there is no longer any blood circulation in that part of your body and therefore no feeling or sensation for walking, but you still have to walk on it. Remember what it feels like when a foot or arm falls asleep? Imagine that this falling asleep has been happening for years in your own legs, but that your legs never wake up. Just like a horse, you may attempt to keep walking and you may not feel anything, but your walking mechanism will eventually shut down and you will become lame due to lack of circulation.
We have learned most of the above information from the previous day's lecture. Our circle of 15 sat in the same spot and listened as a sunburnt and gravelly-voiced Texan named Martha Olivo launched her guts at us. Initially we had been tentative, fingering the 3 tablefuls of bones at 8:30 am in front of her white travel van, but Martha had stepped right in and encouraged all to touch and piece together three different tablefuls of hoof and leg bones. "Hola!" she shouts in a decidedly non-native accent at 9 am, "Como éstas?" She begins by passing around a cross-section of an entire, freeze-dried horse hoof which opens with a hinge to reveal the inner structure. As she clamors for our attention, I am instantly struck by the joyous momentum of her words. She is impassioned, articulate; she speaks with the verve and conviction of a preacher as she spouts her truth.
Each hoof has a story to tell. In fact, each hoof has two stories, an inside story and an outside story. The shape and form of the outside affects the inside. When a shoe is nailed onto a horse's foot, it decreases the circulation in the hoof by 80%. This causes the observable, outer shape to contract and shrink to a great degree. On the inside, the healthy, circulating tissue becomes whitened and misshapen. Often (as in a foundered horse), the semi-porous coffin bone (the center and foundation of healthy hoof) tips at a sharp angle within the hoof itself, causing lameness, and ultimately, death. Farriers and vets call this "coffin bone rotation." This pathology parallels the movement of a person trying to walk in ridiculously high-heeled shoes.
If shoes are so bad for a horse, then why have they been used for hundreds and maybe thousands of years? The use of shoes arose in Europe in or around the 9th century as hoof "protection" for the horses whose feet crumbled and fell apart from standing in their own excrement for months on end. Archaeologists, art historians and researchers have used this approximate date because: 1. Carbon dating of excavated horseshoe metal traces them to this date, and 2.There is no mention in any previous writings or artwork (including the writings and art of classical Asia, Greece and Rome) to indicate that horse shoes were used.
The nailed-on horseshoe first appeared in Europe when the nobility began to live in castles on hilltops, and needed horses to carry their riders or pull their loads up and down the mountains. The aristocracy no longer kept their horses in fields and open areas, but stabled them in enclosed spaces where their feet deteriorated from lack of movement and constant exposure to ammonia. What probably happened is that the horses could do the difficult work of going up and down those hills because of their great hearts and the fact that their feet couldn't feel anything. In the meantime, they died much younger and developed many more joint, hoof, spine and body ailments. Thus, the rise of nation-states is concomitant with the decline of hoof (and horse) health.
Xenophon, the great horseman from classical Greece who wrote The Art of Horsemanship, maintained that his horses worked until age 35 and died at 40-50 years. As Martha assures us, his horses most likely got plenty of movement and never wore shoes. I begin to think about all of the older horses I have known. I can't think of a horse I know who has lived (let alone worked) much past 30 years.
It took over five centuries for the shoe to come into common use in Europe (probably because the metal was so costly-only the aristocracy could afford them), but in modern times, its use is considered humane and acceptable practice by nearly anyone who owns horses. In fact, the dollar value of a sport or performance horse is considerably lower if the horse has never been shod. One of the class participants who owns expensive show horses affirms this. (She also mentions how the folks at her competitive show barn ridiculed her for attending this clinic.) Through the centuries, the use of the horseshoe has been considered a mark of upper class status, and the sound of the street clip-clop has a permanent place in urban folklore. Remember those "romantic" period piece movies where the horse and wagon drive through city streets? Apparently this nostalgia has come at a price. Martha shows us illustrations from veterinarian books on horse anatomy where the horseshoe is affixed as if it occurs intrinsically in nature. She also shows us a narrow, deformed, contracted hoof presented as "healthy" in another textbook. The hoof also has a big divot in the bone. Healthy foot? She snarls.
