Blame my clients for this one.
The Hoof Co was never part of some grand business plan.
There was no boardroom. No five year strategy. No beautifully colour coded spreadsheet predicting the future of Australian horse hoof care.
Long before The Hoof Co existed, I was already well and truly down the horse health rabbit hole.
Before hoof care became my main focus, I worked as an equine therapist. That work made me increasingly interested in what was happening at ground level. I kept seeing how much influence the feet could have on what was happening further up the horse.
At the same time, I had my own barefoot horses and wanted to compete in endurance with them. So I studied hoof care. I wanted to understand hoof anatomy, hoof form and function, and how management, environment and movement all influenced what I was seeing.
My first cadaver trim, at one of the earliest hoof care workshops held in Australia. Back when mobile phones were a luxury item the size of a brick. (hence the photo quality)
I went on to compete successfully in endurance with my own horses, both barefoot and, when needed, in hoof boots.
That interest led me further down another rabbit hole.
Hoof boots.
I became one of Australia's first mobile hoof boot fitters, travelling to fit boots to horses ranging from everyday pleasure horses to the Sydney Mounted Police. Yes, this also involved trimming horses and advising owners on the nuances of boots - which ones were right for their horse and which ones weren't (depending on their intended use).
Sydney Mounted Police all fitted out with Easycare Old Macs during my hoof boot fitting days 2007, long before The Hoof Co existed.
And all of that happened before my son was born.
He's 18 now.
So yes. I've been learning from hooves for a long time.
2010 Equitana working with Easycare Down Under - assisting Mike Ware and Garrett Ford (owner of Easycare USA).
From there came the continued years of professional hoof care.
Head down. Bum up. Hooves in my hands.
Very glamorous.
And I loved the challenging rehab cases.
And when you spend that much time underneath horses, you see a lot. Different environments. Different hoof shapes. Different management. Wet years. Dry years. Horse owners doing everything right and still feeling completely stuck. And plenty of hooves that make you stare at them for a while and think: well. That's interesting.
The longer I worked with hooves, the more my clients started asking me the same sort of questions.
What would you put on that? Can I have some of whatever you're using from your kit?
Can you mix something up for me?
So I did.
I started making small batches for the horses I was already working with. Nothing fancy. There was no marketing strategy. No product launch. No master plan to create an Australian hoof care brand. I was simply trying to give my clients something practical they could use between professional visits that would help their horses hooves.
Then COVID happened, and a few months in, the world got considerably smaller.
We had moved from semi-rural Sydney to the Southern Highlands about a year before. My clients were still based back in Sydney, a trip of at least ninety minutes before I even started work for the day. When COVID changed how we could all move, that became far less possible.
But honestly, travel was the least of it.
Around the same time, two of my horses got sick.
Australia had just come through a devastating drought. Then came the Black Summer bushfires that tore through the country across 2019 and into 2020 and across the back of our farm, the kind that stopped everyone in their tracks and left a mark that hasn't fully gone. Then COVID. Then Tilly. Then Beau.
It was a lot. For everyone. But particularly for anyone living with livestock and horses through all of it.
Tilly was a grey mare. Ten years old. Greys carry a higher risk of melanoma, and when she started showing signs something was wrong, we ran tests. The results were devastating. She was riddled with internal tumours. We lost her at ten years old. It crushed me.
Tilly with her best friend Beau - her last day with us.
Then came Beau.
Beau was my beautiful retired endurance horse. He had carried me through some of the most significant years of my hoof care journey and also for many thousands of km's of great trails and adventures.
I thought he had a loose tooth. When the vet arrived and looked in his mouth, the first thing he said was: "I've never seen anything like it, Julie."
Embedded deep in his mouth was a fist-sized tumour. No warning, no signs.
We loaded up and travelled to Wagga Wagga Uni for a full assessment, arriving the week before Christmas, right in the middle of the specialist vets clocking off for the year. But we got there. We got our assessment. And then we got the news.
