Have you tried either Durasole or Keratex hoof hardeners on him? There’s nothing better than a hard bare hoof.
I never was able to keep boots on my previous horse either. Haven’t tried them on this horse. I’m using Keratex instead.
Barefoot is not going to work with this horse on this terrain. He can’t even go in plain shoes behind without pads because this gravel is so bad. I have no other options unless I want to ride circles around the pasture (3/4 mile per figure 8, so highly boring). He has to be in shoes with pads or boots. Anything else is really just inhumane to him. We tried barefoot when he was younger and I lived on a road with small gravel, and it resulted in bruised soles that took weeks to resolve after one short ride.
I would also love to see pictures of the feet newly trimmed.
We ride in mountains , often crossing river beds many times, and our horses are not padded. I would suspect the horse has somewhat of a thin sole and maybe some distal decent.
My one mare has a very long stride, but has no problem with either the gloves and power strap or the Renegades staying on
You could try the glue ons, or maybe even Soleguard
Anyway, I’m just guessing, not seeing your horse, but do know it is sole thickess and concavity that makes a horse very barefoot able, and shod, such a horse has no problem with gravel
He has flat hooves. But I’ve ridden him through streams, over scattered rocks, up and down small ravines for 23 miles, barefoot. He was not lame. This gravel is a whole other ball game. The stuff is a few inches in diameter, jagged, and on top of a hard clay road. There are very few horses who can do much past a walk on this stuff and not be footsore. There is no way to avoid it short of never leaving the pasture. This isn’t normal footing for any horse. He has no problems going barefoot on typical footing. There is nothing wrong with his hooves aside from having little concavity, but he grew up on Florida sand. “Fixing” his trim or applying topical crap isn’t going to allow him to work barefoot on this surface.
HB I agree, keratex is great but won’t work for that.
I just got a pair of Old Macs and just took him on a 10 mile ride and went through a bog (no lie) that was knee deep sticky mud and those sucker stayed on. No rubs at the end of the day ether
I have a horse that over steps and rips off his front shoes too, and I finally found something that works 100% to protect his heel bulbs and keeps his front shoes on. They’re called Shoe Secures. http://www.shoesecure.com/Default.aspx. There is a list of dealers on their site - I’ve ordered them from Palm Beach Farrier supply and they shipped right away. Well worth the money! I remove them to ride my horse (we ride mostly in the arena) but they apparently make a “riding” version. Good luck.
