THE WRITER INTRODUCES HIMSELF

Almost 20 years ago I started my Natural Hoof Care course with Jaime Jackson in the United States. This first trajectory of my career as a hoof caretaker was not only a great adventure, in retrospect I really had no idea what I was getting into at the time!

When I had completed my first course on Natural Trimming, this immediately felt right to me. In all the years I've been involved with horses - I learned to ride when I was five years old - I never gave a second thought to the nature of the horse, the importance of unshod hooves or natural housing. Like so many of us, I had been trained with the bit, the whip, a stable, concentrates, and a slab of hay three times a day. Until my personal situation changed unexpectedly in 2003 and I came to live temporarily in my parental home.

My Shetlander Maartje was still here in the meadow and I decided to take up driving with her again. No sooner said than done, you might think. Only my farrier of old had packed his bags and he now lived in Ireland. So looking for an alternative! My mother pointed me to an article she had read about hoof boots. I had never heard of it, but it sounded interesting. A few phone calls led to an appointment and I was visited by a farrier who no longer shod horses, but was able to measure hoof boots in a special way. A model was made with plaster and after about six weeks I received a pair of beautiful custom-made hoof boots. Maartje passed away after 36 long years, but I still have these hoof boots to remind me of the very beginning of my search!

I followed a number of courses in the Netherlands at the time. First at Paard Natural, the initiators of the well-known platform, and then at Wout Overbeeke. The first in the Netherlands and I think even Europe to have completed Jaime Jackson's training program. During these courses I quickly discovered the big difference in knowledge and I decided to continue my search in the US. This was an adventure I will never forget!

Traveling through America

I drove 5.000 miles in my fiery red Toyota Tercel. For $600 I bought this vehicle without air conditioning and blessed with a flat head gasket in Salt Lake City where I attended my first clinic. With the horsepower of a tortoise, I drove via Las Vegas to Los Angeles for my second leg of the program.

Why did I buy that car and not rent a decent one, you may ask? Well...I'll save that embarrassing story for another time! 😉

From LA it went further up to Reno, San Francisco, Seattle, all the way to Canada. Of course I visited Jaime Jackson, but along the way there were also other prominent and less prominent instructors who were part of the training program at the time.

I was completely bitten by mosquitoes when I pitched my tent in a mosquito-infested alfalfa field, got lost in the Navajo desert, heard bears scurrying around me in Yosemite Park and met the wild horse in the Great Basin.

It was there, in the Great Basin, where the penny dropped for me. Until then everything felt logical and right. Jaime Jackson's simple explanation of a subject as complex as Natural Hairdressing's craft was spot on, but it wasn't until the Wild Horses that I really understood what he was talking about.

The silence in the desert of the Great Basin is overwhelming. Nature is rough and desolate. The soil is so rough and hard that you can't imagine that horses can walk on it effortlessly. From coarse, loose rock to sharp lava rocks. Everything is dry and hard. The yellow, coarse-stemmed vegetation is sparsely distributed over the plains and mountains, and horses are usually nowhere to be seen in fields or roads.

This environment sucked me into the here and now and told me the hard truth. Namely, that everything we do with horses, think about horses and pretend to know about horses was completely wrong. I realized that I could forget everything I knew and start over.

“IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN"

The horse in its natural habitat is nothing like our kept horses. Evolutionarily and genetically speaking, they are the same species, but because they live in completely different environments, the two are difficult to compare. The wild horse is a balanced and strong animal that, under the pressure of natural selection, effortlessly survives in an environment that we cannot enter without taking the necessary precautions. The kept horse, on the other hand, is in many cases neurotic, prone to disease and lameness, and incapable of expressing its social needs.

Without water and food we will irrevocably lose out in the natural environment of the horse. How ironic is it then to learn that the horse is losing out in our living environment. An environment in which we try to control the horse's life as much as our own. Meals at set times, a roof over the head, blankets, horseshoes to protect the feet and the vet under the button in case something goes wrong. All this with the best intentions, but without real science about the essence of the animal.

When I returned home to the Netherlands, I wanted to apply the knowledge I had acquired as soon as possible. But this was slow. Very slowly.. My first customer was in Numansdorp, about an hour and a half's drive from Apeldoorn. For the first five or six years I worked throughout the Netherlands as a catering porter to make ends meet. Horse by horse, foot by foot, my customer base grew.

I soon learned that – just like in the wild – the horse's living environment is crucial to true foot success. You can of course trim any horse, but factors such as your horse's diet, housing and even training have such a great influence on your horse that success can rarely be determined with the rasp.

I have now spent almost two decades in this profession. I have taught in America, England, Scandinavia, Italy and in various places in the Middle East. I brought Jaime Jackson's education to Europe, trained new professionals and put Paddock Paradise® on the map in the Netherlands. I leave the profession of hoof care behind me and as an entrepreneur I am now fully committed to Paddock Paradise® and teaching about this natural model.

Paddock Paradise®, in whatever form, is the future for the kept horse. We can't go back, we can only move forward.

For the horses,
Björn Rhebergen

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