Jaime Jackson was born along the Southern California coast near San Diego in 1947. At the end of the Korean War (1953), his family moved north to the Long Beach -- Huntington Beach area, where he grew up. This was a time before freeways latticed the greater Southland, and much of Orange County and southern Long Beach was still rural farmland. Jackson recalls:
     "I grew up playing in the fields and swimming in the nearby ocean. I remember in the late 1950s when great armies of tractors and heavy equipment arrived to level the farms and build housing tracts and shopping centers where crops once prospered and country serenity prevailed. Quiet beaches, too, gave way to endless traffic congestion and crowds of people when the 405 interstate reached Fountain Valley. It is hard to imagine the past given the present."
     After finishing high school, Jackson left the southland for San Francisco -- and college. In 1968, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, emerging alive and a civilian again in early 1970. "My plans after the military were to complete my science studies at U.C. Berkeley and then attend medical school at the University of San Francisco Medical Center. But by 1972, I decided against that life career and slowly turned towards a life outdoors. This was cemented when I became acquainted with a local (Bay Area) farrier, who introduced me to horses. Several years later, I found myself owning my horses, riding every day, and shoeing for others."
     In 1977, Jackson befriended fellow shoer Leslie Emery, co-author of a new book called Horseshoeing Theory and Hoof Care, which greatly influenced Jackson's direction as a professional. Emery's work pointed the direction to the wild horse as a "model" for humane hoof care. In 1982, Jackson entered the U.S. Great Basin to begin observations of wild horses living there, including studies of their feet at the BLM's Litchfield Corrals near Susanville, California. Jackson's research spanned four years, 1982-1986, sandwiched in between his shoeing practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jackson and Emery later jointly presented Jackson's findings at the 1988 Annual Conference of the American Farriers Conference in Lexington, Kentucky. By 1990, Jackson decided to end his career as a shoer, convinced that "shoeing was not only harmful, but unnecessary in a world where horses are no longer necessary, but have become recreational and companion animals." He became America's first NHC practitioner and advocate.
     In 1992, Jackson's first book discussing his wild horse studies and applications, The Natural Horse: Lessons From The Wild, was published by Northland Publishing in Arizona. Also, during the 1990s, Jackson wrote many articles on NHC for the American Farriers Journal. Speaking engagements were also numerous, including the 1995 "Paradigm of the Natural Horse" presentation at the Laminitis Bluegrass Symposium in Louisville, Kentucky, which brought Jackson's message for the first time before an international audience of veterinarians, researchers, and farriers. In the late 1990s, Jackson opened the doors worldwide to the benefits of NHC in his groundbreaking book, Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof Care. And in 2000, at the urging of horse owners who contacted him, Jackson spearheaded the creation of the American Association of Natural Hoof Care Practitioners (AANHCP), whose purpose was to train trimmers to do the "natural trim", educated horse owners and others, and advocate for humane horse care based on the wild horse paradigm. At the same time, he published the "Natural Hoof Care Advisor" from 1999 to 2001 to promote the new barefoot hoof care movement.