Hey there, fellow Barefooters
Who is Yvonne Welz?
I am the creator and editor of this website, and simply put, I am a life-long horse lover! My entire life has revolved around horses. A desire to care for, communicate and connect with them is what led me on the path that eventually transformed into barefoot horse care. Initially, I was a competitive rider, showing in hunter-jumper, combined trials, competition dressage, and gradually I fell in love with classical dressage.
I am the wife of James Welz (married since 1986), studied Advertising Design in college, spent a dozen years as an Advertising Art Director and Digital Pre-Press Manager. After we were thrust into the fledgling barefoot movement in 1999, which happened after the shocking founder of my champion Lipizzan-cross mare, we then started up our own business, Wishing Welz Equine LLC dba The Horse’s Hoof, in 2000. While my husband ended up becoming one of the first Americans certified in Orthopedic Barefoot Hoof Trimming, I created The Horse’s Hoof Magazine and our original version of this website. For quite a while, I was practically a hotline for all people new to the Barefoot Movement, and I talked to barefooters all over the world!
Scroll down to read more. Or, for the long version about how I leaped into the barefoot movement, please read my full Barefoot Story!
Click here to read my full Bitless Story!
The goal of barefoot hoof care is to develop a superior hoof, because when the hoof is healthy, it is sound.
About Yvonne Welz:
Yvonne is a lifelong horsewoman with over 35 years of equine management and training experience. Formerly a competitive dressage rider, she schooled many horses up to an advanced level and achieved national awards with them. Always focused on learning, she studied the art of classical horsemanship for over 25 years, including the French classical methods. She has trained many horses from scratch, acquiring them as yearlings or untrained, starting them out under saddle and schooling them to higher levels. She has also enjoyed giving riding lessons to children and adults since the 1990’s.
Professionally, she was an Advertising Art Director, until fate intervened when her beloved champion Lipizzan-cross dressage mare foundered in the summer of 1999. The journey to save that mare altered the course of her life, and from then on, Yvonne was completely devoted to the barefoot horse movement.
Yvonne was instrumental in helping to introduce the methods of natural barefoot horse care to the USA when she founded The Horse’s Hoof Magazine and website in 2000. That publication, consisting of 80 issues over a time span of 20 years, is devoted to barefoot hoof trimming, natural horse care, bitless riding, and ethical horse care topics, and is available online. In 2023, Yvonne started publication back up again, this time as a free monthly e-newsletter called The Horse’s Hoof Barefoot News.
Yvonne studied alongside James throughout their years of barefoot hoof studies, attending clinics and traveling the world to learn more about hooves. Throughout the 2000’s, she studied several different methods of natural horsemanship and liberty training, which evolved in the direction of equitation science and positive reinforcement methods. She also trained in bodywork, saddle fitting, horse psychology and equine nutrition. She is an independent distributor for Dynamite Specialty Products and HorseTech.
Though Yvonne’s work had introduced her to the concepts of bitless riding, and she experimented with it, the bridles she tried at that time were unsatisfactory. The bit requirement for dressage shows was also a big obstacle. However, everything changed in 2013, when she discovered the ring style bitless bridles. After one ride, she never put a bit back on any of her horses again! She embraced the ideal of collected high school riding without the use of bits or spurs, and has not looked back, striving continually for kinder training techniques.
Soon after going bitless, Yvonne started Heart to Hoof Horsemanship as a small riding school, to promote good training & classical riding without bits. She also provides an example of a better way of horse care: her bitless, barefoot horses live naturally in a herd lifestyle with free forage. Yvonne Welz is an Associate Trainer with the World Bitless Association.
In 2020, just as Yvonne was retiring the quarterly publication of The Horse’s Hoof Magazine, she was offered a position as Customer Experience Expert at Cavallo Hoof Boots. Yvonne’s number one passion in life is helping horse owners and their horses stay healthy and happy – so joining the Cavallo Team was simply a “natural” for her! For many years before that, she had been using Cavallo Hoof Boots exclusively on her own horses. Cavallo’s were simply her horses’ choice – Yvonne can testify about the superior comfort and protection they provide on hard, rocky Arizona desert ground.
Yvonne lives in San Tan Valley, Arizona with her husband James, their herd of 4 bay mares, 2 cats and one small but spunky parrot.
Go Team barefoot
Open Source Barefoot
The goal of James & I, from the time we first began down the barefoot path, has simply been to share our information and resources, and to help others! This is not about gurus or trademarked methods, or who is “right” and who is “wrong” – this is about coming together in unity to share ideas and experiences. We are all unique, we have different horses and different situations, and there is so much to learn FROM EACH OTHER!
The Horse’s Hoof has been a cheerleader for the entire barefoot movement since 2000. Hoof Help Online, an online membership site that we created in 2011 for James to share his life’s work with others, is a place where you can receive direct input from us. Both these platforms work together to provide a welcoming place where barefoot enthusiasts can stand on common ground. We can provide crucial support for anyone interested in learning about barefoot horse care.
Enjoy reading through our extensive library in The Horse’s Hoof Archives: