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February 2008 • VOLUME 30 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Our thanks to City of Houston Police Force, Greg Sokoloski and the Horses Hoof for their permission to reprint this article. "We would be delighted. Horses For Life is a beautiful magazine. It would be an honor to be in the The Horses Hoof and Horses for Life. If we can add anything or help with more info, please call me." Greg Sokoloski, Police Officer City of Houston Texas Special Operations Mounted Patrol
Barefoot is normal. To some this sounds unusual. To the Houston Police officers and their assigned police horses, barefoot police horses are now normal.
A lot has happened since I was asked to write the first and second articles for Yvonne and TheHorsesHoof.com (see THH issues 18 and 20). The Houston Police Dept. now has 29 barefoot police horses, and 7 still in metal shoes. It has been a long journey, but an educational and beneficial journey for the horses, officers, and myself. We understand the hoof and the horse much more than in years past. With that education, we have continued to put much healthier and happier horses on the streets of Houston to do police work.  In the three years since the barefoot program was started, we have gone from 1 barefoot horse to 29, attended hundreds of events, functions, protests, parades, demos, and spent thousands of hours patrolling the streets and parks of Houston. The biggest issue with all the horses has been thrush. We currently have 3 acres of land for 36 horses, so turnout is very minimal, and pasture is non-existent. This will change, as ground will be broken in Jan. 2008 for the new Houston Police Department Mounted Patrol facility. We will have 12 acres and a state of the art barn, all designed for the comfort and care for the horses. Turnouts will be much better—the horses will have access to 50-foot runs off each stall, along with multiple grass pastures for additional turnout. We currently have three trimmers: Officer Danny Pryor, Officer Scott Berry, and myself. Both Officers Berry and Pryor are undertaking their certifications with the NHCP and should start their mentorships with Eddie Drabek at the end of July. The City of Houston is working on adding a fourth trimmer in the future. This demonstrates the police department’s commitment to the horses and the barefoot program.  All officers and supervisors who are assigned a barefoot horse will have hoof boots assigned to them. The boots we currently use are the Hoofwings, Old Mac’s, Old Mac’s G2, and Boas. The boot companies EasyCare (Garret Ford), and Horsesneakers (Frank and Mary Orza) have been instrumental in making sure all our horses have hoofboots. Hoofboots are only used when the officer or supervisor deems them necessary. The majority of the time, the horses will go out barefoot. These photos were taken to demonstrate all the different types of terrain we encounter every day. Chance is one of the new horses, and he is a 10-year-old Quarter Horse gelding ridden by Lieutenant Randy Wallace and donated by Virginia Sabia, herself a natural trimmer. Chance is barefoot and not wearing any hoofboots. We start off in a gravel parking lot, up and down grassy knolls, up and down concrete walkways, over wooden bridges, up and down stairs, over and back up high ledges, on asphalt roads, up and down pavers, over metal gratings and back onto the downtown streets of Houston. We hear all the time from citizens that their horses cannot go barefoot, because of the different terrain, or cannot handle this surface or that surface; however, that has not been the case for us. These photos demonstrate what we encounter on a daily basis. We prove day in and day out that a barefoot horse is just as capable, has much better traction, will not wear his hooves down, and is quite comfortable doing it 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, and sometimes even longer, barefoot. 
Another issue citizens discuss with us is the question, “Who do we pattern our trims after, Martha Olivo, Paul Chapman, Pete Ramey, etc…?”
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