Hoof, Body & Soul, Part III: Mission Impossible, unedited, by Gudrun Buchhofer. Blog 34, case #34

Author: Gudrun Buchhofer

Dedicated to all the horses suffering because of an unfinished foundation — their hooves.

What did all my client horses over the last 20+ years have in common? They needed to heal from atrophy of the back of the foot as well as other atrophied hoof structures.

CHAPTER 1 Atrophy, the fundamental cause for most all hoof pathology and upper body injuries

Flat hooves

Case # 34

Katie

trimmed from March 2013 until present 2025

Katie (cover model from my first blog) is a French-Canadian Horse born in 2011. She is under my hoof care wings since March 2013.

In the beginning Katie had extreme difficulties to pick up and hold her feet. The fault of her conformation would have been "camping out in the front and hind". She also turned out more with the right front and the right hind. (Most likely she was curled up to the right in her mother's womb). Instead of utilizing her hooves as nature intended she braced with parts of her hoof capsules. The back of her hooves did not develop and went into atrophy. Thus her feet were not under the bone column. She was not able to straighten her front legs.

And in order to avoid pain from the sharp tips of the flared heels (which were extremely pointy and pinching into the soft tissue) Katie leaned on the lateral side with all four hooves. The horn capsules were warped. This gave a false pigeon-toed look in the front. Eventually, Katie's front hooves were drawn flat like pancakes. She injured her toe walls around the biggest pressure points which later showed up as cracks.

When Katie arrived at her forever home in September 2014 we realized that she was restricted in her physical development. Katie held her front legs spread out wide. Her chest was very small (we were not able to fit a hand between her front legs by her chest). She used a lot of muscle effort to hold herself and had lost weight. Her abdominal muscles were prominent. She had lost a substantial amount of her back and flank muscles. Katie also held her pelvis low. She literally squatted with her hind end (more strangely on the right side). She also swung out with her right hind when trying to canter. Not to my surprise because in the beginning her right hind foot showed extreme atrophy of the frog, bulbs and bars. The soft tissue of the frog and bulbs was very weird (the frog tissue was strange and of white colour). There was a crack through the lateral bar in the right hind. The bottom of the right hind hoof had an odd cup-shape appearance.

Since she moved to her forever home Katie has lots of movement on abrasive footing in a Paddock Paradise with 24/7 freedom. Her diet mainly consists of first cut hay, free choice loose organic minerals without any fillers, binders, sugars or cheap oils. She gets a handful of crushed oats in the winter and has as well free access to Diatomaceous Earth. She drinks good quality mountain spring water. There is no green grass pasture nor commercially mixed feeds, chemical dewormer or medication in her life.

Despite that she changed owners and places a few times I stayed involved in Katie’s care. I gave her Reiki sessions to help release tension from the nervous system. I also had the opportunity to train and ride Katie. After thorough groundwork, we did our first light trail ride in walk only just before winter when she was four and a half years old. We picked up trail riding in walk only in spring of the following year when she was five years old.

Eventually, I moved to the same property where Katie lived. I observed her closely and witnessed Katie perform her own body work. She used logs from the run-in shelter to work on her pelvis. She abused trees on the track to self-massage her shoulders and ribs to the point where trees broke off or got uprooted. I witnessed incredible healing changes happen in her body and her hooves. Katie changed her clumsy way of moving to using her body with ease and lightness. (In the beginning her hinds could hardly step underneath her body and she was not able to canter. The rare canter step felt like a buck under saddle.)

The most fascinating part of watching this horse heal was observing the changes in her hooves. They shifted under the bone column via divergent hooves more and more. The new hooves coming down from the hairline continued to emerge from further back. There were some crazy predetermined breaking points exactly at the line of a new and divergent hoof. In 2017 and 2021 big chunks of hoof broke off. However, no matter what her hooves did, I never drifted away from following the guidelines of The Natural Trim for one single moment. I ignored all pathology and respected the healing powers of nature. Those events, when chunks broke off, revealed not only the damage Katie had done to her own feet involuntarily but also the completion (failed after birth) of the variant capsule angle-of-growth in the back. This took place in sync with the healing.

Left front April 2023 — the bulbs increased in mass since the horses had compacted crusher dusted surfaces on the track

In March 2023 Katie’s hooves complemented the variant capsule angle-of-growth in all four hooves and the natural arch in the quarters simply appeared one day instead of me creating an arch artificially. There is natural beauty in her feet all-over including healthy bulbs and internal structures. Katie's legs straightened and her previously flat front hooves developed natural concavity without me ever touching her soles with a knife. The bruising in her soles faded.

In August 2023 Katie abscessed from joints in the legs in various places. I assume she released ossification. In July 2024 Katie had an abscess at the lateral bulb on the left hind and abscessed from the joints in her left hind leg simultaneously.

Another observation worth mentioning (most likely connected to the nuchal ligament) are the weird changes in Katie’s mane. It fell from one side to the other. Then it used to split in the center and laid over half each side. In 2022 her mane was entirely on one side and there were changes again in 2023. By the end of 2024 the mane was completely on the left side.

In November 2024 Katie's coat, all along her back and over her hind end, was sticking up weird for weeks. By the end of November something was shifting in her right hind stifle. There was a heat spot at the stifle and only very carefully did she put weight on the right hind. She worked through the situation within a few weeks. There was no abscess.

