I have always loved horses and nagged my non-horsey parents to get one. Finally, when I was 12 years of age, I saved enough to buy my first horse. Since then, I have always owned at least one horse, but typically that number has grown. I’ve had seven at one point, but am now at a comfortable five.

I bought my first rising star show horse when I was 19 years of age, a beautiful big (18hh) 3 year old Irish Hunter mare (by Kingcroft Wicklow) called Croftlea Irish Melody. I had massive dreams to get to horse of the year with this special lady. Unfortunately, reality was quite different. Melody had major problems with her feet. She was lame on and off all the time with constant re-occurring abscesses. The Farrier said her problems stemmed from having “16hh feet on an 18hh horse”. At one point the vet had diagnosed her with Navicular disease – a degenerative disease which leaves the horse mostly unusable and often in lots of pain.

At about the same time my parents bought me a seven year old, TB mare (Suzy) to put in foal to the gorgeous Swedish Warmblood stallion ‘Maestro’. Suzy helped to fulfil a live foal guarantee I was lucky enough get when my mare Cody died (from a ruptured bowel), just two weeks before her foals due date. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it soon became apparent Suzy had front foot problems, one was clubbed and the other became severely splayed. I now had two horses with terrible feet, both constantly lame and I was forever soaking, bandaging, and treating them. I started feeling so bad that I couldn’t really help them.

In an effort to help my mares, I decided to learn about horse hooves, how they function, what can go wrong etc. I studied web sites, bought many books and read lots of feedback on different styles of hoof trimming and associated care. I learnt how to do barefoot trimming and started to really look after my girls feet. I noticed the increased frequency of trimming alone really helped my two girls. I keep their hoof walls very short, to prevent any splits starting that could allow debris to enter the white line and vulnerable tissue area.

Despite many improvements, my girls still suffered with reoccuring abscesses. The biggest problem I found was after the abscess had blown out the bottom of the hoof, there was an cavity left open. Unfortunately in winter (when most abscesses occur) this fills up with manure and mud and for my girls, kept causing re-infections. To prevent this happening, I found filling the cavity works best. I researched what was available and only found one type of hoof putty. I bought some and tried it and found it hard to use – it was very hard to get out of the tin, it took a long time become flexible in my hand and it didn’t stick that well to the hoof (also it was quite expensive). I researched the ingredients to find out what function they all had and after investigating other products I decided to make my own version, using more natural ingredients – that would be cheaper and easier to use. Once I made the first batch of hoof putty, I trialled it with my horses and found it did exactly what I wanted it to do and was easy to use.  Since then, I’ve tweaked my hoof putty formula a few times to make it more effective and easier to use.

Researching and making this hoof putty sparked my interest in hoof care even further and I started to develop other products for my girls. Then I thought, if I couldn’t find the products I needed, others might feel the same way…so I decided I would create my own hoof care range to offer natural based, affordable hoof care to others…..then began the journey of ‘Love My Hoof’…I’ve called the company ‘Love My Hoof’ as this name sort of sums up what I truly believe in and what I want the products to be about.  There is an age old saying of “No Hoof, No Horse” which is very true… and the key to ensuring the hoof stays healthy is to ensure you love it!