The truth is, Martha states, they don't dissect the foot in veterinarian school; they don't dissect the foot in farrier school. The way the hoof actually works remains an unknown to both veterinarians and farriers who refer the horse owner to each another when they don't know what to do with a lame horse. Martha talks about how a farrier will use pads or leave high heels on a horse when all they need to understand is how to trim in a way that guides the foot to re-shape itself so that blood can properly circulate. She mentions how a vet will inject a hock or stifle joint with fluid to replace what isn't able to circulate, but really the problem relates back to the shape of the foot. "When the outside of the hoof becomes misshapen, it affects the inside-to fix an appliance to the bottom of the horse's feet physiologically denies the horse's true nature." Ultimately, stepping on the ground for the horse should be like floating on a gel pad. "Sensation is primary," she says, holding up the freeze-dried hoof cross-section, "this hoof is not wood...it's skin."
The research that Martha presents us with comes from a few sources, but mostly its from Martha's original barefoot teacher, Dr. Hiltrud Strasser, who has authored two books on the matter and was the one who initially converted Martha to the Natural or, as Martha has coined it for her own practice, "Whole Horse Trim." There's also the work of Bracy Clark, a veterinarian and researcher from the early 1800s in England, who wrote extensively about horseshoes and their deleterious effects. Dr. Strasser, in her book, Shoeing: A Necessary Evil?, writes how Dr. Clark chronicled the stunted growth of a shod hoof over time. "Clark," she writes, "realized that the long, narrow hoof shape-the result of contraction through shoeing-is pathological." He took a cast of a horse's foot, contracted after one year of shoeing, and wrote how little the contraction was noticed by veterinarians, horse dealers or smiths. Bracy Clark's extensive scientific studies were never published (his work would need an entire volume) probably due to professional differences with his superiors and a general lack of acceptance. His work rests today in the historical collection of the Royal Veterinary College in London.
As a side note, Martha also mentions how she learned in her travels from a great grand-relative of John Chapman a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed-the famous 19th century visionary who walked barefoot for 49 years, planting apple seeds and creating apple orchards-that he refused to ride horses because he was a conscientious objector to horses wearing shoes on their feet. It seems that Bracy Clark was not entirely alone in his sentiment in the 19th century.
The models of correct foot shape for domestic horses are their feral cousins, including the mustangs of the American West. Jaime Jackson, author of The Natural Horse, is another researcher who has studied how horses live in the wild. "Horses in the wild don't need our help," says Martha, "they don't need humans...they maintain healthy hoof horn and never need trimming? Why? They travel from 10 to 50 miles a day in pursuit of water and food. They are constantly moving. Blood constantly circulates through the hoof. It's worn down to its proper shape." Domestic horses need either constant work and/or consistent trimming or shaping-1 to 2 times per week to recreate the healthy shape of the feral horse's hoof. "The compensation for domestication is trimming the feet."
Martha's plea to understand the negative impact of shoeing is grounded in her own experience: "I was an ignorant shoer for 25 years...I've seen horses ready to roll over and collapse...and after they receive a corrective trim, they become upbeat, alive, full of healing energy which transforms them into a healthy, sound horse." She tells of one mare who rewarded her with "with an awesome ride-on a stretch of pavement no less...she gave me HER joy." She also conveys her own sadness at how she may have contributed to the pain of these big-hearted, gentle creatures. For myself, as I'm inspired by Martha's pathos, I'm also reminded of the story of how Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher who announced "God is dead" in 1900, watched a horse getting whipped in the city street; legend has it that the compassion he felt for the animal being abused is what put him over the edge into the dark realm of insanity and sent him to an asylum. I imagine Nietzsche losing all faith in his human counterparts (and therefore in a God they presumed to believe in) as the horse, unable to pull its load, was beaten. I imagine the horse had been wearing shoes, and that it had finally gone dead lame from years and years of pounding on pavement.
"Today," Martha says, " I'm going to show you how the hoof actually works from both the inside and the outside." Some of the folks in the crowd are querulous and nitpick Martha on various issues. My vet says this... they say, or My farrier says that... "Where is your veterinarian? Where is your farrier?" she queries, "Why aren't they here? I invite them to come, listen, see and decide for themselves." I can tell these horse owners feel defensive about their own practice; perhaps they even feel guilty for the pain they have impinged on their own horses. "Nobody consciously wants to injure the horse, she says, "it's just that people act out of their own ignorance...and greed, and as long as we continue to pay people to screw up our horses, it will continue." As we push back our chairs and stand up to stretch, she cautions us to "eat a light lunch if you have a weak stomach," because we'll soon be doing the dissection.
