A hearty Grassy Munchies all.

A man called Farrier trimmed my feet recently. He also responds to Mark, so I’m not completely sure which it is.

The first time Farrier trimmed my feet I wasn’t impressed. I mean, a flight animal can’t really take flight tied to a wall and on 3 legs… So, quite understandably, I tried every trick up my extremely hairy feathers to get all 4 legs back on the ground.

I tilted forward. I tilted backwards. Bit like a rocking horse actually. I even tried hoping around on 3 legs, but he just held on.

Turns out I had incorrectly reckoned my extreme round solidity would be more than a match for his extreme big tallness.

Despite my objections, I did end up with very nice tidy feet, so that’s a bonus. Kat said to think of it as a pedicure, which apparently is a therapeutic and cosmetic buffing for human feet.

These are my feet. Kat needs to trim my extremely hairy feathers so that Farrier can find them.

It’s Farrier who puts the shiny metal shoes on the feet of other horses. I don’t have these. Although Kat does sometimes put shoes on my feet that have the lovely grown-up shiny black strap I told you about.

I can understand horses needing something on their feet. Standing in wet fields and stables can make our feet rather soft, which then makes them sore on the road or hard ground.

In the wild we would roam for miles, every day, over all kinds of hard and rough terrain, which would keep our feet naturally strong.

Unfortunately, the field I live in is almost soggier than my soggy grassy munchies at the moment. So, although Kat takes me over plenty of hard and rough ground during our trail riding training sessions – thanks very much for that – I still spend the rest of the time standing in a wet, muddy field.

Despite this, I think I would rather put up with occasional soft feet, than having those metal shoes.

Horses feet are an anatomical wonder – to be honest, the whole of my extreme hairiness is one of nature’s wonder, but I don’t like to brag. Anyway, our feet need to be pretty special as our survival depends on them.

The frog part of my foot is an elastic rubbery triangle structure that sits below the heel and functions as a shock absorber.

When the frog hits the ground it distributes the impact around the foot so minimal pressure is put on the bones and joints in my legs. It also keeps the blood flowing around my feet, keeping them strong and healthy.

I am literally feeding my feet soggy grassy munchies. How good is that!

I think there’s a strong argument here for Kat to feed me more soggy grassy munchies. Just to keep my feet strong. Obvs.

GMFN

F x