All of our horses came to us with shoes nailed to their feet. They lived in stalls, ate from bags, all the things everyone told us to do because that’s the way it has always been done. Two things changed everything. First, on the very first day our first horse, my Cash, came to us I took him to the round pen and attempted a Monty Roberts Join-Up. When I felt his moist warm breath on my ear, his nose on my shoulder tears came out of nowhere and streamed down my cheeks. I had spoken to him in his own language, and he had listened… and he had chosen to be with me. He had said, I trust you. From that moment I was no longer just a horse owner. I was a partner, a friend, a big brother, and with that went the obligation and the desire to give him the very best life I could possibly give him. The problem was I didn’t know what that was… so I immediately went about the business of finding out. Cash had shoes on his front feet but none on his back feet. Yet I was being told that bare feet on concrete and asphalt (which we had plenty of around our house) would cause the hooves to crack and chip and fall apart. So I better get shoes on his back feet and pronto, right? Wrong. Come with us as we struggle through the information and misinformation to get to the truth about our horses’ feet and ultimate health. What we discovered and what we did. And why.