Throughout the morning session, I have felt a mild smugness and self-congratulation because my 3 year-old horse, Pomponio, has grown up in nearly ideal conditions to produce sound feet. He was born and ran feral in a herd of horses until he was a year and a half old, enabling proper circulation of blood in the hoof, which also contributed to proper bone development of the legs and growth of the hoof horn. He has amazing balance, quickness and agility. He grew up in a herd and has been properly socialized to his place within the herd. He has the alertness, focus and survival skills of a wild horse. He is, in fact, also part Mustang, and has inherited the big hoof, square stance and short back of his predecessors.
But I cringe when I think of how I had to keep him in a small paddock for over six months until I could actually catch him and put a halter on him. That must have been very difficult and traumatic for him, I realize, going from all that open space into just a small rectangle, with a fence between him and the other horses. No wonder he trembled and stuck his face into the corner of the paddock when I approached him on horseback. No wonder he didn't allow me to catch him. I was his captor and he had absolutely no idea where he was or who I was. But what else could I have done? He needed to become socialized to humans and learn to trust me. I sigh as I realize how tremendously giving and trusting horses have been with me. I have often used them for my own fulfillment without realizing what is really happening with them. For a long time I have had an inkling that many horses were in pain of some sort. Only now am I beginning to piece the puzzle together.
One piece of the puzzle has been what I have learned from Natural Horsemanship. By learning how to communicate with the horse on the ground using body language, pressure and release, I have learned how to ask a horse to work, to move, to respect and to yield. Learning the "feel" of the horse automatically asks the human to put themselves in the proverbial shoes of the horse. This search to better understand the horse from their own point of view can lead to more avenues of understanding, specifically, the overall health of the horse. Martha also asserts that this is how she came to the Natural Trim-by learning horse handling through Natural Horsemanship. The connection to wanting to understand the overall health of the horse is a logical next step.
I have also felt slightly frustrated during this morning session, feeling like Martha has been preaching to the choir-she is simply verifying what I have already learned through other people and horses over time. I admire her chutzpah, but I want to get down into the mechanics of it all and learn. I want charts, visuals, anything that can unlock this piece for me so that I can maintain Pomponio's feet and work on correcting Spirit's, but she keeps telling us to wait until the dissection, that this is all part of a big picture, the "whole horse," and that the trimming is just one aspect of it. She talked about nutrition, how the horse, unlike its human carnivorous counterparts, has no gallbladder and therefore no hormonal regulation of digestive juices; the horse needs to be constantly foraging-at least 18 hours a day. The head of a 4 year old horse, she said, is 20 pounds heavier than the head of a 20 year old. (Horses, like rodents,wear their teeth down by chewing.) They are meant to be continually crunching. Again, this replicates what they do in the wild. Form follows function. The hoof-the entire leg-is designed to support the horse in his constant search for food and water. I cringe as I think of Pomponio and Spirit in pasture that has been nibbled to dirt-they get fed twice a day; that's why they stand at the gate and wait to be released in order to eat the grass on the outside. Instinct urges them to chew constantly. It seems so simple, and yet, why do we humans always assume they're being lazy or uncooperative when they snatch grass on a walk or ride?
I like Martha's choice of words in the morning session: a "steward" is what she prefers to call someone who has learned to care for the "whole horse." These are the folks who have come to understand proper hoof form and function, who have learned to "read" the hooves and become an active participant in the horse's hoof care by maintaining a natural trim. A steward's prescription for their horse's health includes ensuring social interaction with other horses, 24 hour per day freedom of movement (restriction in a small box only creates behavioral problems), a healthy diet (without commercial grains), standing pools of water or mud so that the hoof can absorb moisture and, of course, no horseshoes. She also mentions how blankets, leg wraps, and bell boots prevent the horse from maintaining his own body temperature; how anti-inflammatory drugs (commonly used to deal with a variety of ailments) mask pain and slow a horse's recovery; and how shavings in stalls contribute to poor horn quality. A steward is also able to communicate with her horse via body language or "Equus," as some proponents of Natural Horsemanship like to call it. Whatever the term, its basic principles have been in use by expert horsemen throughout the ages.
