Jaime Jackson

Jaime Jackson (born 1947) is a 35-year veteran hoof care professional, lecturer, author and researcher on wild and domestic horse hooves. He is best known for the practice of natural hoof care first written about in The Natural Horse: Lessons from the Wild (1992).

The Natural Horse was based upon Jackson's studies from 1982 until 1986 of the Mustang in its natural environment in the Great Basin of the western United States. Jackson discovered that not only did wild horses live longer than domestic horses, but they also suffered none of the hoof maladies that plague those kept in 'captivity', notably navicular syndrome and laminitis. Following his research, he began experimenting on the hooves of domestic horses to find an effective way to trim their feet and allow them to remain barefoot and strong. In 1990 he stopped all shoeing of horses and instead began to advocate for the wild-horse trim. He believed that even horses with severe hoof conditions deemed incurable by veterinarians and farriers could, over time, be restored to good health through barefoot trimming and natural horse care (i.e., naturalization of the diet and boarding situation).

In the early 2000s, Jackson created the American Association of Natural Hoof Care Practitioners (AANHCP), a non-profit organization devoted to education, training and certification of the natural hoof care practitioner. Since then, the organization has expanded its scope and has changed its name to the Association for the Advancement of Natural Horse Care Practices. Jackson is its executive director.

The guiding principles to natural hoof care, according to Jackson, are:

Within a few years, a large, worldwide barefoot movement formed to promote the healthy benefits of barefootedness and natural horse care. According to veterinarian Robert Cook, Professor of Surgery Emeritus at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Massachusetts, Jackson provided "indisputable evidence, available for more than a decade, disproving the claim that domesticated horses need shoes."

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