TrulyTrust Student Portal

"I very highly recommend Louisa Marais’s hoof course and her expertise. The course is very clear, very well structured with extensive theory and practical examples, and doesn’t require any prerequisite knowledge on hooves. It gives a solid foundation and allows you to see and understand your horse’s feet and other horses’ feet even before you really master the practice. On top of that, all of my questions are always answered by Louisa in a very detailed and helpful way, which makes the learning experience even more beneficial. In October 2020 my horse’s feet were in poor condition, even to an untrained eye (cracking, very high sensitivity). Even if the professional that I have had for a while wasn’t necessarily making it worse (as far as I know), there was no initiative at all to make them better. It seemed like I wasn’t losing anything in trying to do it myself, so despite not having had any previous training experience I decided to jump in. Practice is hard, you need to learn to use the tools, to apply the learned theory on the spot, you need to be patient with yourself and your horse who might be in pain or startled by your clumsiness. But what made the difference for me was that I wasn’t alone. From tracking progress through evaluations to concrete trimming advice, I “knew” what I was doing every step of the way. The hoof course is a very good guideline, with clear dos and don’ts and what to watch out for, and honestly, it's very hard to cross these limits once you know them, even unintentionally. But the evaluations and the trimming advice is where it was really taken to the next step for me. By not only explaining the what but also the why, they allowed me to learn specifically about MY horse’s feet, but also to generalize that knowledge to other hooves. I am 6 months in and we still have a long way to go, but my horse has quite literally transformed. The way he moves, the way he stands. I, embarrassingly, haven’t realized how many health and behavior problems were related to him not being comfortable in his feet until that pain started to go away. I still make mistakes and I am scared of setting us back, but so do all of the professionals, and I have the reassurance of Louisa watching over what I am doing and making sure I don’t stray far from the path. It is a learning curve but with the right help every time you get a bit less clumsy, a bit faster, and a bit quicker to see what needs to be done. Louisa is an amazing and very knowledgeable professional and I can truly recommend any of her work and services!" - Anastasia K