BIOGRAPHY

I first heard about barefoot hoofcare in 2001 and was intrigued but unconvinced. It made sense intuitively, but years of believing that feet needed shoes, meant I couldn’t quite take the plunge. Six months later I finally got up the courage to take off my horses’ shoes.

Once shoeless, I started maintenance trimming my own horses under the supervision of a professional trimmer. I became increasingly fascinated with feet and began to go on training courses, one with Les Spark and Lesley Holehouse and another with Pete Ramey. Then I began to trim other horses on my yard and decided that if I was going to trim professionally, I wanted to be qualified.

In 2006 I enrolled in the American Association of Natural Hoofcare Practitioners certification programme and was fortunate enough to be taught by Pete Ramey, Todd Jaynes and Jaime Jackson, among others. I was also lucky enough to meet Cindy ‘Hawk’ Sullivan on one of my trips to the USA.

In August 2007 I decided to become independent of any organisation, preferring to work through a network of likeminded people that includes trimmers, physical therapists, horse trainers and nutritionists. The time I spent in the USA gave me the chance to train with a range of people and see many different types of hoof and environment. Before I was bitten by the hooftrimming bug, my involvement with horses was through behavioural training. I spent the summer of 2000 in Spain working with Lucy Rees, the author of The Horse’s Mind, which led to me writing a book called The Horse Behaviour Handbook. Humane handling and training are important parts of my work and have a number of horses who are difficult to trim or shoe on my books. I practise a non-invasive form of trimming, allowing the horse time to adjust and grow in the hooves that it needs. I am based in Todmorden and cover Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.