After lunch, the class huddles around Martha, who is fishing through cadavers in the big, plastic bag and looking for an appropriate "victim" for the trimming and dissection. She goes through a number of feet, describing in turn the inward problems based on the shape of the hoof, but finally settles on the foot of a black-haired horse. This particular hoof is clubby, overgrown and full of dead tissue and skin. There's very little concavity or scooping on the bottom. It also doesn't look like this horse wore shoes. First she "maps" the hoof, using a Sharpie to draw on its surface. This is the first step in trimming, trying to determine the correct proportions and projecting the shape she eventually wants the hoof to take. First, she draws a line across the hoof's bottom at the tip of the frog. Then she draws a line through the midpoint of the frog. "This is where the bars should end." I'm still not sure what she means by that or why they should end there, but she reassures me that when we "get inside, you'll see." From the hairline at the heel bulb towards to the bottom of each end of the frog, she draws a one inch mark: "this is the correct heel height." From this mark, she draws a 30 degree angle on the outside of the foot to the quarter. The goal is to correctly proportion and cut away until there's about a 1/4 inch of sole on which the blood-filled cortium and coffin bone can rest.
The inside story of the hoof's mechanism reveals it to be a pump which functions through gravity, that is, the motion of the horse picking up and setting down the foot. The navicular bone, poised at the top of the hoof-pump, is a hinge bone (like the human knee). It acts as a valve, allowing blood to fill the foot when it's off the ground, and shutting off the flow when it hits. I'm amazed to find out that there's an exchange of about 1/4 a cup of blood every time the horse lifts its foot and then puts it down. A horseshoe effectively prevents the pump from operating at 100% efficiency; again, I marvel at the fact that it shuts the pump down to about 80% of its capacity. The coffin bone-its shape like a truncated, offset cone-is the heart and soul of the hoof. It's an unusual type of bone, exclusive to hoofed animals like the horse, with holes and channels for blood to pump through. Martha points out-from the examples on her table-the sprinkling of holes in the sloping surface of the bone. This structure needs to be parallel to the ground to ensure distribution of blood through the weight of gravity.
After she's mapped the foot, Martha takes the nippers and begins to cut away the overgrown bars and dead tissue on the bottom of the foot. I'm surprised at how easily it gives-like chipping away at soft limestone. As she uses her hoof knives-they're duller than scalpels, but with a curved edge-she talks about how the hoof will "reveal itself to you," as you trim. She is obviously not into hacking-this the language of a sculptor or artist. When you trim a live horse, as well, they will let you know if you're on the right track by how they feel when they put that foot down. "Don't try to do too much at once, " she says, "let them put the foot down after you work and see if they sigh, release a breath or snuffle. If they look uncomfortable, they probably are...then you know you should back off a bit." Martha shows us the significance of the dirt line; where the V of the frog meets the sole you can see an actual line of dirt. This is the place to begin sculpting the concavity of the sole-ultimately a scooping should be evident in a region between the end of the frog and the middle of the frog. This is to allow for expansion of the entire hoof capsule when it meets the ground. The actual contact with the ground that enables a horse to feel its way over rugged, precipitous terrain and narrow trails is felt primarily by a section of the heel and front toe. Like humans, the horse walks heel to toe, and the arch of our foot is similar to the concavity in a horse's foot, which occurs with properly worn (or trimmed) feet.
Martha pares and peels until the hoof has a marbled smoothness-amazingly, she's found healthy sole underneath all of the dead tissue, she's taken down the bars, lowered the heels and nipped the overgrown section of the front. The transformation is startling. I wish this limb could be reattached to the resurrected horse so he/she could feel the difference. I will learn tomorrow just how easy Martha made the re-shaping seem-it's really hard work and requires a substantial amount of focus and attention. At one point during tomorrow's individual trimming session, I will move my chair to another spot to trim because I find all of the talking around me (like a morbid kind of knitting circle) distracting. I will also learn later on how Martha has developed her own trimming style, practice and teaching, which has caused a split in her professional relationship to Dr. Strasser. Martha measures intuitively, using part of a finger, no ruler or protractor. I don't know much about this, only that I find it interesting that Martha does not use an absolute set of measurements as her guide. Rather, it's the shape of the foot as it presents itself because, as she asserts, every horse is different.
The practice of trimming reminds me of how I've watched my husband whittle shapes from nondescript pieces of wood. There's an element of vision or seeing in the way one goes from pare to cut to rasp to flake, switching knives from the left hand to the right hand all the while, sometimes picking up the heavy metal rasp and flaking away large and small sections. Tomorrow I will also need continual advice and help from the more experienced trimmers who will show me where to go next. This is not something one can just pick up and learn over a weekend-it takes months and months of practice and study.
