My mare just got switched to bar shoes for her heel pain (vet wouldn’t call it navicular) and I was wondering if I can still ride her in the snow this winter. Do bat shoes make it more slippery? Does anyone else do it successfully?
So any shoes are slippery in winter snow/ice. Your farrier should be able to put borium on to reduce the slickness. The big problem with bar shoes is that they will snowball even worse than regular shoes. In that situation, I would ask for snowball pads – not the rim pads, but the ones with the popper in the middle. (these will work only with regular or egg bars, not heartbars)
My horse has been in bar shoes for years. My farrier puts snow rim pads on as well as little studs. ( I don’t know what they are called). He does great all winter in this setup. BTW- the little stud things are always on his shoes since there is a lot of pavement around our barn. And he is clumsy AF.
I have used rim pads with bar shoe, as well as the small inserted studs. Borium has a difficulty in that applying it exactly evenly to each branch is critical and difficult. This would be of importance to a horse with heel problems. All pain in the foot is not necessarily navicular. MRI’s have been very instrumental in demonstrating this.
We also use the drive-in ice studs, for good grip under shod horses in winter. Ours all wear the snow rim pads for keeping feet clean of ice build-up. The ice studs grip very well, even on sheet ice. Borium is not as good of a grip in winter weather, we quit using it once the ice studs were available.
They only protrude a little more than the drive-in pin studs used for traction during warm weather. So we are not talking hulking caulks on shoes, just small grippy stud with a soft metal collar that wears down to keep the studs sharp.
Our horses are shod year around, wearing either the drive-in pin studs or the drive-in ice studs for tractions. Thay grip very well, but don’t stop the hoof hard, leaving leg to take the stopping force like the Borium or Drill-Tek add ons to shoes for traction.
Those bubble pads will collect mud and stones under them, so the bubble is not effective in “popping” anymore for snow removal in the shoe center. Horse is standing on a hard dirt pack, between sole of hoof and bubble pad. Not comfortable.
We really like the snow rim pads with the tube that flexes to remove snow, ice, dirt out of the shod hoof in freezing weather.
