Meet the Team
Lauren
After struggling for years with lameness issues on her show horse, a major life change led Lauren down the road towards empowering herself with hoof care knowledge. After successfully removing the shoes off her show horse and returning him to both soundness and his career, Lauren developed a reputation as a trimmer who could fix anything. For the first several years of her career, Lauren never saw a "normal" hoof; she was consistently being presented with the toughest pathologies and the most hopeless cases: from late stage navicular horses to founders so progressed that maggot therapy was implemented to handle the decaying tissues. Time and time again, horses that had been given up on were returning back to work and horse owners were becoming interested in what was so different about this "barefoot" method.
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​Despite experiencing a fair bit of success rehabbing horses at their own homes, Lauren knew there was a great need for a
facility who could provide these horses more of an "ICU" level of care to speed up their recovery. This inspired Lauren and her family to pack up, move to Tennessee, and thus Primarily Hooves was born. ​
With 40 years of experience owning horses and 23 years of experience in hoof
care​​, Lauren has amassed a treasure trove of wisdom and she is a born teacher. Whether it be lecturing at clinics or teaching an owner to trim in-person, Lauren has a gift in sharing her excitement for the miracle that is the equine hoof and students always walk away with a fire in their belly to learn more and dig deeper. Lauren is fascinated by the hoof's ability to heal itself, and this is an interest she shares deeply with her students.
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In 2015 Lauren had the opportunity to begin working directly with Dr. Robert Bowker on a navicular case at the facility, and this mentorship opened a whole new realm of continued education that has been completely invaluable. Over the past several years Dr. Bowker has been advising on facility rehab cases and has continued to deepen Lauren's understanding of hoof function, which she then continues to share with her students.
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Currently Lauren spends the vast majority of her time working intensely on the facility rehabs. Her interest in how the hoof can heal itself has lead to an even greater interest in how the body can heal itself, which has led Lauren down the path of alternative therapies. Between herbs, Equi-Tape, cold laser therapy, and physical manipulation/bodywork, Lauren is considerate in the time she takes with each horse, implementing whichever protocol she feels suits their specific need.
Danielle
As Lauren's daughter. Danielle has been raised in horses. Starting while still in middle school, Danielle would go on trim days all throughout the summer and hold horses for her mom. She learned how to trim young, and by the age of 12 she was trimming a large portion of the Primarily Hooves' herd. At 15 she became part of the business and began trimming for the public. Since then she has devoted her life and her studies to the continuation of understanding pathologies, what causes them, and the mechanism of healing.
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Danielle has a special passion for the physiology of the equine hoof, spending most of her free time trying to learn more about what creates disease vs. health. With this comes a deep fascination for the innervation of the hoof and how different stimuli create cause and effect.
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Like her mother, Danielle has spent the majority of her career correcting debilitating lamenesses such as navicular, founder, and laminitis. Through this she has developed an extra interest in prevention, as she has seen the process a horse goes through during rehabilitation, and her dream would be for no horse to ever have to experience chronic lameness, the effects, or the recovery process. This dream has inspired Danielle to create several forms of online educational content, as she realizes the greatest need is in areas where quality hoof care is slim. Many owners do not have access to a variety of hoof care professionals to choose from, and often they are stuck using whoever services their area, regardless of quality of work. Danielle aims to provide quality educational content so that these types of horse owners can become educated enough to be an advocate for their
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horse's hoof care, potentially stopping the progression of deformities before they affect quality of life for the horse and owner. Danielle wants to be able to equip horse owners with what they need to decide the health status of their horse's hooves, along with discernment to tell if they are receiving quality work by their hoof care professional.
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Online, Danielle runs a Facebook page where she chimes in on viral hoof care related posts, as well as a YouTube channel showcasing the behind-the-scenes of Primarily Hooves. Her passion project is her Patreon blog that she runs, sharing weekly educational articles ranging from different aspects of hoof care and how they relate to function, to nutrition, to husbandry. Danielle's hope is that the Patreon provides horse owners with what they need to be confident in taking charge of their horse's hoof care -- no longer feeling like a victim of circumstance, but being empowered to take control and make decisions that best benefit their individual horse.