what kind of shoes do you use during competition season?
Aluminum St. Croix Eventers.
And full pads, regardless of the trail (sand, rock, dirt). No packing underneath.
I don’t shoe, but if I did, it would probably be in Eventers. My horses used to be in Eventers. The LD rider I rode with last weekend shoes in Eventers, and is thinking of switching to the aluminum ones.
I’m interested in trying Eponas if I can’t keep boots on my horse.
gtd
any particular reason you choose those?
They are beveled the entire rim of the shoe for easy breakover no matter how or where the foot falls. They are nicely designed, extremely lightweight, well fitted, wear extremely well, and the price is not at the top end of the scale for aluminum.
They are also easy to work with, and in good distribution so you can find them just about all the farrier supply places.
oh i like the fact that they’re beveled all around.
that’s a good reason in itself. i just looked at their website.
thanks for the suggestion!
I run cheap St Croix or Diamond #1 with rolled toes. I found aluminum after one week looked beat on the gravel and at 6 weeks fell off, nothing left.
If you run gravel or rock aluminum wears too quickly.
i’m not planning to leave the shoes on for 6 weeks.
i guess we’d do some gravel and rock but not all the time. do you think they’d last 4 weeks? i would like to go w/ the lightest shoe possible.
gtd, you’re in rocky VA, do you have issues with the aluminum St. Croix wearing too fast?
You can easily get 4 weeks out of a pair.
I can get 75 to 100 miles out of a pair, depending upon the surface abrasions. I completed several 2-day 100s at NJ on the sand, and still had about 30 miles of shoe left over. I can get 100 miles of out a pair at the OD, but they are pretty much finished at the end.
Aluminum does wear quickly, but the benefits are the super light weight metal mean the horse doesn’t even feel them on the feet. They allow the foot to travel a natural arc, and the leg to follow a natural stride.
Please remember, however, that I do my own shoeing, so I’m not held hostage by the whims of any other farrier… except myself. :winkgrin:
If you want to see how quickly a set can evaporate, check out the photo I uploaded to my endurance blog when I was “competing” in ridecamp’s VVMM (Very Virtual March Madness). All my ponies are shod in aluminum, and the set in the photos had been on Andy who is my back-up foxhunter. They had been put on in January, he hunted several times in February, then I started riding him 3-4x a week (7-15 miles each time) at the beginning of March, and finally replaced the shoes at the end of March.
I finished a total of 400 miles in March using all 5 of my ponies, did at least 1/2 of those miles on gravel roads…and Andy was the only one that needed a reset.
[QUOTE=gothedistance;3135367]
You can easily get 4 weeks out of a pair.
I can get 75 to 100 miles out of a pair, depending upon the surface abrasions. .[/QUOTE]
That would mean shoing every 2 weeks?? Is it worth it? I would worry about all the nail holes in the hoof wall.
Do you really think the difference between a lite steel shoe with increased wear and an aluminum shoe that wears out every 2 weeks is worth the trouble???
My old guy has 30,000 plus miles and 18 years of wear on him and never took a lame step and has worn steel all his life. I tried aluminum on my young horse and found a week before wear becomes too excessive not worth the trouble and yes I also do my own horses.
Only if you put that many miles on a horse every two weeks. So no – I shoe as needed, generally 4-5 weeks.
Is it worth it? I would worry about all the nail holes in the hoof wall.
You don’t punch new holes in the hoof every time – most new sets will go in the same holes through a re-set and they stay on tight. I’ve never, ever lost a shoe run through old holes. The hoof has to grow out before I’ll run a nail into fresh hoof.
Do you really think the difference between a lite steel shoe with increased wear and an aluminum shoe that wears out every 2 weeks is worth the trouble???
As I said, the shoes do not wear out in 2 weeks. And yes, there is a huge difference to the horse in lifting each foot, every minute, every hour of the day, day in and day out, with weight, or without weight.
My old guy has 30,000 plus miles and 18 years of wear on him and never took a lame step and has worn steel all his life. I tried aluminum on my young horse and found a week before wear becomes too excessive not worth the trouble and yes I also do my own horses.
My endurance horse is also 18, still competing, never took a lame step, has worn aluminum since I got him, and I had a highly respected vet at one endurance ride tell me that he’d never seen a horse move so beautifully. Same with my driving ponies – they all move with that floating hunter trot that isn’t hindered by pounds of steel nailed to their feet. I like mine to move naturally, even if it means I strap on my apron a bit more often.
As it is, you found what works for you. I found what works for me and mine. 
No my old guy is not 18 he has 18 years of running and is 24 this month. He was averageing 50 and more miles a week and often run 70 miles a week.
My new young guy often covers 40-45 miles in a weekend alone.
Today is the 9th I believe and he has run 7 times this month for about 70 miles in those 9 days.
I will have to weigh an aluminum shoe VS a steel saddle lite.
I am not a fan of NB shoes but sure like their protocall ,their way of trimming and moving the breakover back. I just don’t like the dubbed look of the foot so I rocker all my front shoes. I tried an experiment with aluminum shoes. I heated a shoe to 200 and tried working it, 300, 400, 500, 600 , 700 and finally at 800 it was easy to shape BUT it takes the temper out of the shoe and to age harden it is too time consuming. So if I wanted to rocker the toe I would have to heat it thus removeing what little hardness there is. I do believe in cutting the heels down, engaging the frog and moving the breakover back.
