Hello everyone. New user here. There seem to be a lot of smart people here so I thought someone might know this. I know some horses need to have shoes and some don not. I am curious to know if there is any research as to whether shoes have an effect on longevity in soundness, in horses that work a lot and do not.
I am thinking that shoes provide support, but they are also very restrictive and hold a foot together and do not allow the foot to continually expand as they were meant to. To me it seems that would cause some damage over time.
Why are you asking? Is there a specific problem you need to solve for your horse, or is this general info, or for a school project?
What level of research do you require? Most peer reviewed research is behind a subscription paywall but if you have access to a college library database you can run a search on the topic.
However there is a lot of probably more useful discussions on all the barefoot websites. I couldn’t possibly recap it all here, but yes, many horses do very well barefoot with the right trim and perhaps hoof boots for extra protection.
If you find shoes restrictive, perhaps you need to ask Farrier if they can use less nails and put them towards the toe. Not nailing in the quarters will allow the hoof movement needed, not restrictive at all. Look at a freshly removed shoe. You should see a shiny area from the quarters back to the heel, where moving hoof wall has kept shoe polished as the horse moves himself around daily.
Toe sides of hooves is thicker walled, not flexible like the quarters, so it makes a good place for nailing. Often a Farrier can get away with only using 4 nails in a shoe, which does keep it on in work.
Done right, keeping a horse shod is not restrictive to the hoof, nor does shoe interfere with motion in his work to shorten his working life. You need to learn to seperate fact and fiction in the “informational materials” being presented to you by barefoot “experts or specialist shoers” who may specialize in only certain shoeing styles. They have an agenda to promote, want to sell this type thinking to you and make money.
A good Farrier should be able to trim well, fit keg shoes to the hoof, make special shoes for the horse who needs them. They will have a variety of skills to do what the horse needs done for best results. Most will have a forge because it makes shaping iron so much easier, to fit horse whatever way is needed. Horse SHOULD NOT need recovery time to quit being lame after a trim or new shoes. You should be able to ride immediately after Farrier is finished. Trimmed correctly, there should not need to be any “transition time” from shoe removal to being used barefoot. Some horses may be thin soled naturally, can’t tolerate any rocks or hard dirt if left barefoot. Those horses need hoof protection that shoes provide. You can’t leave them in boots very long, it will cause rubs, soften hooves too much. Putting boots off and on daily can be time consuming, some horses are very hard to fit boots on and keep them on.
I have never had a horse be negatively impacted by wearing shoes continually for 20 years. More damage comes from non qualified practitioners who put them on.
Google “research studies on shoes for horses”. and you will get a bunch of hits. Just be sure you read the studies from scholarly links and not someone’s blog opinion.
from my perspective there’s a time to let the horse be barefoot and a time for the horse to wear shoes. The formula is more complex than the inner workings of each hoof.
One thing is for sure, the common sense of the owner to do the right thing for the horse, predicated upon the horse’s health or work, is key.
When I was trail riding, my horses were in shoes — plain and simple, no arguments. None of them were ever lame. I can’t ride anymore so they are mostly barefoot. I say “mostly” because my foundered horse was in aluminum rocker shoes for eleven months, under the vet’s care and using the vet’s farrier. He is back to barefoot and doing very well.
Traditionally, when I was riding, shoes came off in late Fall and didn’t go back on until the mud was done sucking the boots off our human feet in the Spring. That didn’t mean I didn’t ride, I simply rode close to home and not in terrain that I knew could sore the horse up.
A time and place for everything, don’t overthink barefoot vs. shoes, do what’s right for each horse’s hoof health
I’m not asking for any specific reason. Just curious. I guess it’s similar to wearing shoes for people. Does it help or hurt more in the long run. It just seems that metal holding a foot together would be an issue.
I’m thinking more like Lippizanners who are doing the high level work into their 30’s. I think a major factor in that is that they don’t even start them until six, giving the bones time to close before stressing them. I doubt there is a real study that could point to that, but it makes sense. It’s hard to see how much time you can give a horse soundness on the back end by starting them later, but it seems to make sense. So, it seems to make sense barefoot would do the same.
It’s not an issue with a specific horse, but a philosophical discussion.
It’s more a technical discussion than a philosophical one. Philosophy is based on first premises. Technology is based on science. Philosophy is based on core values or beliefs. Science is based on information.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a discussion on horse shoes based on values or beliefs. As with all health care issues human and equine I want to base my discussion on science and information. Ideally that is peer reviewed research but since funding is thin for horse research (compared to humans or even dogs or cattle) I am also willing to accept the accounts of skilled practitioners. Note I say skilled, not batshit crazy outliers.
Technology is the applied use of scientific principles. So for instance what we know about the correct alignment of the coffin bone or the progress of laminitis from clinical studies can be applied when your farrier trims and shapes the hoof.