But now it's time to open up the hoof and see what's inside. She nips away the entire outer edge so that she can eventually peel away the outer "shell." As she crunches cartilage and sole, she remarks that, "the hoof is actually equal mass of bone and cartilage." Both the outer wall and sole yield themselves as easily as one peels a very green banana (with pretty much the same noise). We poke the soft inside of the peeled sole, also called the digital cushion, which has the texture and firmness of a hacky sack. Martha puts the peeled sole and outer wall together-you see, the horse already has its own shoe." She's right-it's a perfect protective covering of this sensitive inside, just as a human shoe protects our bare, uncalloused skin. We can now see the corium, a soft, somewhat red covering. "Notice, "Martha says, "how little blood is actually present here. It's too pale, too anemic. This horse wasn't able to get adequate circulation." She asks us what we think happens when a horse gets an abscess inside the foot? Most people in the group respond by saying, "there's a hole and something gets inside the foot and an infection ensures." Martha shakes her head, "actually, the abscess originates in the inside-usually a dead piece of tissue within the foot is the culprit." Again, she underscores how constant movement or trimming upkeep is the key for healthy hoof tissue and horn.
Martha encourages us to touch the surface of the cortium and coffin bone. It feels like frost, almost crystalline. The laminae are soft, with feathery ridges. She points out the triangular webbing at point on either side of the heel where the frog begins. These are the bars-they open the hoof capsule to allow for circulation. "You see, the bars are actually the hoof wall turned in upon itself." She makes an analogy to the personality of a rebellious teenager with piercings and punked out hair (without noticing my own facial piercing). "You see, the bars are just like that teenager. If you don't give them boundaries and limits, they will run rampant and become self-destructive." Again, she shows how the bar should be kept to the back of the foot-it's a common notion amongst many trimmers and farriers to save the bar because they think it provides the primary support structure for the hoof. "Don't save the bar!" she exclaims. "Don't save the bar!"
There has been plenty of oohs and aahhs and lots of, "oh, that's how that works!" and "I've never understood that before(s)!" from the group as Martha works. Now, as she points to the frog, she says, "You can see that the frog is NOT the pump of the foot like most people will tell you. I know, I'm a hoof plumber." Apparently she is also a leg butcher. She expertly skins the leg, using an ordinary kitchen paring knife. Removing the thin membrane between skin and everything else, we can now see the complex network of ligament, tendon and tissue which attaches to the bones. First, she moves up and down certain ligaments and tendons from just below the knee-we can see how they connect to the fetlock joint just above the hoof capsule. She slices off a major ligament and shows us how utterly unbreakable and strong it is due to the dense grouping of fiber. She indicates that the finest stringed instruments in the world are usually strung with this particular ligament. I am also reminded how our ancestors for thousands and thousands of years used every part of an animal they killed-this particular part would be used to sew things together-clothing, nets, etc.
There's still some blood left in the veins and arteries and she moves it through with her fingers, showing ultimately where they run through the hoof. Where she has detached the fetlock joint from the hoof, there is a ton of gelatinous, fatty connective tissue (yummm...jello, someone smirks) and two little holes where the tubes would be connected. Pulling the hoof apart, she also shows us how the vessels run the perimeter of the hoof capsule. Again, there's very little blood in this particular horse's foot, indicating poor circulation. I ask her what a bowed tendon looks like, and she says, "the tendon isn't actually bowed. What happens, due to lack of circulation, is that fluid collects in the tendon sheath." She shows me various places within this horse's major tendons where there are sacs of fluid or bursas. She pierces one and fluid runs out. (More oohs and aahs from the group). Most of us have heard of these ailments or our own horses have suffered from them, but we've never actually seen what they look like. Martha puts down her knife for a minute and looks up, "can you see now how the kindness of the bare foot spares all of the joints." She pauses and then asks sarcastically, "how can a dumb hick from east Texas figure this out, and they can't? They're covering for what they don't know." (When she says "they" I know she is referring to veterinarians and farriers.) "I'm all for saving both horses and money," she continues.
By the end of the tour, there is a pile of bones and tissue and skin on the ground. We've located the navicular bone at the top of the hoof capsule; we've found the sesamoid bones and marveled at their rounded, perfectly fitted shape and movement. We've established by observation that ligaments tie the tendons together. We've seen the accumulation of calcium up and around the top of the hoof (commonly called ringbone). We've seen many things which have previously been only abstract concepts in a book or conversation. I don't know how many times I've sought to understand where the navicular bone actually is and what it's function is, only to have been left stymied by friends and so-called experts. By taking this incredible step of piecing together the whole picture-and seeing it hands on-I feel like I have a much better understanding of what's going on for the horse, both inside and outside. Somehow, having been exposed to the inside skin of this sacrificial animal, I feel closer, more connected to my own horse. Indeed, the night after the dissection, I sleep fitfully and have moving picture dreams of dancing horses whose legs and feet I can enter like a child's fairy tale. I travel with the coursing blood, brushing past tendons and ligaments in the journey and bathing the foot with my heat as the horse lifts the foot and the navicular hinge opens. There's a surge and splash as the hoof capsule gets filled with blood.
