I expect you want to know a bit about me so you can decide whether or not I’m the right person to help you and your horse. I’ll do my best here, but if you have any questions or want anymore information feel free to contact me. I’ll be happy to hear from you.

I have always been fascinated by horses, getting involved from a very early age though my grandparents riding stable in the New Forest. When I was very young I wanted to be a race jockey, but by the age of 12 I was 5’10’’ so that wasn’t the most practical career choice! In my teens I became very interested in natural horsemanship techniques. I wasn’t concerned whose techniques I was studying, I just wanted to learn as much as I could. Applying the techniques and seeing what works and what doesn’t for different types of horses and personalities is still an endless source of fascination.

It was a little horse called JD who got me interested in hooves. She’s very athletic and wildly talented with her feet (that’s polite speak for kicked like a demon!), so I was never comfortable with shoeing her back feet. When shod on the front she was footy over stones, so I figured shoes weren’t helping. That was how I discovered Equine Podiatry. I still hadn’t managed to solve the problem of her kicking, so I decided I was going to have to trim her myself. I wasn’t about to have any old numpty trimming my horses feet either (even if that numpty was me). I wanted an expert. So I had to become an expert….and TA DAA! Here I am! JD is available for careers advice - just ask her!!

Values and Principles

I like to keep things as simple as possible.  One of the main things I learned through horse training is you don’t get points for doing things the hard way.  So if something works, I do it and if something doesn’t work, I don’t.

Do no harm is a wonderful principle that gets quoted all over the place, but it’s also worth understanding what harm is, and how it can be caused, if you want to avoid it. I think that success is not only about what you do. What you don’t do is equally important, and patience is as essential as being proactive. Often, less is more. Finding the balance comes with experience and good instincts.

I try to be as observant as possible, and note down as much as I can. Everything means something, even if I don’t know what it is yet. There’s always new research and discoveries coming out and having comprehensive notes can be a great asset, when trying to discover where a problem may have come from, or as warning signs for preventative methods.

To get healthy hooves, generally you need a healthy horse. The feet are a great reflection of the rest of the horse. For this reason, one of the most important aspects of having sound healthy feet is the lifestyle and the husbandry applied. A perfect lifestyle and environment would be wonderful, but it isn’t practical for most people, so finding a happy medium that suits everybody is essential. Making changes to the environment isn’t as daunting as it sounds. I like to keep things as simple as possible for everybody. The best plan is one that you can actually follow, not one that’s perfect in a clinical environment but impossible to maintain on a day to day basis.