I am happy to participate in discussions about how to fix specific problems in horse’s feet, since I always learn something. Barefoot works for my current horse, with boots as backup, and at this point I doubt I’d take on a horse that needed shoes. I am learning to rasp between trims.
But like everyone else on this forum I don’t really have much appetite for a philosophical discussion of hoof care.
As far as the issue of when the bone plates completely close, I believe there is peer reviewed research available on that, as it’s easy to study and of general interest across disciplines.
If you can get access to a campus with a vet school you could search the library databases and download this kind of thing.
Scribbler, you are right. I used the wrong term. It is a technical discussion, not a philosophical one. I was just writing in a hurry.
Your mention of rasping between trims is along the lines of what got me thinking about this. Mine is barefoot and I trim him. This time of year it’s about every three weeks, but I do them whenever needed. That’s what got me thinking of this, because I think it’s best to trim them this often as needed, and horses with shoes rarely do this. It seems a much better option.
And, I am aware of the bone growth studies, particularly the Ranger study by De Bennett. I think it is something every horseperson should read. That is the process I was going through while thinking of this.
I am not going to download studies as I am not that into looking this up and probably wouldn’t understand it enough to be useful. I just think it’s an interesting discussion.
I don’t really see how taking off shoes for 3-4 months helps feet. If they are detrimental, that is not enough time to change anything. If they aren’t detrimental, why does the horse need a “break” from shoes?
There are lots of horses that would be uncomfortable by being barefoot in the winter. It depends on where you live, climate, terrain, how they are kept, their workload, and then of course - the horse’s feet themselves. Applying any sort of “shoes off for the winter” to all horses makes no sense whatsoever.
Yes, shoes are generally beneficial to horses in work, when applied by a competent farrier. Many horses stay sound without shoes, however no evidence has ever suggested those horses would be LESS sound WITH correctly applied shoes. On the other hand there’s many many many horses which couldn’t be sound WITHOUT shoes. So shoes are either beneficial or neutral. Barefoot is either neutral or bad. Clearly shoes are the safe choice. Again, ONLY when applied by a competent farrier. Then again an incompetent farrier will mess up a barefoot horse just as badly.
Where did you get this idea of the hoof “expanding” being some vital function? If you mean expanding as it grows, horses feet must be trimmed every 5 - 8 weeks for this reason-- regardless of if they have shoes or not. A horse without shoes may be able to be trimmed on the longer side of that range, if their turn out and/or work wears their feet down, but they still need to be trimmed every few weeks. If you mean “expanding” like with each step, the hoof wall is like a horn, it doesn’t expand with each step. The soft fleshy area in the middle of the sole called the frog is affected by stepping/the ground (idk if you’d call it “expanding” though), however that area isn’t covered by shoes (except in some limited corrective shoeing situations).
I don’t know if it’s what sparked your question, but there’s a lot of gimmicky junk science out there about “natural barefoot feet” and “trimming horses like mustangs”. That is stupid. Why? The premise is mustangs have the ideal, natural feet… so the best thing for OUR horses is to trim there feet to look like that. Only… mustangs don’t get their feet trimmed. So inherent in that flawed idea is the admission that clearly what works for mustangs doesn’t work for “pet” horses, because what works for mustangs is NOT having their feet trimmed. So those farriers are already obviously wrong because they’re already hypocritically not following nature.
“Pet” horses don’t live in nature. Mustangs don’t live in stalls or soft grassy paddocks. Mustangs have been shaped by natural selection to have a rugged hoof which can handle traveling many miles a day over rocky terrain. 95% of “pet” horses would be crippled and die if they had to do that. “Pet” horses don’t live wild lives, and part of us domesticating them is that we have the responsibility to make sure what we act them to do, they can do comfortably and with protection from injury and pain. And that’s exactly why we put shoes on them.
My farrier has a great BLM cadaver hoof with the coffin bone penetrating the sole. Feral mustangs with bad feet die. Or are killed. Natural selection isn’t the same as “natural feet.” LOL.
@Mathilda - Actually horses’ hooves are remarkably flexible. Under loading work (ie. gallop) the hoof can widen by half an inch on impact. It used to be thought that frog pressure acted like a blood pump in the hoof. New research suggests the expansion under weight is the driver of increased blood flow in the hoof as the expansion and contraction acts like a pump.
I’m in a position to observe the effects of optimal shoeing and barefoot, and suboptimal.
I agree horses with optimal care thrive under either system.
The problems associated with suboptimal care are however different.
Barefoot horses are IME more prone to abscess and perhaps to flare, and IME not that many get gravel crunching tough here in the wet PNW. So it had to be barefoot plus boots to be effective for trail riding.