At the beginning of the clinic, I had felt frustrated that Martha wasn't handing out diagrams and charts to help me map the hoof inside my own head. Now I realize that the picture in my head that I have gotten from the dissection is far more valuable than any chart or diagram from a book. From the first morning, Martha had fancifully referred to the character of Tinkerbell from Peter Pan to reassure us that we would understand in due time. "It's just like Tinkerbell! You gotta believe!" she had said, all goofy, with a smile.
The two-day clinic with Martha has been more than just absorbing this valuable information. I feel as if I have opened up and discovered another way of being connected to horses, and, by natural extension, the world around me. The key is in the term "steward" that Martha has coined. The term connotes guardianship rather than ownership, partnership rather than mastery. It means using the reaches of one's mind and heart to attempt to understand the horse from his point of view.
On this day, Martha has used the word to talk about what she feels is our ultimate responsibility as human beings-to steward the life on this planet. "All life on earth is capable of its own care. We need to figure out how to live in balance with the earth so that we can guard, mentor, take care of what Nature has already figured out... Horses have taken us deeper into their world by letting us ride them, but we've allowed ourselves to get swallowed up by ego." Her sermon rises to a crescendo as the wind whips my face. "I believe that each of us has the awareness of the universe in our being; we are all composed of the same energy. I want each of you to learn to be self-reliant, to take what is in yourselves and rely on your internal instinct, individual energy, knowledge, awareness. Horses are a connection to the planet. I feel that we elevate humans as a species when we help balance the horse because it helps restore balance on the planet...We have to realign ourselves with the fabulous energy of this planet."
I have been struck by the aptness of the metaphor while I'm also resisting the urge to totalize it as a New Age platitude: When one balances a horse's foot, the animal becomes more alive, full of free-flowing, unblocked energy. The horse then has the potential to live a full, joyous life and to share the joy with its human. The human, having facilitated this interchange, benefits from what the horse has to share. Paradoxically, the human, through her awareness of the other, and, in taking care of the other, becomes more grounded herself.
As if she's reading my mind, Martha talks about how doing this work has changed her own life. She's now been on the road for four years doing these clinics, both two-day and ten-day, and she feels like the "movement," as she calls it-with 200 trained hoof "grooms" around the country-is about to explode. She feels that her own family life has been repaired because she's the happiest she's ever been in her own life, doing work she feels "called" to do.
Martha talks about being the spokesperson for United Horsemanship, a grassroots movement which advocates 3 principles: natural habitat, Natural Horsemanship handling and barefoot hoof care. Recently, she has been working with horse owners to design horse habitats where pastures and paddocks are more like spirals than boxes, with walkways, paths, trails and the separation of eating space from water to allow maximal daily movement.
I suppose that the cynic might pooh-pooh the connections Martha has made between restoring the natural balance of the hoof and restoring the balance of the planet, but her energy, passion and vision are so very genuine and strong, that it's easy to be captivated by her ideas. I find myself nodding when she says, "if we didn't have horses, people would be a lot more dangerous than they already are." And my head nods even more strongly when she quotes Nelson Mandela: "It's not our weakness that we fear; it's our strength."
At some point in the morning talk, Martha recited by memory a poem she wrote called "Kindred Spirit." The lines which most stuck with me were the first four: "Not Vehicles/ for the ego/ But partners/ on the Journey". I realize how I have felt a deep, resounding yes to her plea for understanding the natural hoof function. I, too, want to experience the transformation of horse and self through this restorative balance. At lunchtime, I sheepishly tell Martha how much I'm inspired by her energy and she unabashedly gives me a hug.
Sources:
Notes and observations from Martha Olivo two-day hoof trimming clinic in Milpitas, CA.
April 5-6, 2003. For more information on Martha's clinics, visit the Clinic Schedule.
Olivo, Martha. Healthy Hooves: the Bare Facts. Printed May 27, 2003.
Strasser, Hiltrud, D.V.M.. Shoeing: A Necessary Evil? Translated by Sabine Kells,
Second Edition (Revised) July 2000, Qualicum Beach, BC Canada.
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