Today Katie is a stunning looking horse. I feel blessed to be the person who gets to ride her. We mainly go in walk and trot but Katie canters effortlessly. She goes bit-less, treeless and barefoot on the trail in rocky and challenging terrain.

Remaining photos: Gudrun Buchhofer

Stay tuned for the upcoming cases (under my care for up to 20 years) in this blog series as a replacement for the unpublished part III: Mission Impossible of my trilogy Hoof, Body & Soul.

What did all my client horses over the last 20+ years have in common? They needed to heal from atrophy of the back of the foot as well as other atrophied hoof structures.

Q: Why do we need to change the upbringing of our baby horses and donkeys? A: To prevent senseless suffering.

Gudrun Buchhofer

Gudrun BuchhoferAugust 9, 2025Hufprobleme, horse, hoof problems, horses, the natural trim, nhc, natural horse care, natural hoof care, donkeys, donkey hoof, lessonsfromthewild, foal, foal hoof, Fohlenhuf, barhuf, barhufpflege

CHAPTER 1 Atrophy, the fundamental cause for most all hoof pathology and upper body injuries

Hoof contraction

Every foal hoof has long toes and high heels at birth (diving devices for a safe delivery). About half of the hoof capsule needs to be worn down after birth. This requires movement in a fairly natural environment beginning within the first hours after birth.

There is a lot out there in the trimmer world about fighting and treating thrush. But there is hardly any material there in the first place that could be eaten away by thrush. The back of the hoof is unfinished at birth. At the same time, as the hoof capsule needs to be worn down, proper stimulation of frogs, bulbs, walls, the white line, bars, internal structures need to happen. Otherwise structures will go in to atrophy. The activation of true heels also fails if those processes do not take place.

Atrophy of the frogs, bulbs and internal structures as well as lack of true heels are in direct relation to hoof contraction. Fixed metal shoes might contribute to further contraction but it is not the underlying cause. Over the years I dealt with many contracted hooves which never had any form of shoes attached to them. With or without shoes, the unreleased false heels can contract inwards in an atrophied foot. However, not every atrophied hoof contracts. It really depends on the enforced decision a foal makes very early on about how to compensate for the unfinished hoof.

Due to a failed reduction of the hoof capsule right after birth, combined with the unfinished back of the foot (true heels, bulbs, internal structures), a lot of foals tuck the front legs behind the vertical (enforced decision). The famous scenario of toe first landing is a result. Most horses have problems walking on their own bare feet in the front. Horses endure injuries from the unfinished back of the foot in the hinds as well but are able to compensate differently. Most horses toe out with the hinds (often turn out the entire hind leg) and use the medial half of the hoof capsule for weight loading. This is different from naturally asymmetric hind hooves. The front hooves usually need longer to heal than the hinds. The fundamental problem applies to fronts and hinds.

Case # 1 Ace

trimmed from July 2013 – December 2024

Quarter Horse Ace was born in June 2012 in western Canada. Ace was shipped across the country as a weanling. After his arrival on the east coast he was kept in a stall on wood shavings for quite a while. When I started trimming him in July of 2013 I found Ace stuck with his pasterns still stretched, weak fetlock joints, unfinished baby hooves with unreleased long shanks or false heels. (We can safely assume an unnatural environment at birth and lack of movement in the first months of his life.) There was complete atrophy of the frogs, bulbs, soles, bars and internal structures. The outside walls of the hoof capsules were severely bruised. Ace toed outwards with all four. His hooves were already deformed at such a young age. He further developed a broken back axis stance in the front and a crooked right hind pastern. He tent to lean on the side of the hoof capsules. Due to the lack of true heels, internal structures, frogs and bulbs the front hooves soon contracted. For quite some years, the soles and bars were protected by a hard (almost shell-like) layer of horn.

By 2020 Ace clearly entered an important phase of the healing journey. In April of 2021 the layer of shell-like horn turned into crumbly white sole horn which was then ready to be removed. Over the years Ace improved his stance and the bruising on the outer hoof walls as well as soft tissue bruising subsided. Compromised and compressed tissue was released through a few abscesses.

Ace is ridden barefoot since he was started under saddle. From 2021 onward this golden boy makes his young owner proud competing. In 2023 they took home a second place in barrel racing and a first place in pole bending. Photo credit: CKPhotography

Closing note: Ace lives in a herd in a large paddock without green grass pasture, over the summer months with 24/7 freedom to move and he is stalled overnight in the winter. Longer periods of standing (on wooden floor with shavings) caused set-backs in the healing. His hooves tend to re-contract and grow towards a wry-foot as Ace tends to lean on the side of his hoof capsules. In Ace's case hoof contraction was not caused by metal shoes as he never had any. Also it was not thrush eating away his frogs and bulbs as his hooves were in atrophy to begin with.

Image 1: Left front pre-trim July 2013

Image 2: Left front pre-trim July 2013

Image 3: Left front pre-trim December 2019 note the bruised soft tissue and the rubber like skin of the bulbs

Image 4: Left front pre-trim October 2024

Image 5: Left front lateral pre-trim July 2013

Image 6: Left front lateral post-trim November 2023 — he still shortens his feet via divergent hooves; healthier bulbs emerging from further back bringing the hooves more under the bone column.

Photos: Gudrun Buchhofer