Using the tough, polished-looking hooves of the Great Basin mustang as the picture perfect model of health and soundness, wild horse expert and veteran hoof care professional, Jaime Jackson, discovered he could consistently stimulate natural growth patterns in the hooves of domestic horses simply by mimicking the natural wear patterns of these wild, free-roaming equines. Rooted in the fundamental laws of nature, these Guidelines use elements of math, science, art and common sense to provide exact trimming and measuring instructions--and get excellent results

• Identifying and mimicking key natural wear patterns to generate naturally shaped hooves.
• Never soring or over-trimming any hoof.
• Why a corrective trim--isn't
• Trimming in harmony with a horse's natural break-over, conformation, and gaits.
• Trimming laminitic hooves or a club foot.
• Activating key structures to stimulate growth in over-shortened or 'invaded' hoof capsules.
• Restoring run under and slipper toe hooves to their natural shapes and angles.
• Taking precise angle and length measurements.

From the Foreword: This book provides a concise and useful guide for horse owners to take immediate and productive action against laminitis and keep it out of their horses' lives once and for all . . . Nipping away at the edges of the laminitis] plague, NHC continues to grow with adherents who want nothing better than what is good for their horses. So, the answer lies not in a drug-addicted world of 'treating symptoms' but in the holistic fold of equine vitality. There is no shortage of things that we all can, and should, do to support this end: more responsible horse ownership, good science, good research, safe feeds, safe drugs, and a revolutionary new vanguard of allied services that inure to the healthful vitality of the horse, not a perpetual state of laminitis. But we'll never see any of it, if we persist in the delusion that the current stream of 'profits at all costs' -- the industrialization of laminitis -- equates to the well-being of the horse. It doesn't, and the intent of this book is to show why, while pointing to a good path to get ourselves and our horses on 'at all costs'.
Laminitis lays out Jackson's most current thinking and strategies for dealing with this insidious disease of the horse.
Jaime Jackson is a 40 year veteran farrier turned NHC practitioner, researcher, author, and advocate for humane horse care practices. He founded the AANHCP in 2000, and with his colleague Jill Willis, the ISNHCP in 2009. Jackson has written a comprehensive range of books, articles, and PowerPoint lectures on the humane care of horses.

The meaning of balanced hooves in the hoof care world is rife with unsubstantiated opinions and methods that compromise the natural integrity of the hoof and the ability of the horse to move naturally. Few agree on toe length, heel length, relative heel position to frog . . . relative lengths of the medial and lateral heels, front heels versus hind heels . . . on and on. Moreover, this widespread technical disparity continues endlessly by breed, competition, gait, and even hoof color The wild horse model is clear, however, that there shouldn't be this type of incongruity at all. Nature has demonstrated unequivocally what the relationships are between the toe, quarters, heels and other structures of the capsule. Balancing the hoof, therefore, should never be left to chance, even with the most deformed hooves. Indeed, the complexities of capsule wryness, slipper toe, bull-nose, club foot, and under trimmed heels require that we have a clear path to balancing the hoof whatever its unnatural orientation. The Hoof Balancer provides us with a quick, easy, accurate, and efficient way to balance the hoof based on the wild hoof model. It is recommended for use by all hoof care practitioners in the field, particularly when confronted with extreme capsule deformity.

THE WILD, FREE-ROAMING HORSE of the U.S. Great Basin has given us a new vision for a vibrant and healthy natural horse. That vision is embodied in this newly updated and classic work, The Natural Horse: Lessons From the Wild.

Paddock Paradise. Based on wild horse family band movements in their native ranges, Paddock Paradise is a unique tracking system within which horses living together in groups forge their own paths. Horse owners disburse hay and other essentials along these paths to stimulate movement and vitality on track.

Reasonably Natural Diet. Jackson took note in his range studies of the complexity of the wild horse diet. He and his colleagues have deduced a safe diet for horses, but urge the university sector to enter wild horse country to give the wild horse diet the comprehensive research it deserves.

Natural Rider. Jackson holds that a paradigm for the natural rider should be rooted in the Natural Gait Complex of the species as seen in the wild. To this end he has laid out a painstaking analysis of the natural gaits based on his observations of wild horse behaviors.

The Natural Trim. As a professional hoof man fully aware of the damaging effects of shoeing on the horse's hoof, Jackson saw the need to enter wild horse country to see what nature intended for the horse's hoof, and then report his findings. The Natural Horse delivers that message and a trimming method.

Navicular is a serious lameness affecting countless horses worldwide, with many going to early deaths as a result. But what is navicular? I am no stranger to it, having observed it first hand as a farrier and later as America's first Natural Hoof Care Practitioner (NHCP). It's not what everyone thinks it is. And that's why horses continue to suffer from it. This book takes you through the complexities of navicular, replacing myths with facts. My mission is to steer horse owners away from practices that inevitably lead to navicular in their horses. Education and the 4 Pillars of NHC are the key to prevention and healing.

The Basic Guidelines of the natural trim explain in extraordinary detail how the author managed the remarkable hooves of the horses of the Association for the Advancement of Natural Horse Care Practices (AANHCP) over an eight year period (2010-2018). The horses lived 24/7 on track in the AANHCP Paddock Paradise, providing incontrovertible evidence that the natural trim can facilitate hooves bordering on wildness in a simulated adaptive environment.

The natural trim is a humane trim method for horses that mimics the natural wear patterns of America's wild, free-roaming horses of the Western States Great Basin. These wild horses are also the model for natural horse care (NHC). The Advanced Guidelines of the natural trim replace the Basic Guidelines when hooves suffer from extreme deformity due to disease and traumatic injury.

This basic Natural Trim Training Program is a comprehensive, academic, and hands-on foundational course in the artful science of natural hoof care NHC). The natural trim is a humane, barefoot trimming method that mimics the natural wear patterns of wild, free-roaming horses (aka, the mustang) of the U.S. Great Basin. This action immediately triggers healthy growth patterns, that, when accompanied by other natural holistic practices also based on the wild horse model, eventually result in naturally shaped hooves. By all accounts, this transformation is truly a miracle of nature, but, technically, it is an outcome of the specie's adaptation, embedded in the DNA of every horse living today. It is of paramount importance to recognize that practitioners do not force the foot to look a certain way (e.g., like a wild horse hoof), but facilitate it through the natural trim method of

mimicking wild horse hoof wear patterns.

The purpose of this training manual is to guide

you through Step 1 - Independent Study. There is much learning material

for you to go through with diligence, the purpose of which is to prepare you

for your hand's-on training, Step 1 Quiz, Final Written and Field Exams, and

an academic understanding of NHC. The more you bolster your understanding

of NHC principles, the more you will get out of your training in the field.

Your library of educational materials is something you can return to again and

again during training, and even after you've graduated. If you want to be the

best practitioner you can be, then Step 1 is the foundation you will need to

build upon.

The following course text books include a brief of each book followed by a

True/False quiz. The purpose of the quizzes is to aid you in understanding the

material, which will help you to develop a working language of NHC. This will

enable you to speak and communicate in our language with other ISNHCP

students and practitioners. It will also make you more effective in explaining

NHC to your clients.

This is a science based monograph describing a study relevant to natural horse care practitioners specializing in professional equine hoof care. The study explains how the practitioner can use infrared thermal technology to provide superior hoof care. This technology is used in a novel way to facilitate precision mapping of the equine hoof to aid the practitioner in generating more accurate Critical Measurements used in hoof trimming.