Picking a Horse's Hoof

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Connie and we're here at Hearts Adaptive Riding Center in Santa Barbara, California and I'm here for Expert Village. Now we are going to hoof pick. The instrument that Natalie was just holding up against Lily, that's a hook pick and we are going to use it on their feet. So now we're going to get ready to hoof pick. So what Natalie's going to do is she's going to run her hand down the horse's leg, just to let them know we're coming down. Lily's pretty good, she picks her foot up right away. If a horse needs a little bit more encouragement to get their foot up you just kind of lean into their shoulder. You want to be sure you get out any sort of rocks or loose dirt, or anything that may be uncomfortable for them. Keeping a rock in their hoof is like walking around with a rock in your shoe. We want to keep our horses as comfortable as possible because these are our wonderful horses and they take good care of our riders."