There are often extremes within the horse world.  One extreme is the show horse world where coddled horses are kept away from other horses to prevent cosmetic blemishes or injuries and made to live a completely artificial and unhappy life.

Then there are those who believe horses are supposed to live in a completely natural way and that it is harmful to brush them, blanket them or give them any food other than free choice grass hay.

What I believe is that a firm adherence to either extreme is wrong for horses.

While it is noble to wish the most natural life possible for your horse, there are many things to take into consideration.  Certain horses are well-adapted to living a lifestyle with little human intervention, it is true.  If your horse is a mustang or other hardy breed that has in recent history lived in a feral or mostly feral state, he will have many advantages.  However, to say that “all horses” are capable of living outside in any environment without a blanket and a diet of grass and hay would be similar to saying a French Bulldog or Chihuahua can be thrown outside to live in any environment because wolves do.

The truth is that due to human intervention and breeding, many horses are terribly unsuited to a purely natural lifestyle.  The Thoroughbred horse is one breed that largely came into being from the stables of nobles and kings.  These horses were not selected for low metabolisms and an ability to be fed thriftily.  They also were not selected for heavy winter coats or tough, hard-wearing hooves.

Several years ago when the economy was bad, some horse owners on the West coast turned their horses loose, thinking that since horses live in the wild in some areas that the horses would be fine.  These horses were discovered after a couple of months, starving and with patchy fungus growing on their skin.  The environment was too wet and did not have enough range of open grazing for the horses to survive on their own.

Another factor to consider is that in a feral state, horses that do not have the right genetic characteristics for survival will die.  This is how the mustang and other hardy breeds ended up with low metabolisms, adequate winter coats, good teeth and tough hooves.  Horses with diseases that we might keep alive in a domestic situation would also die.  Many of our breeds that we have kept domesticated for many years do not have the right traits to survive in a feral state.

Those who have an ideal of keeping their horses in as natural of a state as possible should not feel guilty if their horses will only thrive with some artificial intervention.  For instance, horses with PSSM are known to be unusually sensitive to cold.  Many owners of these horses have found that their horses will have tying up episodes if they don’t blanket them when the temperature is below 40 degrees F.  Likewise, the owner of a 30+ year old thin horse with a poor winter coat should not feel that “horses should never be blanketed.”

I believe strongly that horses should be kept barefoot whenever possible.  However, I would never say that all horses can and should be barefoot.  If someone adopts a 20 year old horse that has always worn shoes and had poor farrier care, this horse may have such eroded digital cushions and thin soles that going barefoot is impossible.  I would advocate for glue on boots as a first choice, but some horses have hoof capsules that are too deformed and shoes are the only option.  I knew a 28 year old horse where the owner took the shoes off and this left the horse with feet that were painful in the stall on soft shavings and in the pasture on grass.  Even after a period of rehab this did not improve, and thankfully the owner did not prioritize being “natural” over the horse actually being able to live a life with less pain and suffering.

Icelandic horses are amazingly tough.  As Iceland was built up, these horses were made to work in conditions that killed both man and animal; near starvation diets, freezing temperatures, plus pulling and carrying loads that were impossibly heavy.  Some of the pony breeds came into being on islands where the grazing consisted mostly of scrub and sparse grass.  Mustangs roamed over dry plains and survived cold, snowy winters.  Most representatives of these types of horses will do very well with little intervention: they do not need grain supplements or blankets in cold weather, and can be ridden nearly anywhere barefoot.

Horses that don’t need blankets

But take your 16 hand sleek Thoroughbred, a horse that would never have been selected for in the wild.  Try feeding him a diet of grass hay and you will see him rapidly losing weight and condition, even more so if you actually start formal exercise (wild horses do not normally have periods of prolonged exercise and only canter in short bursts).  Put him outside on a rainy, windy day without a blanket and you will come back in a couple of hours to see him shivering miserably and using up even more calories he can’t spare.  Give him the best natural hoof trimming you can for several years and then go run him down a gravel road; due to his genetics he will still get stone bruises and probably an abscess.

A horse that may need a winter blanket

So keep in mind that once again, what is right for one horse may be wrong for another.  If you put your horse before your ideals, you will neither coddle him in an unnatural state and make him unhappy, nor ignore a skinny, shivering horse while waiting for him to “toughen up” in the name of being natural.  Watch, listen and learn from the horses.  Each one is unique and will have his own needs based on size, genetics, personality, history, health, and available environment.  Avoid listening to advice that says every horse needs the same thing, no matter what.  Horses are not humans, but they’re all different, just like us.  Like people, some horses are tough and hardy, others are fragile and delicate.