Do you do it? My guy is 25 this year and has worn shoes all around since he was broke at 3 - bars up front since then too. He’s generally not ridden other than the occasional hack around the field.
I’m not generally in the habit of questioning my farrier, but I am beginning to question the sanity of 4 shoes on a retiree. I am ok with keeping the front shoes, but the hind too?
Meanwhile, I never get new shoes. Sigh.
It depends. On a horse that needs (?) bar shoes up front I probably wouldn’t go straight to barefoot, even retired. Is there a reason for the bars?
Honestly, I would ask your farrier if he thinks you could get away with pulling the hinds. If your pasture is fairly soft, not full of rocks or other hard objects that will hurt his tender feet then maybe give it a try, but keep an eye out for soreness and abscesses. Feet are pretty soft this time of year and a stone bruise could bring on an ugly abscess in a hurry.
Yo cost me more to shoe when he retired than he ever had in the previous 17 years.
When you age, change is hard.
Sometimes because of the great rides they gave us they need more support then they ever did.
I don’t think there are any absolutes, but would do anything judiciously and with input from Vet and farrier and the mindset that it might fail. Epically.
My horse is 25 and hardly retired, but she will most likely need all 4 the rest of her life. She might do ok without hinds, but she gets so sore in front. I think aging makes it harder, not easier, to cut back on shoeing.
Yeah, I am not even considering that the front shoes would come off - that would not be fair to him. I watched another boarder do that to her 30+ yr old retiree and I felt terrible for him.
I guess I just wanted the validation that I’m not the only crazy person spending more $ on a retired horse’s shoes than my other 2 put together :sadsmile:
My 24yo doesn’t wear shoes, but in the last 6 years of riding he only wore front shoes because of the rocky terrain where we fox hunted. It completely depends on the horse! If Jaguar seemed uncomfortable barefoot or my farrier thought he needed shoes, he’d have them.
My guy is 25, and he can never go without his shoes. He goes dead lame. So in my case, i have to keep him shod forever. Other horses might be ok. depends on their feet and how healthy the feet are.
When my mare gets to retirement age, my farrier thinks she will go fine without her hind shoes, but will probably need to keep her front shoes and pads – but would be willing to do a short trial barefoot to see how she does (he thinks the pads are the most important thing, but how do you have pads without shoes? I’d only try it if she’s living on soft ground.
My teenaged pony mare loves her softie shoes too (2 degree leather pads up front). This thread is well timed as I’ve been trying to figure out whether she will need shoes when retired (in rocky New England I’m thinking I can’t take away the fronts with pads, at least…)
My pampered mostly-TB mare amazed me by the ease with which she transitioned first to fronts only, then to no shoes at all. I’d give at least hind-less a try.
My 27 and 26 year olds both have and will wear front shoes. I tried them barefoot but they never adjusted to it and, especially my old guy with the white legs and feet, got splits in their hoofs.
Of course, the others wear shoes, so I guess my farrier bill will only go down when each dies.
Another owner here with an old man (32) who needs his front shoes to be comfortable. He has flat, thin soled TB feet and could not adjust to going barefoot. Fine by me, whatever keeps him happy.
It has less to do with how old he is and how long he’s been in shoes, than the current health of the feet, both from a trim perspective, and from a hoof quality perspective.
Most horses who need front shoes don’t need hind shoes. Most who need front shoes forever, and who need hind shoes for work, don’t need hinds for retirement, as long as his living situation is conducive to it.
I’d first make sure the feet have been trimmed properly for at least 6 months. So many horses are deemed as “he must have shoes or he can barely walk”, when the trim is the only problem, not the fact that he doesn’t have shoes. So evaluate that first.
Then take the hinds off when the ground is soft-ish and isn’t going to be hard for several months, and will ideally be a gradual hardening. In other words, if you have clay soil, don’t take the shoes off when things are nice and cushiony in late May, only to have things suddenly dry out like a brick a week later lol And don’t do it in the Fall when it’s rainy season, just 2 weeks before the ground freezes solid.
Then the next season, try the same thing with the fronts. If you have to put shoes back on, you do, but at least you tried. And I do think that we owe it to all horses to keep shoes off them when possible, and then not be afraid to use them when necessary.
My now-retired QH wore shoes (all around, four plain steel, did low level hunters) from when we bought him as a 12yo until I retired him at 22-23. We pulled his back shoes, and the plan was to give him time to adjust and then pull the fronts. Well he had other plans and pulled a front shoe off in turnout, so the farrier just took the other front off.
It was a while ago, so it’s all a little fuzzy but I remember him being slightly tender for maybe a week. He’s been fine ever since (just turned 28.) His feet look great and he’s sound.
