I know of a few FEI horses successfully showing barefoot-- one even winning national championships! You can easily continue going barefoot if you have a really good farrier/trimmer and horse with high quality hooves. It doesn’t hurt to try and see if shoes change the horse’s performance, but don’t feel like it’s necessary.
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Interesting! And makes sense with what I’ve suspected - that a lot of horses that benefit from shoes were mildly (and sub-clinically) foot sore to begin with (which seems to be what you’re saying, too).
I’m going to have to discuss the traction theory with my farrier/vet/trainer friends!
Shannon Peters is a proponent of barefoot horses and has shown horses barefoot.
When a 4 time Olympian noticed that my third level horse was barefoot, the comment I received was " Lucky you!" :yes:
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Your horse might very well be just fine barefoot - but I would not make the decision based on whoever shod your horse in the photos you shared. I agree with the person who said that was a bad shoeing job.
It might be interesting to see what would happen if a really good, competent master journeyman farrier working on those feet.
My horse is barefoot, but we wear boots for gravelly trails.
She will move bigger on the gravel with boots than barefoot, unless we are at one of our magic moments when she is totally comfortable on the gravel (when trim cycle, weather, etc all come together).
There is no difference boots or barefoot on our hogfuel arena.
Obviously not shoes, but I’d agree with the posters above who say that if the horse is at all tender on the footing, shoes (or boots) would help the horse move bigger. But if the horse is completely comfortable on the footing, no change. Cant’ really tell without trying out or at least observing your horse.
Unless your trainer is also a trained farrier (mine is), they don’t really understand feet. Even so, I’ve had to make my own decisions about going to boots and closely observing how my horse moves.
Yes, all the way to Grand Prix!
My guy is barefoot, and I’m hoping we can keep it that way. We put fronts on briefly, but that was a mistake (he kept pulling them off), so now we are hoping his feet get back to how they were when I bought him in another cycle or two.
Horses are shod for one (or more) of these reasons:. Correction, protection, and traction.
What kinds of horses does your farrier shoe the most? Are they horses that work hard and show a lot or are they lower level horses? The rigors of consistent work and showing require much more of a horse physically, but farriers/trimmers/etc who don’t specialize in these horses don’t fully understand what they need. They just don’t have the experience.
I would recommend that you consult with a reputable sporthorse vet. It is imperative that a vet and farrier work together so that the horse’s needs are appropriately met as work increases.
Maybe your farrier is still the right one as you move up the levels. Maybe not. A good sporthorse vet will be able to give you some other options if you need it.
Your trainer may or may not be right. Best to find out for sure.
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Well, I tried with my show horse, for over two years, and that experiment ended in dismal failure. His feet looked good bare, but he is just happier with shoes on. I’m still not sure why, but he is 17 years old, and I’m not going to argue with him. In winters when he is not showing, we pull shoes. My other horses are bare footed.
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starting to show 4th level with my 18 year old. She never had shoes in her life and nobody ever complained about the quality of her gaits.
Let me see if I can explain about the traction.
Assuming we are talking about a standard perimeter fit shoe, the additional traction comes from the added depth around the rim of the hoof, which digs in a little deeper into the footing than a bare hoof does. This added grip prevents the hoof from sliding in the footing as much as it would bare.
On the other hand, some shoes will lessen traction.
For example, a Morrison roller with a pour-in pad:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B39…ew?usp=sharing
It’s wide-web aluminum shoe with a smooth bottom, and with a pour-in pad the hoof will be virtually flat and therefore “float” on the surface of the footing. Usually you see this type of application on the fronts. The hinds are the ones that really benefit more from the added traction of a rim shoe.
A bare hoof will have better traction than a flat steel shoe on a hard surfaces like concrete or asphalt, but in most arenas, the shoe adds grip. Just take a look at the hoof prints of a shod horse in the footing and notice the impression there.
Again, you have to make the comparison based on the footing surface. In soft footing, it’s a simple matter of physics – the rim shoe creates a deeper concavity to the hoof, causing it to sink deeper into the footing and providing additional grip and stability.
