hi it's Josie and today I've got five of my top tips to keep you safe working around your horse's
feet it's really important to be safe when working around your horse's feet big animal they certainly
can do some damage even if they don't mean to all of the tips that I share with you today are things
that you need to make become a habit so you do it without thinking about it it becomes a habit in
the beginning obviously you need to think about it to do it so that it then becomes a habit make sure
you stay till the last tip the last tip is one that will get you out of trouble if you are having
issues needing to deal with a horse's hind leg and it won't let you tip number one is looking after
your toes so let's start with when you're handling your front feet when you handle the front feet of
your horse you should make it a habit to have the foot closest to your horse slightly turned
that way so that is because if the horse has a spook or something pulls their foot out of your
hand you don't have your toe in the zone to get it stepped on trust me horses stepping on toes hurt
so tip number two is whenever you're working with a horse that you don't know or a horse
that's a bit suspect about you handling its back legs is you need to be level with the
shoulder front leg of the horse so this is where I would handle a horse's back leg if
I was a bit suspect I would use perhaps a whip a firm whip or something just to check
that the horse is going to let me touch the leg without kicking because if you are here
believe it or not the horse can still kick you they can do a thing called a cow kick which is
where this leg comes forward and kicks that way and they can certainly get you so if you
manage to keep yourself in line with the front while you work out whether the horse is going
to let you handle their back legs or not you will be out of the kick Zone tip number three
which is something that is not easy to do because your instincts will be telling you to do the
opposite of what I'm telling you so whenever I'm handling any horse including my own because I have
made this a habit it just happens I always if I'm walking towards the hind end of the horse my hand
is on the horse and it's going down like this it's on the rump and I am feeling the horse here and I
am in as close as I can get why is this difficult because if you've got a horse that you think is
going to kick you your instinct's gonna be to do this and get as far away as possible the problem
with that is when the horse kicks you if she was to kick me now she would give me a shove it might
hurt but she would give me a shove but if I've put myself away out here and she kicks me I'm going to
get the full force of the kick so it's a little bit like that's me this is the horse's hind leg
if I'm up close I get that but if I move out I get that sorry sweetheart so you can see that in
close is the safest way to be and with your arm up here you will feel the horse move a muscle because
it has to actually move its rump muscle to pick its leg up so you're aware to be aware when you
feel the horse's muscles move underneath your arm so this should be a habit that you should
do with all your horses when you're moving around the hind end and stay in as close as you can get
and that brings me to tip number four so tip number four is
if I needed to do something down on her hoof down there it's very hard if you've got a bigger horse
to keep your hand here and put some hoof dressing on or or look at something whatever you're doing
down there so my tip number four for that and what I do when I'm walking around well part of
me when I'm working around the horse's foot down lower is I always hold on to the tail and why is
that because for her to pick her hoof up in on either side she has to lift her tail slightly
yep like that so I felt her tail thanks that was on cue I felt her tail lift slightly before she
picked her hind leg up so I could be holding the tail here and I'm always you don't have
to hold it tight you just got your hand on it and then I can play with her foot if I'm going
over this way I just would swap hands and then I could um do stuff with her foot and just a little
extra tip in here if you're a bit worried about that foot you could always come through this way
and work on this foot from this side because she's not going to be able to kick me over here well
I guess they could if they absolutely wanted to but if I'm playing with a foot that she's
not really comfortable with me the chances of her actually kicking is with that foot
now my tip number five this tip is useful when you have a hind leg that you need to do some
work on and you perhaps the horses cut itself when you need to dress it or I will give you
the example of when it came in really handy for me I had a new student come that I didn't know
her or a horse and she bought a horse on the float and she had travel boots on them and as
she went to get it off the float the back right hand side it was a travel boot had slipped down
and underneath the hoof and so it was half on half off and flapping and the horse was just
kicking constantly and she was too frightened to go in and get the boot off and I guess not without
um good reason because the horse was kicking so if you need to do something to a hind leg what you
would do is you will pick up the front leg that's on the same side as the leg you want to do work on
so if I asked Rihanna she's got to put that foot down and if I ask her to pick this up
now she's got all her weight on that foot and she cannot pick it up the ground to kick because
she'll basically fall over the trick with this though is for this front leg you need to hold
it up very tight with the hoof right up by the elbow if it's down there they can just take it
away from you just come forward sweetheart good girl they can take it away from you so when you
pick it up lift it up really high actually put the foot up here and hold tight you hold that
while somebody else or somebody else holds the horse whichever way it is while someone deals
with the hind leg and that is how we got the boot off of the horse that was having a little
bit of a panic attack because something was flapping around its hind leg if you like tips
like that and having your questions answered you might like to join me in basic horse training in
the video description is a link click on that link and you can go and see what basic horse
training is all about it might just be for you I'd love to see you there [Music] [Laughter]
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