Who out there is training and showing barefoot? My trainer wants me to put shoes on my blacksmith says no. My 7 year old is just starting 2nd level, no issues with feet, trainer feels she would move better. Not sure what to do?
My Arabian has been barefoot most of his life, and I just earned my bronze medal on him and will be making our maiden voyage at 4th level in a few weeks. Many years ago, I too was badgered by a former trainer to put shoes on my horse and I reluctantly agreed to a one year trial. I regret not listening to my gut because shoes were not the answer for him. Rather than adding to his movement his gaits became choppier and the hoof quality deteriorated. After pulling the shoes it took close to 9 months for his former hoof angles and horn quality to return.
Listen to your farrier.
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If you trust your farrier, listen to him. I wouldn’t take training advice from a farrier if I trusted my trainer- and vice versa! Any horse that can go barefoot is better off healthwise for it. I went PSG with my last horse and he was barefoot. Current horse doesn’t have the same quality foot, so has shoes, but only in front. With shoes…less is more!
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@JLR1 : The person who put shoes on your horse wasn’t qualified at all. Shod feet shouldn’t look like that, ever. It shouldn’t change the angle/shape of the hooves nor should it affect the quality of the horn.
Your horse is the definitively better now, unshod. 
As for the OP, you could try for 1 time and see how your horse adapt to it. If after 4-5 weeks you don’t see any changes, just wait a little longer than you would normally do, so you have more hooves to work with, remove the shoes and go back to your horse usual barefoot self.
If you want to try, I would suggest you also invest in leg protections for riding and for turnouts.
I decided to shod my mare on 4 feet + front leather rim pads because her hooves gets too hard and her feet were sensitive when we started jumping.
It instantaneously fixed the front hooves sensitivity. Never had problems after; up to small courses at 1m30.
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It’s a hard call. Chances are there is some truth in both of their statements. IMHO, most of the horses I’ve seen both ways go better with shoes - they balance a bit better behind, which allows them a small bit more shoulder freedom.
That said, if your horse is doing well without - shoes are certainly not necessary, and some people believe it is healthier for the horse to be without - allowing the foot to expand and contract, absorbing shock naturally.
It’s really a personal decision if your horse is comfortable both ways.
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My 17h warmblood does 3rd and also jumps (for fun) barefoot. She wears hoof boot on the front for trails or if she is a little tender after a trim.
I tried shoes on all 4. It did feel like she “sat” more or kept her feet on the ground for a second longer if that makes sense. The benefits of keeping her barefoot outweighed the slight better movement.
You might see a change in movement. I won’t say if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But I am also of the school of thought that if a horse doesn’t need shoes than it should be kept barefoot. If your farrier says no shoes is better, don’t put shoes on.
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Shoes can be significantly helpful in giving more support during the “sit” and more traction during the “push” that will be required of you at 2nd level and beyond. I’ve noticed the greatest improvement tends to be in the canter work. Also make sure you have a really good farrier, otherwise they might be better off with nothing instead. If you don’t like/trust the choice of farriers (and none work regularly on sporthorses or dressage horses), then stay barefoot.
Could you explain what you mean by “more support”? I hear this term regularly and I have no idea what it means. Thank you.
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Showed my old girl barefoot clear up until we started really working on collection, showing 2nd, schooling 3rd & 4th. Then we started getting interference problems due to her conformation and how she snapped her back legs. My farrier suggested just putting shoes on the back, my trainer said we weren’t that primitive and the compromise was to put aluminums on the front, steel on the back for a while. It sounds weird but it worked. I didn’t notice a huge change in her gaits outside of her no longer hitting herself regularly. Once I retired her, shoes came back off and now she’s a barefoot trail pony. No collection, no interference,
I had hoped to keep the young horse barefoot for at least a few years but no, she had different ideas. Her feet want to chip, her heels were getting low slung and generally her feet looked crappy. So the 4 year old has shoes all around.
Shoes for the sake of shoes never made sense to me. Ask yourself what problem you’re trying to fix with shoes. If there is no problem, then why do you need them?
What kind of footing do you have in your dressage rings that give shod feet more traction over bare feet? We have pretty much all sand rings around here, with the odd rubber chip one.
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Good advice, my mare has good feet and I do take extra precautions Durasole and Keratex once a week and they do make a big difference. Do her feet chip sure especially when were coming up on 6 weeks when she is due for a trim. I love my blacksmith and completely trust him, he has been shoeing for me for 20 years and has never done a bad job he likes to keep things simple and so do I. I’m getting pressure from my trainer to put shoes on, I will just have to tell her its not going to happen unless their is a reason too.
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my ring is stone dust, working on getting sand.
I eventually put hind shoes on to see if they helped because I had heard the same thing. We we schooling 4th/PSG at the time. My horse has had front shoes forever with wedges to correct some issues but was barefoot behind.
For my horse, the hind shoes give more stability to the back end in the collected work, especially the canter and now in the p/p. It felt like he was more confident to plant the foot. I could really feel it going into the pirouettes. We also had a change in the power from the hind legs in the extended trot, which would gradually decrease throughout the shoeing cycle. The first week there was so much power - like he was able to get a firmer stance in the footing and push that much harder.
I’m schooling in sand pretty much all the time and showing in sand or sand + felt.
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This is true regarding the change in the stability throughout the shoeing cycle. To ‘‘fix’’ that, I reduced the shoeing cycle and go from 5 weeks to 4 weeks. Sometimes I go up to 6 weeks during the winter time and down to 3 weeks during the show season. It really depends on the hooves growth but the main idea is to make sure to keep the changes minimal.
I am not sure if this is true… a shod horse has less traction than a barefoot one, all things considered equal… Until you put studs in or have boriums.
What shoes do improve, is the amount of time the horse has his limb on the ground, the bearing phase – which can correlate to “sit” – but only IF the horse had some minor soreness or tenderness in the unshod hoof prior to being shod. Otherwise, it doesn’t make much a difference.
What people are feeling when they see the difference is a chronically sore hoof that was underperforming due to tenderness – with shoes, there is more protection thus better freedom and performance.
In other words, barefoot horse is protecting itself because of chronic tenderness, gets shod, no longer needs to protect itself and therefore moves more freely… but if the horse is not tender behind IME the shoes do not make a difference.
I would ask someone else to ride your horse and honestly assess your horse’s way of going. Plenty of horses move short up front because they are barefoot and not confident… your horse may be one of them and your trainer may be seeing that. You may have just gotten desensitized to the sensitivity because it feels like your guy’s natural way of going, and in the paddock or walking he seems fine… but a lot changes when a rider’s weight is involved and we have a horse that’s similar to yours - great feet, sound in the paddock, but put a rider aboard and his movement changes a little - he is less open and free, and he definitely could benefit from shoes. Conversely, my own TB protects himself more when he has hind shoes because there is significantly less traction - we have a grass ring and he moves much shorter behind when shod behind - I am not about to stud him up every time I ride, so he remains barefoot behind until his workload increases to the point he needs shoes again.
Your farrier probably sees the horse’s hoof quality and sees the lack of chipping as a good sign the horse does not need shoes… but does your farrier see your horse go undersaddle? Sound walking up the paddock to the farrier is very different than sound going down the centerline with a rider abroad.
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“More support” can translate into more willingness and security to plant the feet (especially the hind end), which then means more willingness to take the weight. Better collection, more correct and clear gaits (especially at the canter).
In the front, it can help horses that seem “timid,” but I suspect that’s just because they were modestly, maybe even sub-clinically foot sore and no one noticed or diagnosed it (I’ve also ridden one like that, and putting shoes on helped overnight - the horse was suddenly more “confident” and willing).
Most recently, I bought a new horse that I thought, due to weakness, was cross-cantering and showing a lack of consistency in the hind end ('twas a younger horse, very little training). I put hind shoes on and it was a NIGHT AND DAY difference. Cross cantering went away essentially overnight, and the end hind finally seemed to “find” itself.
Re: RedHorses, this has been in sand + rubber, and sand + felt arenas. The traction I think is more due to increased surface area of the foot, not the material of the shoe. (Though this is just my best guess - I’m not 100% sure how shoes provide more traction in my experience. In fact, you’d think a slick metal would provide less friction than a hoof! But that’s just not what I’ve found.) YMMV, especially on different footing (especially, as Beowulf mentioned above, on grass).
Beowulf, I find the mechanism of shoes = more time on the ground to be interesting. Would this be just due to the added weight of metal shoes? If so, what then of aluminum shoes? You would expect those to be less helpful, in that case, right?
I think you let the horse tell you.
My mare is barefoot and does well including on trails, totally comfortable and happy. However, she had shoes on in front for about 3 cycles this year because we went from very wet to very dry and HARD ground in a short time. Most of our barn is barefoot and most of the horses ended up with shoes to get them through the transition in seasons. I prefer barefoot for the ability to do more frequent trims to keep hooves in proper shape, plus then you don’t have to worry about lost shoes of course. My mare gets flare quickly with her fast growing hooves, so barefoot works well when she is comfortable.
My gelding has EasyShoes on all 4 hooves to protect him all the time, and his feet keep getting better. I think he went 8 or 9 weeks between his last shoeing because of farrier schedule issues and his feet still looked great before being done. We had him barefoot and booted for several years to correct major shape/structural issues within his hooves but he regularly needed time off as weather changed even with protective boots. The vet said while my horse’s sole thickness is good, it’s like the structure of his soles isn’t attached as well internally as it should be - when she uses hoof testers she can move his sole around, which means he is just more sensitive. It’s weird, but I’m happy to do what I need to protect him and keep him comfortable.
There is more time on the ground because the horse is moving more confidently and no longer protecting themselves - if they are tender or sore, horses tend to deload (in other words, rapidly plant their other limb down to take the sore limb off of the ground) the sore limb/hoof quickly, which equals less bearing time (time in contact with the ground). It doesn’t have to do with the weight of the shoes, it has to do with the protective buffer that shoes offer - they keep the hoof slightly elevated above ground, absorb some concussion (not as much as a barefoot hoof would, of course) and keep the brunt of the impact with ground off of the sole. Generally the horses that improved in hind shoes in my experience have had thin soles and low-grade inflammation from constant concussion as a result.
For posterity’s sake, it is not necessarily the shoes that are the magic fix - it’s the fact their chronically sore feet now have more protection because of the shoes, that’s the fix. Nitpicking there, I know – but a horse that does not need shoes will not show a difference in bearing time/sit power with shoes added – only horses that needed the shoes will show the improvement.
