Using Barefoot Rehabilitation as an Alternative to Corrective Shoeing
(Listeners’ Choice)
By Popular Demand we have re-published this episode. Each weekend we are choosing the most listened to and commented on episodes for you to enjoy.
This interview was previously published in 2018 Andrew Bowe (286)
About Andrew
– Andrew began his working life as a traditional farrier in 1990 after completing an applied science degree and shod horses full time for quite some years. He is a trade accredited and race track licensed farrier.
The Barefoot Blacksmith ® is quite a contradictory tag, but it represents the new and the old with equine hoofcare.
About 15 years ago, his career began turning away from tradition and he started exploring the concept of barefoot rehabilitation as an alternative to corrective shoeing. This move was driven by the frustration of not being able to provide long term solutions to common chronic lameness problems such as laminitis, navicular, ringbone, sidebone etc. within the confines of traditional farriery.
With his wife Nicky he set up a bare hoofcare rehabilitation facility at the family farm (Mayfield) in central Victoria to treat the increasing number of chronically lame horses that they were being asked to help, particularly those with serious laminitis. Over a decade later and Mayfield continues to have a steady stream of lame horses passing through and they have a very high success rate. They also became increasingly aware that the best hooves are not those trimmed by the best therapists every six weeks, but the best hooves are those trimmed by horse owners every two or three weeks, so they began teaching horse owners how to maintain their own hooves and now run popular workshops Australia wide.
Along the way they met Mike and Chrisann Ware who were also teaching horse owners how to trim and together they set up a course to train professional hoof therapists.
Some years ago (after a potentially career ending injury) Andrew also completed a journalism course and now writes hoof care related articles that aim to disseminate current equine hoof science to the wider equine community.
When he is not teaching or writing or helping out at Mayfield, he continues to work as a podiotherapist on a large number of horses across a wide range of equestrian disciplines; always striving to blend the contradicting goals of equine athletic performance and long term soundness.
Andrew Bowe is a career master farrier who specializes in the barefoot rehabilitation of horses that are either suffering from chronic lameness or are simply not performing as well as they should be. He works in conjunction with veterinarians and equine body therapists.
With many years of experience (with both traditional shoeing and barefooting), he is often called to help with those horses that are a challenge to return to soundness or even to transition from shod to barefoot performance.
Andrew also spends a large amount of his time educating both owner trimmers and aspiring professional trimmers.
Nowadays, Andrew is spending an increasing amount of time providing advice to people who send Email photos of problem hooves. To meet the ever increasing demand of enquiries from around the country and even abroad, he is setting up an online technical consultancy service. There will now be a fee for consultancy and this will enable him to allocate sufficient time to provide effective and adequate consultations.
Australia is a big country, but if your horse is having hoof related issues, we may be able to help from a distance with an Email consultation.
Suddenly barefoot riding became an easily accessible option for many horse riders. That’s about when the phone started ringing its head off and hasn’t stopped since!
This journey down the barefoot track remains a humbling one. Horses are teaching us new things every day. We have learnt much, but there is still far to go.
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Andrew’s Favourite Inspirational Quote
– “Shoot Straight You Bastard” Breaker Morant
Who Has Inspired Andrew
– Hugh Sharman
– Bernie Shaw
– Wayne Anderson
– Buck Brennan
Recommended Books
– ‘The Pony That Did Not Die’ by Andrew and Nicky Bowe
– ‘BarehoofCare: Functional Hooves for Life Long Soundness’ by Andrew and Nicky Bowe
– ‘Principles of Horseshoeing 2’ by Dr Doug Butler
About This Episode
– Andrew discusses is know as the ‘Barefoot Blacksmith’, he is using barefoot rehabilitation as an alternative to corrective shoeing.
Time Stamps
01:20 – “Shoot Straight You Bastard” Breaker Morant
02:10 – Being at the right place at the right time, during the recession
03:10 – Sense of safety, physically capable, mental toughness
04:50 – Enjoy working with a variety of horses and working out doors
05:20 – How Bernie Shaw, Wayne Anderson and others have inspired Andrew
07:18 – Handling horses now and then
08:49 – Change from farrier to barefoot farrier, horses with chronic lameness
10:28 – Racehorse industry use tip or racing plate as horses are not allowed to race barefoot
11:50 – Is there a change in other horse sports
13:50 – Australia is leading the way with barefoot therapy
14:38 – The horses that Andrew has helped
15:50 – There is two camps, one for barefoot and one against barefoot
17:57 – Right hand, left had bias, trimming hard on horses
19:15 – The Pony That Did Not Die, BareHoofCare and Principles of Horseshoeing
21:10 – More of the same
22:00 – Aim for life long soundness for horses, success should be judged according to the calendar not the clock
22:52 – Contact: see details below
Andrew’s Contact Details
Phone: 0427 509 434 or +61 427 509 434
Email: info@barehoofcare.com or admin@barehoofcare.com
Website: www.barehoofcare.com
Facebook: The Barefoot Blacksmith
Music
BenSound.com
When Andrew is a return guest on Horse Chats, what question would you like to ask him?
(Please leave comment below)