09/09/2026
I’ve been holding onto this one for a while, not sure if I was going to post it…
I’ll start by saying, I don’t really care to make waves or offend anyone, and don’t ask, I won’t name the trainer involved. I don’t even know if this person follows me, but if they happen to see this, I hope they don’t take it as an attack or any sort of “call out.” Instead, I hope they reflect on it a little, because in my opinion this wasn’t just doing wrong by a client. It was a betrayal of the horse placed in their care.
Now for the meat of it…
When I picked up this mare’s feet after she came home from training, my first thought was, “They RODE her like this?” Her feet were severely overgrown. I found some of the biggest rocks I’ve ever pulled out of a hoof, and as I trimmed through the overgrowth I kept finding more rocks and debris buried underneath, along with quite a bit of thrush and deteriorating hoof.
I’m not perfect. I’ve fallen behind on trims too. Life happens and sometimes we drop the ball. But there comes a point where you stop riding and take care of the horse underneath you. This mare should not have continued to be ridden with her feet in this condition. The trim should have come first.
What makes this especially hard for me to understand is that the owner had asked multiple times if the horse had been trimmed and was told yes. When the owner questioned why her feet looked this way, the answer was, “because she’s a Mustang.”
SERIOUSLY!?? Being a Mustang doesn’t explain this.
While I was trimming, the owner reached out to the trainer about some of the deteriorating hoof we were finding and referred to it as rot, because that’s exactly what I call it when I see thrush eating away at a hoof. Instead of addressing the actual concern, the conversation got hung up on correcting the owner that it was “thrush, not rot.” I found that a little ironic considering thrush is quite literally deterioration and decay of hoof tissue. Call it whatever you want, the bigger point was the condition of the horse’s feet. After correcting the owner, the trainer said “She’s a little long in the toe” then proceeded to use a bunch of technical terminology while giving a trim prescription. 🙄
I can’t stand when industry professionals hide behind knowledge and terminology. It becomes a way of talking over an owner and making them feel like they aren’t qualified to question what they’re seeing. This is actually the second time I’ve watched something like that happen, and it just irks me. Knowledge should be used to educate people, not as a weapon to make someone feel stupid for asking a legitimate question about their own horse.
Now, to be fair, the trim didn’t go terrible, but when I got to the hind feet she had a pretty strong opinion that those feet belonged to her and I had NO business taking them! 🤣 I had to stop, work with her for a bit and teach her I wasn’t interested in eating her back legs, then come back to trimming. We got it done. Had I not been able to do it safely, I wouldn’t have done it either. But I would have told the owner I didn’t get it done and exactly why.
From what I’m told, the trainer did a good job starting this horse under saddle, so let’s give credit where it’s due. But you can do a good job training a horse and still fail them somewhere else.
If this were my client and I had told them the trim was handled when it wasn’t, I’d own it. Me personally, I would have paid their farrier myself for the next trim.
Let’s be real, none of us are going to get everything right. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I do. But when somebody trusts us with their horse, we owe both the owner and the horse honesty and accountability when we fall short on an agreed upon expectation.
Now I’m just curious…
How would you feel if your horse came home from the trainer with feet like this?