My current retiree goes barefoot, but the one I had to put down last year at 28 was still wearing 4 shoes. He couldn’t go without them and be comfortable. It just depends on the horse.
I am guilty too! I have a 23 year old Tb mare who has 4 shoes on year round. I have tried to pull her hinds a few times when she was younger–and it was always a huge fail. So, I have resigned to just keeping her in shoes. Funny thing is—my 4 year old only has fronts (not Tb) and seems to be fine—even riding on some firm dirt roads. So I am trying to save my shoeing dollars by keeping my young, fancy horse, in fronts only. And she is in way more work than my oldie! Doesn’t matter–my oldie has earned her “comfortable shoes” —so she will have them! :yes:
The thing is it can take 1-2 years to convert many horses to barefoot. I am going thru this with my 18 yr old who has worn shoes since he was 4-5 yrs old. He developed laminitis in January of 2016 so that has been a struggle too. In hind sight I realize that years of shoeing created poor feet and it really does take a long time and a lot of work to get them barefoot and comfortable. My horse is now comfortable 24/7 in turnout, barefoot. I put Easyboots on the fronts for trail riding, add rear boots if gravel roads will be ridden. He has gotten constant attention to his feet since the shoes were pulled. Good barefoot trimmer out every 4 weeks and I touch up his trim maybe twice between trims. Early on he wore Easycare Transition boots, then wore them only during the day, etc.
So just pulling shoes and saying See Yah Later is NOT the way to go barefoot for most horses.To do it right you need to work at it. Most boarding situations do not offer this kind of foot care so it is best done if horse lives at home. Many barefoot trimmers will work with you to help you learn how to work on you horse’s feet. They want your horse to transition successfully. I am not talking about using shoer type farrier as IMO most of them will continue to trim your horse the same way as when they are being prepped for shoes. In most cases this trim takes off too much sole and leaves too much toe out front.
Being involved with my horses hooves has been a real education! Oh, he is not a TB, he is a short, big boned, big footed Arab/QTR. If it wasn’t for the laminitis this transition would have been even easier. His diet has been changed a lot and his hoof growth is good. A balanced diet is important!
I respectfully disagree that years of shoeing creates poor feet 
Trimming makes or breaks the foot. Shoe and nail placement further improves or degrades the foot.
What years of shoes does do is sometimes (often? definitely not always) create a foot that takes a bit to get used to more intimate ground contact, especially harder and lumpier ground, with more sole pressure. Some farriers create a healthy foot except for regularly paring out too much sole all the time, so that has to grow back to its full thickness.
A shoeing setup that doesn’t create enough frog pressure can mean a bit of a sore frog for a while, but that shouldn’t take long to toughen up.
Neither of those things should take 1-2 years to resolve.
It is true that the environment has to be conducive to creating a healthy foot. I was ready to take JB barefoot months before I actually did, because 2-4 hours of turnout was not conducive to going barefoot. I waited until he had much more turnout.
I am not talking about using shoer type farrier as IMO most of them will continue to trim your horse the same way as when they are being prepped for shoes. In most cases this trim takes off too much sole and leaves too much toe out front.
That farrier shouldn’t have been trimming that horse to begin with, much less shoeing him 
They are the ones who cause problems if you just take the shoes off and expect that unhealthy foot to just deal with things.
Any competent farrier trims a balanced foot, and only does shoe-appropriate things to deal with the shoes - leaves the ground surface flat and yes, might need to take a bit of extra sole around the edges so the shoe doesn’t cause pressure.
I don’t know that “most of them” do that, but for sure there are pockets where ALL of them do, and there are far, far too many around the country (and world) who do. But there are also a great many who trim properly.
I feel horrible for people in “deserts” where there’s nobody, farrier OR trimmer, who has any right to be under a horse 
My 24 year old retiree is fine with no shoes. She needed them when ridden because she’d be a little tender on rocky ground. She does fine just hanging out and walking around the pasture without them.
Probably, for New England.
My mare was in central Maryland (lots of pasture, few rocks) until I bought her and had always been barefoot. Her hooves did not deal well with New England’s rocky terrain and hard ground, especially in front. She went into front shoes a few months after I bought her. Rear shoes added after LH suspensory surgery when her recovery had stalled out, then mechanical laminitis (in one front hoof only) meant adding pads up front. (And that was also when we discovered that the front hoof that didn’t have laminitis had some seriously funky-looking coffin bones, so the pad helped that, too.)
The mare’s a Morgan, but doesn’t have those wonderful Morgan hooves. Had I kept my Morgan filly, I think she could have gone barefoot even in New England. She’d inherited her dam’s rasp-destroying hard feet.
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