[QUOTE=Ghazzu;8266727]
Got a source for that?
I’d be interested[/QUOTE]
If I can find it again, I’ll post the link. It was definitely legit–I probably saw it in The Horse.
[QUOTE=Guilherme;8266339]
What is the difference in expansion between a hoof striking the ground on the flat and that same hoof striking the ground from a height of 2’6" plus the clearance over the obstacle? I don’t know. But the higher the horse jumps the more force is going to be put on the hoof when it hits the ground. [/QUOTE]
Your post reminded me of the Scott Lampert “Energy” Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dSLLf4K80U
Oh, wait, I didn’t know there was a sequel:
In general, I don’t like all or nothing answers when it comes to anything horse related. I really think you have to look at the individual horse and do what is best for them. I’ve had 4 horses (coincidentally, all from the same family line) that have all made it to old age with nary a shoe between them. One competed up to 4’ in jumpers and up to 2nd level dressage as well as driving and extensive trail riding including an epic trip through the mountains in CO. Never needed a shoe- not even a bit of question in my mind. Now the two mares that I currently ride need protection all the way around on anything but the best footing. The one gets boots all around and is most comfortable that way. It took a lot of experimenting but it’s how she goes best, so it’s how I’ll manage her. The other mare I’ve only had for 4 months. She’s shod up front (correcting a major case of longgggg toe, no heel) and is being booted behind right now- but I’m still meh about the boots on her. Next cycle, we’ll try shoes behind and see how that goes.
My point in all of this rambling is to try and look at the horse completely objectively and see if he needs shoes. If he doesn’t, then stand your ground with your trainer, if he does, put them on.
Really appreciating everyone’s thoughts on the very controversial subject that can never be laid to rest.
As I said, the horse is sound as a bell. Shows no soreness in the grass arena that we ride in, has done some trail riding and hasn’t taken a sore step, and with the minimal jumping that we do, no after effects. Only looks uncomfortable in gravel, and honestly, who doesn’t? Thankfully I don’t ride in gravel or walk across it daily with the horse.
Horse is moving out well, still learning obviously as there’s just a few months between the day of last race and where we are now, but there is nothing wrong with the horse’s movements. Trainer couldn’t believe that the horse stayed sound while a huge abscess brewed and blew and is now draining out the coronary band. Don’t think it was caused by a bruise or anything of that nature, and the farrier is out next week. I’ll be asking his opinion on the shoeing matter as well.
I’m not going to skimp on my horse’s comfort, let me be clear on that. I just mentioned the going rate in my area for fronts and all rounds, because I don’t want to be throwing away $200 every 5 weeks because my trainer says, with no real reason to actually be putting the horse in shoes. Obviously I’d like to prevent an injury before it occurs, but I’ve seen no evidence of needing shoes, which is why I came here, hoping that someone knew something that I did not 
The only off-moment this horse has ever had was after a particularly tough lesson where the footing started out great in the grass ring, and quickly turned to mud as we were getting poured on during the lesson. Horse’s ankles were a bit inflamed after that lesson. Poultice and a few days off and the horse was fine again. never unsound, just swollen and likely a bit sore, just as my calves are sore after bringing in and out 20 horses through the muddy weather we’ve been having. So basically I feel that was a fluke considering the conditions were favorable for an injury or at least irritation.
It might be tough to respectfully disagree with my trainer over the shoes. But I don’t want to spend unnecessary money, and do unnecessary things while this horse is happily floating around barefoot. By the looks of the opinions here, my horse will tell me if he needs shoes, or at least the farrier will be able to help me see it in the wear and tear on the feet.
My Connemara X was barefoot until a few weeks ago (he’s 7). I chose to put fronts on him because we’re doing a lot of hacking on some unforgiving Eastern MA trails and his fronts just weren’t holding their shape between trims. We’ll pull them and leave him barefoot from about October-April.
It was more of a gut decision, but one of my trainers think he’s moving better.
Good luck!
My horse is schooling third level dressage bare. I ride on grass, so studded hoof boots are used when necessary. Showing on sand is fine.
I could see where if you do eventing shows, you’d need the shoes and studs for traction.
Otherwise, if the horse is sound, leave well enough alone! Plus no thrown shoes!
I wish hoof boots were legal for showing.
Besides your attending farrier there is nobody else who knows your horse’s baseline. You will get the most qualified advice from your farrier, presuming he or she has been seeing your horse for a while and has a good baseline from which to judge. And trust me, if a farrier recommends shoes, it isn’t about the money. Usually farriers make a lot more profit from trims than they do from shoeing.
I attempted to have my OTTB barefoot, but finally went back to going to shoes after realizing several flaws in the “easier/cheaper” thing.
