This post was reviewed and updated on Jan. 12, 2026.

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In the fall of 2023, I created a successful treatment for softening dry and rock hard hooves, but that may be the least interesting part of the story.

I may have discovered a potential secret to treating laminitic horses.

I now believe fully treating a laminitic foot includes directly treating inflammation in the sole and frog of the hoof — as in, treating the bottom of the foot — in addition to the heat and digital pulse higher in the hoof.

And I have learned that a successful way to treat the bottom of the hoof is making sure the treatment doesn’t get immediately removed by dirt and shavings.

After much experimentation, I wound up concocting a winning cream mixture of regular hand cream, Equate arthritis cream (which is similar to Aspercreme) and Laminil (a mast cell stabilizer; prescription required) to Kurt’s sole and frog.

I held that cream mixture in place with a freezer bag and duct tape for one to four hours, depending on my schedule.

And, bingo. Kurt went from very lame to sound over a few weeks.

On Dec. 19, he galloped around his pasture at a pretty fast pace. I have no video. I had a work crew at my house removing a downed tree, and I didn’t want to ask the foreman to stop talking to me so I could go video my horse. But I was tempted. The foreman commented that the galloping Kurt was beautiful. A 28-year-old Connemara pony that everyone wrote off as ready to be put down got called beautiful when he raced around his pasture. Big victory for us.

My initial search to treat dry hooves

I had been searching the internet for “best treatment for dry horse hooves” since 2017.

I had never found a satisfactory answer.

Every fall, Kurt, a chronically laminitic pony since 2010, had suffered from his feet getting too dry, often after I had cleared up a frog infection in August.

He would go back and forth between feet too wet and too dry.

A frog infection is easier to treat than a dry foot, at least in Kurt.

This didn’t seem to be a laminitic episode. There was no heat and no pulse. I’ve always assumed that low-grade laminitis was percolating all the time, but the main issue was his feet getting too dry and lacking flexibility, like walking on a Dutch clog.

I had applied a ton of cream to his feet over the years, including on the sole and frog. It seemed to make the dryness issue worse. And that made sense in hindsight. Nothing is going to make shavings stick to his feet like cream, so I was just encouraging dust to collect on his feet and dry them out.

My first successful experiment in moisturizing Kurt’s feet was Sept. 23, 2023, when I gave Kurt’s feet a quick soak in plain warm water, then applied cream and covered each foot with a freezer bag secured loosely around his ankle with a piece of duct tape about 18 inches long.

After an hour, Kurt was noticeably better (see video for before and after clips).

But he was less sound the next day. The treatment was a short-term fix.

I redid the treatment every afternoon, he walked around well at night, then he stood in his shavings the next day, and he was back to sore by afternoon.

While I recognized that my timing was wrong — I should have been applying the treatment in the morning, moisturizing his feet during the day while he was in the shavings — I really just wanted to come up with a solution that was more long-lasting. The secret indeed turned out to be timing, using the treatment before the feet ever got dry.

As of 2026, my formula remains a water soak and anti-inflammatory cream. And we don’t do it regularly, only when I am worried about weather that might trigger a laminitis bout (heat and humidity or drought).

Throughout 2025, Kurt was sound. He was tripped up by soft tissue developing on the bottom of his right front foot in June, though he could walk on it. I ultimately treated it like an abscess, and it went away, but I’m still not sure it was an abscess.

I still soak Kurt’s feet for a few minutes in warm water (longer in drought conditions) in freezer bags secured to his ankles with scrunchies (in place of duct tape), then dump out the water and apply Equate arthritis cream (often mixed with hand cream) around the hoof wall and coronary band and all over the sole. This type of cream is designed to target pain and inflammation. I use maybe a fourth of the tube on two feet. Then I put the bags back on for 20 to 30 minutes. It’s best if Kurt doesn’t leave his stall, or he can walk out of the bags. I wipe off the cream from his hairline in the summer.

One note: I would not use comfort boots for this. Wet feet and comfort boots wind up creating ulcers on the horse’s heels. Some soaking boots will work, and we did that for a few days initially, but I didn’t want Kurt destroying his soaking boots walking around.

Kurt getting a mani-pedi on April 15, 2025.

Analyzing what we do in general to horses’ feet

Wetness: I see websites that suggest dry feet can be moistened by soaking a horse’s feet for 15 to 30 minutes per day. Does taking a shower every day make a human’s skin more moist? No. It dries out the skin. Same for a horses’ feet unless you add moisturizer afterward and make sure it stays there. Farriers often complain about horses going from wet paddocks to shavings and back again all day, saying that it is a bad combination for creating overly dry hooves.

Shavings: Most horses, especially mine, stand in shavings a lot. Kurt tends to stand in his shavings from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the summer, though he walks out in his pasture for chunks of time. After 7 p.m., he goes out to graze overnight and stays out most of the night with the exception of a nap around 4 a.m. in his shavings. He picks that schedule. I don’t make him do anything. The shavings are doing what they are supposed to do. It’s just a bit of overkill having a horse stand in moisture-drawing shavings so much.

Dry weather: When it rains now in the Midwest, where we are, it really rains. The rest of the time, it’s really dry. Continuing weather challenges mean my treatment for Kurt’s dry hooves has to be sustainable. I am willing and able to apply cream and bags. It’s not something I dread every day. And Kurt doesn’t run off when I show up with my stuff, even though I don’t halter him and he can run off now.