We tried medication to reduce it based on the test results. For a period, Beau needed checks four times a day, daily medication and multiple soft feeds. I was there for every single one.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I went into his stable, sat down on the ground and cried. Not politely. Big, wailing sobs. The kind that come when you have been staying strong for too long and there is simply nothing left to hold back.
Horse people stay strong. Until we don't. That feeling of hopelessness when you know there is now nothing you can do but the kindest thing for the animals in your care.
Home was where I needed to be. The clients in Sydney understood. The long drives stopped. And the website, the products, the cosmetic formulating I had been studying, the thing I had built almost by accident, quietly became something more. I needed a big distraction from my grief. I needed to be "home" and concentrate on my own horses and family whilst still supporting people with hoof care farther afield.
So I did something I was spectacularly unqualified to do.
I built a website.
I use the word "built" very generously. My technical ability at the time sat somewhere between "turn it off and back on again" and "where the hell did that button go?"
The products went online anyway.
And then something happened I genuinely wasn't expecting.
People bought them.
Not just my existing clients. Horse owners I had never met started ordering. Some had heard about the products from friends. Others had seen them being used. Some had simply been pointed in our direction by another hoof-obsessed human or their farrier.
That was probably the first moment I realised the little side project might actually have legs and I'd have to keep up.
There were many days spent at the formulating bench (yes, I now had an official "lab" - up in the back shed now) and late nights packaging products. Trips to the post office in between school bus drops and renovating an old farm. And of course, this now "semi-retired" hoof pro now had to learn how to tech.
I look back now and know that my passion for hoof care kept me going through those hectic times. Friends and family didn't understand but my customers, feedback and conversations with owners all over Australia kept me going (along with a certain stubborn streak I know I have).
Call it stubborn, call it bloody-minded - either way, I've never been much good at walking away from a hoof I think I can fix, or an owner who needs help getting their horse's hooves back on track. So here we are.
The way we make products today looks very different from those early batches made for clients and the initial web store. But where the ideas begin hasn't changed at all.
They start with the hoof.
(These days that's grown to include the rest of the horse too - more on that in a second.)
When we develop a new Hoof Co product, I begin with the product brief. What area of the hoof is it intended for? What do I want the finished product to do? What texture makes sense? How does it need to behave in real-world conditions? What ingredients do I want considered or avoided? and more importantly, what have our customers been asking for.
From there, we work with qualified cosmetic formulators to turn that brief into a finished formulation. Our products are then professionally manufactured in Australia through our manufacturing partners.
But formulation is only part of the process.
Every trial batch gets put through its paces on our own horses first. If we're happy with it, samples then head out to trusted farrier and hoof care teams across Australia for real-world feedback. They use it. Question it. Tell us what they like. Tell us what they don't. And sometimes send us straight back to the drawing board.
Then we tweak. Test again. Refine.
Only after all of that does a product make it into a jar or bottle carrying The Hoof Co name.
Somewhere along the way, that same process crept beyond the hoof. Customers kept asking - year after year, ingredient after ingredient - until it stopped making sense to say no.
There was a bit of a lightbulb moment in there too. The more I learned through cosmetic formulating, the more I started noticing exactly what I didn't want anywhere near my own horses' skin - especially for the crusty, itchy skin issues every yard deals with sooner or later. I also started noticing how much of what's on the market is mostly water, barely concentrated enough to do much at all.
Mud Suds Charcoal & Aloe Shampoo is a good example - same brief process, same trial and feedback loop, just aimed a little further up the leg.
12 months + from conception to approval - yes, that's what it takes - minimum.
That process matters to us. Because a formula can look wonderful on paper. We want to know how it behaves when put through it's paces in all weather conditions.
Then comes the regulation considerations (for Australia and further afield), labelling, insurances and approvals.
None of that is cheap, and none of it is optional to us. Nobody warns you that running a hoof care brand means becoming fluent in insurance and compliance paperwork. Very glamorous. But it's the part that means when your horse touches a Hoof Co product, we've backed it properly, not just made it and hoped for the best.