Neglected bare feet can splay and crack as the hoof starts to try to self trim.
Shod horses are more prone to getting long toes, under run heels, and contracted heels, and also full blown thrush.
The barefoot people see “subclinical” or imaginary thrush everywhere and are continually running around with spray bottles of apple cider vinegar but when I got a whiff of real thrush in a shod horse with contracted heels I realized I’d never seen or more precisely smelt anything like this.
A shoe can support more under run heel and long toe than a bare foot, and suboptimal trimming and shoeing can perpetuate this. I see enough horses in work with this to agree it’s probably the number one problem bsre foot trimmers try to address. But I also agree it’s about bad shoeing, not shoeing per se.
That said I also figure that if you can make barefoot work, which will probably require front boots and your own rasp, it is cheaper quieter and less invasive than shoeing, and worth considering.
That’s really interesting! I’ll admit I was under the impression the frog did indeed help blood/lymph flow in the leg (although I know it’s also primarily a source of “traction” or “grip”). I’m curious, does the use of shoes interfere with the flexibility of the feet? Always thrilled to learn something new.
Horses are more than their bones, have a whole passel of different tissues that are growing and adapting as they grow and mature.
There are some studies lately that show that horses that were started earlier than 6, to take your figure, in fact as 2 year olds, were more sound for longer than those started later.
One reason, their bodies grew all along being tuned up for the task at hand, that is being a riding horse and doing what their task/discipline would require of them, an adaptation which in the end keeps a body more sound.
Think about a kid that grows up going to school and then to the mall with friends and at home sitting on the couch and playing video games.
Then another kid that is out there training for football and basketball and track and gymnastics and riding horses.
Now take both kids as they turn 20 years old and start training to become a pro sports player, which will be their job in life from now on.
Which one do you think will be more apt to learn fast, be good and stay sound?
Similar with horses, one started in training early will have adapted the work ethic to train happily and have the body that is growing into the required athlete we demand of our riding horses.
Horses are a domesticated species we bred, raise and use for our own human purposes, some of those are better served with horses bred and managed for those uses.
How we manage horse’s hooves is part of that, many by trimming, others by all kinds of hoof protection, most of those shoes of all kinds.
If and how we apply shoes will depend on what the horse in question is and what it’s task demands.
By the way, there are videos out there showing how shoes, under the rather large weight of a horse landing, do bend and spread some.
Shoes are not as rigid and restricting as some may think when holding a shoe in their hand.
This is the idea of what I was thinking about. I wonder who much difference there is between a barefoot and a shod horse. I’m not saying in any away a horse should be one way or another. And I’d imagine every climate has it’s issues. I can imagine if’s very difficult to deal in very wet climates.
And I never suggested not doing anything with horses under 5 or 6. There are many ways horses can be trained and get in condition without the stress of a rider. I think an ideal situation would have horses moving quite a bit every day to get from place to place with steep hills and varied terrain for all of the conditioning. There is a place I know of that rehabs horses with hoof issues that I love. They take off the shoes with the close monitoring of a farrier, and feed about a mile out in a pasture way up a hill, and the water is back in at the barn with sand all around it and varied terrain in between. I like the concept and thing the idea is sound.
It’s an interesting discussion all around. There are always so many factors involved in everything I don’t know that i an clear correlation, but it’s always a good thing to thing about.
To add to what Bluey said, research has shown that as little as 5-10 repetitions of a stressor can trigger the body to build the strength and structure to handle that stress.
With my last foal I started jogging him up and down the gravel driveway everyday when he was about ten months old. This continued for the summer, fall, stopped for winter and started again the next spring. That horse has the thickest, toughest soles I have ever seen on a horse and the very thick walls to match. Is it genetics? Not entirely. I triggered the strengthening by providing the stress at a time when his body was growing and adapting to the environmental stresses. His genetics took care of the rest.
The rehab place is probably using good principles for rehabbing horses, particularly those whose problems were exacerbated by bad shoeing, or actually I should say bad trimming under the shoeing.
Most horses are fine barefoot in a pasture. And from what I’ve seen a skilled trimmer can rehab a founder or navicular case to at least the same degree as a corrective shoeing farrier, in some cases more.
Especially as I ve said if the problem was made worse by bad shoeing.
But this still doesn’t give us any data on whether horses perform better barefoot or shod, short term and long term.
Many endurance riders choose barefoot plus hoof boots. I’m not sure if any head out on a 20 mile ride actually barefoot.
The arena sports do not allow hoof boots so if you are barefoot you are at the mercy of the footing. At lower levels this is not going to be a problem for a very solid barefoot horse, but at the upper levels the stakes are higher and the work more demanding. Eventers also want studs in their shoes for turf.
and are continually running around with spray bottles of apple cider vinegar 