Steel rim shoes all around. Steel just holds up best, and the rim shoe gives grip. We’ve never had any problem with them. I know an endurance rider who says rim shoes contribute to lameness, but her horses slip on dry grass, ours don’t slip on wet grass. The guy who owned my big Anglo mare before ran her in these wierd, flimsy plastic shoes. But I know she had trouble with pulling them off, and had had some lameness issues. I ran her all last season in rim shoes and never pulled one and was never lame. That’s good enough for me. Her feet aren’t solid enough for plastic shoes, and I can’t afford them, or I would run her in Easy Walkers.
I use steel St. Croix eventers, because the aluminum won’t last 5-6 weeks for my horse, most shoeings. I like the eventers for the same reasons as GTD. I’ve been using them for years and years. But my current horses hav NB steel on their front feet. The youngster is so shortbacked/long legged that forging is an issue for him (as for many Arabs) and the NB helps a lot. My competitive horse just moves better and has a better alignment of his lower structures with the breakover point moved further back. Plus the extra nail holes allows more flexability for nail placement.
By the way, for those folks who use farriers that leave too much toe, a switch to NB shoes on the fronts will change that situation. The shoe will just force a removal of the excess toe, then your enthusiasm about your horse’s improve movement will very like open up your farrier’s mind to shoeing differently! I’ve used this ploy on two different farriers. I would insist on the shoes, even went so far as to buy them myself once, farrier grudgingly put them on and within a few months he’s using them on more and more horses. Same with the eventers. The young farrier that I used until he moved out of state was a roper and his wife rode barrel horses. He’d never used eventers or NB shoes. In no time at all he had eventers on their competition horses and he was using NB shoes on their old navicular horse.
Bonnie
thanks everyone!
i’m still waiting for the farrier to call me back to schedule an appointment. when he does i’ll ask him what he suggests and discuss the St. Croix w/ him.
We don’t as many miles as shadow14 so i don’ think we’ll have to worry about premature wear. weight on the other hand is a consideration. my mare was in NB shoes for about 3 months before we went barefoot. she had some lameness issues back then (i believe due to extremely contracted feet) and the new farrier we used was trying to make her feel better. i have to admit that they worked well for us back then although we didn’t do any serious riding outside of an arena.
another nice thing about the NB shoes is that they are wide shoes and extra wide at the toe. They offer more sole protection than the average shoe.
Bonnie
I’ve read in a few places that people like the Eponas much better than Easy Walkers. The farrier I work with said the crappiest, cheapest, and flimsiest shoes he’s ever nailed on a foot was Easy Walkers, but he does love the Eponas. He has had good luck with Eponas. They’re plastic but a harder shoe with more stability.
So anyway, that’s just his take on it. I have no experience with either, as my horses were always in NBs, or Eventers.
i looked at epona’s
also looked at slypner shoes.
i’m not sure if this farrier works w/ either product. if he does, i would have no objection at trying them, so long as they are not much heavier than aluminum shoes and so long as they don’t stick out around the hoof.
the main reason why we are trying the shoes for a ride is b/c she repeatedly tears off the right front hoof boot when she goes into her favorite extended trot (it’s almost like a trotter’s trot). she never had a problem keeping shoes on, so i’m thinking that it’s either the weight of the boots or the way they move her breakover (we’re trying to address that) that’s causing this problem. i’ve been fighting w/ this for a couple of years now and i’m really sick of entering rides only to have her rip the boot loose during the first loop. last weekend they were foamed on and she tore it off twice (once day before the ride during a hack and then during the first loop). if the boots have gaiters she ends up tearing the gaiter off from the boot (where the stitching is). i do the rides for fun and it’s just not fun if you’re constantly worried about her footwear;)
so we’re going to try the shoes but again, i think they need to be light and allow for a breakover all around b/c her right front grows out slightly crooked and she breaks over slightly to the outside.
Something no one has mentioned is traction! St. Croix eventers have the best traction, hands down, when it comes to shoes. They will get ahold of the ground and really minimize the sliding that happens with a standard flat bottomed steel shoe. I’ve ridden horses in plain shoes then in eventers on muddy slick ground and really felt the difference. You don’t realize how much your horse is slipping until you switch to eventers. Plus the improved break over all around the perimeter of the shoe allows the horse to move with more comfort.
Bonnie
I’ve looked at the slypner shoes and didn’t like them for a number of reasons that are too long a list to go into here.
Frankly, I think the St. Croix aluminum eventers are the ones you want. They are going to provide breakover wherever the horse wants it.
You might also tell the farrier not to have the heel of the shoe sticking out past the foot – I would probably even set it in just a fraction. It won’t hurt her hoof to have a tiny bit of overhanging the back of the shoe if it prevents her from catching the end of the shoe and ripping it.
I would also very definitely put her in bell boots! You can get the sport boots that are the anti-turn (they have a bump at the back that nestles into the back of the pastern) or just use the regular bells that velco at the front for ease of getting off and on. Anything that will put a barrier between her back hoof and her front hoof will help tremendously. I have two that have big strides and they will also catch and grab their front shoes. Both wear the sport bells – the shoes are protected and stay on. :yes:
You can also ask your farrier to snub the back toe, or put NB shoes on the back.
