February March 2013 - Page 17
O
ne of my pet peeves is feet. Thoroughbred feet in
particular, because farriers are always telling us how
terrible Thoroughbreds' feet are. I am near-constantly
under advice to paint their hooves with Stockholm tar and
copper sulphate, or to turn them out onto hard-packed dry
ground for five hours out of the day, or even that I should burn
off all of the `sugary grass' and feed him instead.
Naturally, I
want Felix's feet to be perfect, and not least because I am still
only twenty one and very poor on a meagre student wages.
All our horses are unshod, and we have a natural-hoof farrier.
She blames the Thoroughbreds' bad feet on their respective pre-
Haggath jobs as a racehorse and show jumper, for which they
were both shod. Regardless, our barefoot farrier thinks Felix
has lovely feet and healthy hooves. The problem of course, and
you can see where this is going, was teaching him to pick his
feet up. Ideally, without me being kicked in the face.
"Basking in the
warm glow of my
prior successes, I
mistakenly thought
feet would be easy.
It was back to
square one after he
attempted to kick
me in the face!"
Teaching Felix to
pick up his feet
should be easy ....
shouldn't it?
Continued