Somewhere along the way, I also had to accept something fairly obvious. I couldn't do all of this alone.
The Hoof Co is now a team. We have a small in house crew keeping the wheels turning, along with a wider network of hoof care professionals, farriers and horse owners who work directly with us. They test. Question. Give feedback. Share what they're seeing. And help keep what we do firmly grounded in the real world.
I actually feel a little awkward being the person in the spotlight. I'm much happier behind the scenes working on products, banging on keyboards and talking hooves. But I also understand that if you're going to trust a business with your horse's hoof care, you deserve to know who is behind it, where it came from and what drives it.
That's why I'm telling you this.
Not because The Hoof Co is about me. Because it isn't. It's about horses, their people, and making hoof care easier.
The Hoof Co has grown a lot from those first little batches being handed to clients at trims. We now supply horse owners, hoof care professionals and retailers with Australian made hoof care products designed for different parts of the hoof and different everyday hoof care needs.
But the reason behind the business is still remarkably similar.
Horse owners often know something doesn't look right long before they know what to do about it. They can be overwhelmed by conflicting advice. They can feel stuck. And sometimes they just need someone to help them understand what they're actually looking at.
That part has never really changed.
Neither has my fascination with hooves. There is always something else to learn. Something else to question. Something else that makes you crouch underneath a horse staring at its foot for longer than is probably socially acceptable.
And that curiosity now runs through the wider The Hoof Co team as well.
So no, The Hoof Co products weren't dreamed up in a boardroom.
The business grew from years spent working with horses, studying hooves, fitting hoof boots, listening to clients, trialling products and trying to solve practical hoof care problems - to make life easier for horse owners dealing with them.
The little batches got bigger. The kitchen-style beginnings became professional cosmetic formulation and contract manufacturing. The client testing group became a national network. And the questionable website eventually became slightly less questionable.
But underneath all of it is still the same idea: help horse owners understand their horses' hooves and make everyday hoof care a little easier.
So if you've ever wondered where The Hoof Co came from...
Blame my clients. They started it.
And somewhere along the way, an awful lot of horses, hoof care professionals, farriers, formulators, customers and staff helped turn it into what it is today.
Still built from the hoof up.
Usually with someone bent in half.
Probably covered in hoof funk.
And quite possibly sporting a nice bit of horse slobber down the back of their shirt.
Still very glamorous.
The Hoof Co is an Australian hoof care brand founded by Julie Wright, a professional hoof care practitioner and equine therapist with over 20 years of experience working with horses. The Hoof Co develops and supplies Australian-made hoof care products for horse owners, hoof care professionals and retailers across Australia and beyond.
The Hoof Co was founded by Julie Wright (Dip. EPT, Cert. EMT), a qualified equine therapist and professional hoof care practitioner. Julie began her hoof care career competing in endurance with her own barefoot horses before becoming one of Australia's early mobile hoof boot fitters and spending years in professional hoof care. The Hoof Co grew directly from her work with clients and their horses.
The Hoof Co products are Australian made, manufactured through professional contract manufacturing partners in Australia. Each product is developed in collaboration with qualified cosmetic formulators and trialled on horses before release, including real world testing with farriers and hoof care professionals across the country.
Every Hoof Co product begins with a detailed product brief developed by Julie Wright, based on hoof care needs she has observed working with horses. The brief is handed to qualified cosmetic formulators who work alongside the Hoof Co to develop the formulation, which is then manufactured in Australia. Trial batches are tested on The Hoof Co's own horses first, then sent to a network of trusted farriers and hoof care professionals for in the field feedback before any product is finalised.
Yes. The Hoof Co is an Australian business, founded in Australia, with products developed and manufactured in Australia. The business grew from Julie Wright's professional hoof care work across the country and is supported by a team and network of hoof care professionals based in Australia.
Julie Wright
Founder, The Hoof Co
Dip. EPT, Cert. EMT
Hoof Care Professional
Over 20 years under the horse
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