Kirsten Zaczek

About

Although I have been keeping barefoot horses since the early 1990s, it wasn’t until my thoroughbred mare did get into trouble with underrun heels, runaway toes and related cracks that I first started to educate myself about hooves in general. Unfortunately where I lived at the time no farrier was able to help and no barefoot trimmer at hand so I started to learn to trim myself. I soon realised, however, that although the “hoof bug” had infested me and I read everything I could find that there was a limit to what I could learn by myself, and most crucially, apply by myself. At this point I’ve decided to enrol in the Equine Podiatry Training course. I finally qualified in January 2019 after an interesting journey of courses and numerous case studies and am now a fully qualified member of the EPA UK.

The old famous saying goes “ no hoof no horse”, but “no horse, no hoof” and “no health no horse” are equally important. We tend to see the hooves as unrelated issues, but the whole “system horse” is interrelated and everything can affect everything else.

Therefore it is not only important for healthy feet to receive a good trim every x weeks, but everything that happens in between is equally important, like diet, turnout, workload, even the fit of tack or the state of the teeth, and many more. You as the owner are the most important link in the chain, and I am committed to help owners to get the best possible hoof care, including the trim, but also the numerous parameters that affect the horse’s health, and therefor it’s hooves.