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Yes shoeing is more costly than a barefoot trim, but shoeing only needs to be done every 6 weeks, give or take a week. With a barefoot horse, you need to continually maintain the mustang roll at the edges to prevent the feet from chipping. Unless you plan on doing it yourself, you’ll quickly lose that money you saved by having the trimmer out more frequently.
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Weather changes. Every time you go through a wet week, mud season, wet grass in the spring, etc, the feet will respond mostly for the worst and you will find yourself with an ouchy horse on anything over than grass. There’s nothing you can do except wait it out and hope you didn’t have any shows or fun rides coming up.
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You say your horse is fine on grass but a little ouchy on gravel. OTTB’s are very stoic where pain is concerned. A little ouchy is probably a lot ouchy, but your horse is just trying to be a trooper about it. Your horse may or may not ever get used to anything other than grass. Sure you can try hoof boots or Durasole or Turpentine to toughen up the soles, but ultimately it doesn’t accomplish anything. You’ll spend tons of $$ trying different brands of hoof boots only to find that all have some downsides and none are really good for riding. I did a hunter pace in hoof boots and had to get off 6 times to put a boot back on. Hoof boots are useless.
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It’s a TB. Yeah yeah I know, the TB’s have bad feet thing is bunk. Yes I agree to a point. All I know is, I did everything by the book when I attempted barefoot. I learned how to maintain the trim between farrier visits. I did my 20 minutes daily hand walking on the various surfaces trying to work him up to gravel and harder surfaces, tried every product on the market to toughen up his soles, kept the hoof boot companies in business and really wanted barefoot to work. In the end I put shoes back on, had a very happy horse to show for it. I spent more money the year I attempted barefoot on all the other products than I have in the last two years of shoeing.
Just listen to your horse. If he’s not marching happily along on all surfaces after a few weeks, please put shoes back on. I waited way too long and still feel like a plug because of it.
I can’t resist, sorry!
[QUOTE=tbchick84;8268726]
- Yes shoeing is more costly than a barefoot trim, but shoeing only needs to be done every 6 weeks, give or take a week. With a barefoot horse, you need to continually maintain the mustang roll at the edges to prevent the feet from chipping. Unless you plan on doing it yourself, you’ll quickly lose that money you saved by having the trimmer out more frequently. [/QUOTE]
I do my own horse’s feet, and unless things are really, really dry, I rarely have to retouch feet in between normal trims. But also I don’t get all wiggy about a little chip here and there. If it’s bigger, I’ll use a rasp to smooth the edges, but any owner can learn to do that, and it takes about 5 seconds.
- Weather changes. Every time you go through a wet week, mud season, wet grass in the spring, etc, the feet will respond mostly for the worst and you will find yourself with an ouchy horse on anything over than grass. There’s nothing you can do except wait it out and hope you didn’t have any shows or fun rides coming up.
The same conditions work well to loosen shoes by the regular contraction and expansion of nail holes. These conditions are probably as much responsible for pulled shoes as fly-stomping season
- You say your horse is fine on grass but a little ouchy on gravel. OTTB’s are very stoic where pain is concerned. A little ouchy is probably a lot ouchy, but your horse is just trying to be a trooper about it. Your horse may or may not ever get used to anything other than grass. Sure you can try hoof boots or Durasole or Turpentine to toughen up the soles, but ultimately it doesn’t accomplish anything. You’ll spend tons of $$ trying different brands of hoof boots only to find that all have some downsides and none are really good for riding. I did a hunter pace in hoof boots and had to get off 6 times to put a boot back on. Hoof boots are useless.
I know people who train Endurance with hoof boots, and who do CTR with hoof boots, and never have loose, much less lost boots. It’s all about the right boot for the feet on that horse, even if you have to buy 2 different sizes. That said, not all feet are capable of keeping boots on for whatever reason.
- It’s a TB. Yeah yeah I know, the TB’s have bad feet thing is bunk. Yes I agree to a point. All I know is, I did everything by the book when I attempted barefoot. I learned how to maintain the trim between farrier visits. I did my 20 minutes daily hand walking on the various surfaces trying to work him up to gravel and harder surfaces, tried every product on the market to toughen up his soles, kept the hoof boot companies in business and really wanted barefoot to work. In the end I put shoes back on, had a very happy horse to show for it. I spent more money the year I attempted barefoot on all the other products than I have in the last two years of shoeing.
Being a TB is irrelevant 
Plenty of WBs and drafts and QH’s and Morgans and and and, simply need shoes to be sound. Shoes are not evil. I do think that they should be done for this horse, right now, unless and until it becomes proven that quality trimming improves the foot enough that he can be barefoot again.
The trainer probably knows. If your trainer says to shoe, I would shoe. She knows you are about to step up work, she knows how your horse goes and she thinks it is time.
I would certainly listen to the professional that is working with the horse over a bunch of strangers on the Internet who have never clapped an eye on it.
