Holistic or Natural Horse-Keeping?

I have changed the title of my Horse-Keeping page from 'Natural' to 'Holistic'. This is since I have been reading some articles by a NZ guy named Andy Beck. Although Andy does with his horse what most people would refer to as 'natural' he states that nothing we do with horses is natural purely because we have taken them out of the wild and domesticated them and we usually expect to ride them!

After analysing my own intentions with horses I came to the conclusion that what I am trying to do is actually keep my horses holistically ie. a whole horse approach. Since I keep my horses barefoot this is crucial to the well being of my horses as anything that is wrong will often be shown in the feet first eg. poor diet, stress etc.

As you know from my other blog posts I am currently on my way to the UK with 2 of my Spanish horses so I will keep you updated as to how they cope being on a livery yard and kept of grass. I suspect it will be very interesting and a steep learning curve!