Kirsty Heffron Equine Education

12/07/2026

Barefoot Happy Hackers!

If you are a barefoot Happy Hacker I highly recommend you protect your horses feet when you are riding out. This goes for baby horses starting in-hand hacking or long-reining too.

Unless you live in a fairytale paradise of all natural tracks, most of us have to do at least some roadwork or man-made tracks…and even fantastic feet are no match for tarmac and gravel. The high level of abrasion caused by artificial surfaces can lead to all sorts of problems - low heels, thin soles, stone bruises, abscesses etc.

From a behavioural and training point of view sore feet can show up as obvious things like tension, spookiness, napping, separation anxiety…and also more subtle things like lack of impulsion, lack of engagement in transitions, poor suspension within the gaits, overall the horse just feeling a bit dull and flat, or shut-down mentally.

If the root cause is sore feet caused by over-wearing (which is not at all unusual) you need a physical fix first not a training fix. As Nate Bowers says - ‘you can’t use psychology to fix a physical issue’!

And of course in an ideal world we would prevent these issues before they ever appear - if you protect the feet of baby horses just starting out, and barefoot horses that are currently comfortable, you will avoid over-wear issues completely 🙂

If anyone is needing a boot fitting service I’ve added a link below for Know Hoof - Know Horse who covers Scotland and stocks a LOT of brands and sizes, which is key to finding the perfect fit.

Happy hacking everyone!

Kirsty

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Hoof Boot Fitting Experience the difference that hoof boots can make for your horse! My in-person hoof boot fitting service covers most of the Highlands, Moray, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perth and Kinross, Stirling, Fife and the Central Belt. For other areas, please see the FAQs section below. If you ar...

23/05/2026

Selling my own super HiLux (located (PA10) - relisted at a greatly reduced price as I already bought a new car and need space on my driveway! Please share to anyone who may be interested 🙂

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25/04/2026

Don’t ever be embarrassed to take basic stuff seriously. Not grim no-fun serious, just serious in terms of thinking that it matters and that it’s worth getting good at and doing really well. Spending time and money getting good at basic stuff can seem very mundane and unexciting but tbh all the cool exciting glamorous stuff you could ever want to do with a horse is just lots and lots of small and mundane things done with excellence and added together. You get to the cool exciting stuff by putting time and effort into the small and mundane stuff!

Kirsty

Image credit to Koekhoven

20/04/2026

I had the absolute pleasure of going out to teach Alison Foulds and her beautiful new youngster at the weekend…and the sun even came out 🙂

Kirsty

18/04/2026

My Orange Pony being an absolute menace today when poor Vivien was just trying to have a nap lol

15/04/2026

I’m always super happy to recommend local businesses. If anyone in Ayrshire is needing their horsey vehicle deep cleaned after winter check out KENN KLEEN Carwash Glengarnock. They washed and valeted my pickup today and it is like new, I have no idea how they managed it you could eat your dinner off the floor lol. There is a lovely cafe right next door so you can sit in front of a log burner and have coffee and cake while you wait, or they do a pickup&drop off service for ultimate convenience. Check out their page for details 🙂

12/04/2026

Boot Your Babies!

I posted yesterday about the benefits of in-hand hacking and ride&lead for young horses and I forgot to mention the importance of protecting the feet.

Most young horses that haven’t been started under saddle yet are unshod, and while horses have evolved to travel miles a day barefoot….that is on natural surfaces. Even strong healthy feet are no match for the abrasion of artificial surfaces like tarmac, hardcore and stony country lanes.

Most of us have to do at least some roadwork and even just a couple of leisurely in-hand hacks a week can drastically wear the soles and heels and compromise the hoof capsule causing bruising, discomfort and lameness.

Unless you live in a wilderness paradise with all natural paths I’d highly recommend booting (all 4 feet) for in-hand hacking your youngster. I know it’s expensive and a faff, but it’s worth the cost and effort. And I’d recommend sorting boots before you start walking out, don’t wait til your horse is sore or has worn their heels down to nothing!

The variety of boots on the market is fantastic but it’s also a bit confusing…if you need a good boot fitter Al Greenwood at Know Hoof - Know Horse is super. He covers Scotland and will come out and try lots of brands and sizes on your horse to find the perfect fit.

Kirsty

11/04/2026

Don’t overlook fitness when preparing your young horse for starting under saddle….most youngsters are super unfit and that makes learning to carry a rider harder for them.

Horses definitely aren’t designed to carry riders but they have evolved to travel a lot of miles every day. In nature the youngsters - even foals - travel with the herd walking 10+ miles per day with regular bursts of high speeds, so from a young age they are building a fantastic baseline fitness. Learning to move over varied surfaces and terrains - hills, ditches, rivers, sand, rock, earth - in all gaits also develops their proprioception, balance and core strength, and stimulates development of the internal structures of the hoof.

If you contrast that to a domestic setting most young horses are paddock-potatoes living a very limited lifestyle. None of us however hard we try can replicate a truly natural environment (1000s of acres of rugged plains), and as a result most youngsters aren’t getting a lot of miles under their belts and aren’t getting a lot of practice travelling over hills and different surfaces. This means that most youngsters are weak and unfit, and often the internal structures of their feet aren’t very well developed either.

And this matters because no matter how well bred they are, a weak unfit youngster is going to find it harder to learn to carry a rider than one who is fit and well conditioned. Even when done ethically and with high skill, starting under saddle is a big challenge for the horses fitness, their balance, their core strength. Having a decent level of fitness at the beginning sets them up for success and makes it easier for them.

In terms of how to go about getting your young horse fit, there is lots of age appropriate groundwork to choose from -

Basic groundwork exercises
Agility
Obstacles and poles
Long-reining
In-hand hacking
Ride&lead from an experienced horse

I definitely don’t recommend drilling or use of gadgets, I don’t recommend lungeing in side-reins for example. Arena time should be psychology based, short&sweet, and feel like educational playtime. An ideal goal is to use the arena just as a safe area to get started, and once things are going well you get out of the arena and get out and about. Regular in-hand hacking or ride&lead is an ideal way to build fitness and let your young horse see the world.

From a groundwork and pre-ride training point of view it doesn’t matter so much which approach you prefer - BHS, natural horsemanship, clicker training, classical etc. If you prefer one over the other that’s fine, anything that helps you get out and about and get some miles under your youngster’s belt is much better for them than just sitting in the field doing absolutely nothing til the day they get a saddle on.

Pictured are a few of the lovely youngsters I have helped with pre-ride training. 🙂

Kirsty

09/04/2026

This level of risk is absolutely unacceptable….imagine watching the London Marathon and Mo Farrah gets shot at the end. I don’t think anyone would think that was acceptable, why is it ok with horses who after all don’t have any choice in whether or not they participate. There is no glory or glamour in endangering horses for sport or entertainment, and the stats show that racing deaths are not freak accidents or rare anomalies….racing is super dangerous and fatalities are routine. If you want more information on the level of deaths in racing the below website collates official data from UK racetracks…it has recorded over 3000 on-track deaths in the last 20years.
https://www.horsedeathwatch.com

67 horses have died at the Aintree Festival since 2000.

17 after racing in the Grand National.

This isn’t sport, it’s a death toll.

We’re calling for a boycott. Don’t attend. Don’t bet. Switch off.

It’s time to put horse welfare before profit.