There is no philosophical principle to horse shoes. It does not make you a better person or your horse a better horse to not wear shoes.
I actually check the heart rates on my horses every now and then and I have never had a difference between shod or unshod, that is news to me.
[QUOTE=st_francis;8269398]
I actually check the heart rates on my horses every now and then and I have never had a difference between shod or unshod, that is news to me.[/QUOTE]
It is hooey.
I’ve had a TB who would limp if he even looked at a piece of gravel wrong and needed a lot of foot TLC. I had another who was great on dirt, sand, mud, and even clay, but if on turf that was a little on the hard side, he would NOT be happy. And I had a TB with excellent feet. One of the complainers raced. I would definitely not call him stoic when it came to anything remotely ouchy. The one with good feet was also tattooed, but I didn’t know much history. She was hardly expressive about anything. Like with all horses, it’s individual.
[QUOTE=st_francis;8269398]
The trainer probably knows. If your trainer says to shoe, I would shoe. She knows you are about to step up work, she knows how your horse goes and she thinks it is time.
I would certainly listen to the professional that is working with the horse over a bunch of strangers on the Internet who have never clapped an eye on it.
There is no philosophical principle to horse shoes. It does not make you a better person or your horse a better horse to not wear shoes.
I actually check the heart rates on my horses every now and then and I have never had a difference between shod or unshod, that is news to me.[/QUOTE]
This horse has only been in work since it came off the track in January. She knows the horse, but not that well, yet.
She does know we are stepping up work, but my OP states that she feels ANY horse jumping 2’6 + should get shoes. Not my horse, any horse; which is why I felt like that was just too generic of a reason to tell me my horse needed shoes.
I do agree that it doesn’t make myself nor my horse any better to not wear shoes, but I don’t think it’s necessary to slap shoes on because we’re jumping 2’6+ when he’s comfortable and sound.
Farrier is out Tuesday. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.
Tom: Totally hear where you’re coming from about trimming being more profitable than shoes. At first, not so much, but $40 for a 40 minute trim vs $115 or $200 for hours of shoe work. Makes sense on a time thing.
As for whoever said that I wouldn’t be saving money keeping the horse barefoot because shoes only go on every 6 weeks: The horse is trimmed every 5 weeks. Every horse that is in shoes at the barn is reset at 5 weeks. So that doesn’t really compute to me…
I completely am on the same page as people who think it’s a horse by horse situation. The horse was really sore when plates were first pulled, as any animal from horse to human would be. I thought we were going to have a lot of foot problems as we transitioned, but after the last two trims the horse has had, the feet look great. I want to reiterate the horse is NOT IN PAIN. I’m not being some cruel intended jerk by keeping him out of shoes; at this point.
Thanks for the continued personal experiences and thoughts on the subject
I would stay barefoot. Boot for traction if and when needed. I can’t think of many times that I’ve had a barefoot horse slip but lots of times in shoes. Not to mention issues with farriers getting lazy and leaving hooves long, pulled shoes, imbalances,etc. I’m transitioning an 18 year TB to barefoot who’s been shod his entire life. Just purchased some boots for gravel,pavement and maybe hunting but he’s already doing well after only a week barefoot, at least on the hard pasture and soft sandy roads. Local hunting footing is good so hope he can go barefoot for that.
My large pony is barefoot and tolerates driving on pavement and gravel. She’s only been sore once, because I trimmed her too short in the heels.nim just learning trimming and there is a bit of a learning curve.
My mare is/was in a similar situation to your horse; barefoot, perfectly sound, jumping 2’6"-2’9" regularly and decent workouts six days a week.
After just shy of a year and a half, she is now fully shod. Her fronts grow really fast (she was on a 3 week trim schedule and they were still long each time) and her hinds grow slowly. First I had front shoes put on to control the crazy growth/chipping and to prevent a scar that she has on one hoof from becoming a crack. During the next cycle I had hinds put on because she was wearing them down faster than she was growing them.
Though she was perfectly sound before, I think she is more comfortable on the parched, cement-like ground here in California with shoes. She certainly moves better. A LOT better. Before she was very daisy-cutter with little knee and hock action. Now she moves both much more freely, which I prefer. So that made me happy at least. It actually works out to be exactly the same price as having her trimmed every three weeks so it’s not so bad.
I agree that you should just wait and see if it’s needed. For the longest time I staunchly thought that I’d never put shoes on my mare’s lovely feet. With the weird growth she started having, however, that just wasn’t practical. With shoes her fronts have slowed in their growth a little and her hinds are protected from excessive wear. The scar is no longer cracking at the bottom. I am not a fan of how much longer it takes me to pick her feet now that I have to dig around the rim of the shoes, but since that’s my only complaint I guess I should be content. :lol:
