Barefoot Endurance Horse

Fari is a 12 year old Arabian of Crabbet and Old English lines. He is owned by Sarah of Performance Barefoot and can turn his pretty hooves to almost anything from endurance to dressage to fun rides with jumps.

I arrived at my livery yard to a great shock on an August morning in 2002. I found I could not go to my planned dressage competition as Fari, my grey Arab, was extremely lame on his left fore.

We had been having a terrific season. He was going really well in his dressage tests. Three weeks previously he had completed a 30 mile endurance ride in Lincolnshire. .

There had been no sign of the bomb shell that would be dropped on me when the vet announced he had torn his suspensory ligament and would need nine months rest before coming back into work.

Although I found it hard to understand why the injury had occurred, and the explanations from both the vet and farrier were vague, I knew in my heart that his left foot was ‘wrong’. It looked twisted and I had often worried about its shape.

Fari’s twisted left foot before a 15 mile pleasure ride in April 2002

West End Photography