The shoe pictured above is more analogous to a snow shoe. It is easier to walk in deep snow on a snow shoe, because the bearing surface of the shoe displaces your weight and you do not sink in as deeply. For this horse, it enabled him to move through the footing more easily and reach more with the front limbs because his feet didn’t sink as deeply, so there was less material he had to pull it out of.
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Could we talk a bit more about the horses who are a hair sore and thus do better with shoes? By that I mean the horses that weren’t obliviously lame or anything, but performed better with shoes thus implying that their feet were sore to some degree. The reason I ask is because I keep all of mine barefoot if possible. Obvious foot soreness, cracking, etc. gets shoes tacked on, but the others stay barefoot. How would you tell if a horse needed shoes, but wasn’t necessarily lame or obviously sore? What are some possible “symptoms?”
OP, sorry if I’ve derailed this conversation!
It’s not even necessarily that the horses are a hair sore, but that they are uncomfortable on whatever surface. I am not sore or suffering low grade inflammation in my feet, but if I walk down the paved driveway barefoot I am going to be very careful. I could walk or jog or run on the driveway without creating soreness that lasts beyond the activity, but I’m still better off with my boots on! Enough activity on an uncomfortable surface will lead to pain and inflammation; enough being a distinctly individual determination.
My experience has been that bare feet are less slippery than flat shod. I shod my older horse for a cycle this summer - fronts only because I didn’t dare take away the traction of all four bare feet. And I had mini drive in studs put into the heels of the shoes to reduce the difference between shod and bare traction because my horse has had some concerns about slipping in the last year.
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My older gelding was becoming foot sore on the hard ground, I started all my horses on Durasole and the soreness disappeared within two weeks. All my horses are on Durasole and Keratek and I have seen big improvements on how they go.
that’s a good question. I think it’s most obvious on hard ground… trot them around the arena, then go and trot down either a paved portion of the road (if safe) or another hard-ground surface, like the parking lot. i think if you see a fairly obvious change in the degree of motion/step and tempo between the two that it is your first indicator. they tend to get a little snappy behind, almost “tracky” as they quickly offload each hind limb.
for my own gelding, when the grass ring got really hard he started to mince behind on harder portions of the grass. easy to feel.
the other thing is if the work wears down the hoof - sand and hard ground especially can do that. some horses get fever rings, small ridges/bulges along the hoof wall that tell a story of constant concussion.
i think if they’re funny about walking to and from their paddocks or other lightly graveled/hard road areas that is a good indication too. flinching, stepping short, or i think the BIGGEST tell is when you are walking your horse on a loose rein from the arena back to the barn and they deliberately try to walk on the tiny swath of grass instead of the road… see lots of horses do that.
the thing is, you can have a very well-trimmed barefoot hoof that on the outside looks flawless but that doesn’t mean the horse couldn’t benefit from shoes. my gelding has great feet, excellent quality, but he benefits from hind shoes as his work increases.
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My mare got tight in her shoulders. And because we know her, we just knew something was not right. No limping, just not the same. As we were working on moving up into more collected work, the ability to lift and be free in the shoulders was important so it really showed. At the time we weren’t riding out on the roads much, but had we been I’m sure she would have been quite obviously sore on the hard road with rocks and gravel. Now she’s barefoot again and totally comfortable, moving the same as she did with the shoes whether in the arena or on the trails.
My gelding was getting pressure abscesses in his left hind toe if we asked for much extended trot. He was not showing other signs, but he would stop wanting to use his hind end as well for a couple weeks, then it would grow down enough we would see the remnants of the abscess. Sure enough, he needed hind shoes for protection. He also would actually get lame or at least sore in the back due to wet ground, so we knew he wasn’t holding up well to changes in weather. At the point we put the shoes on we had been in the middle of a dry spell, and even a single rain was enough to affect him. He had some major issues within his hooves before we took him barefoot - the underrun heels starting from track trims had gotten out of control and he HAD to have very frequent very minor trims to recover his basic hoof structure. He also had reached a point his hoof walls just didn’t want to hold shoes. Getting everything back in order made it so he can hold shoes again, and doesn’t get underrun in between cycles.
Before I bought her, I was told that my current horse was shod during show season – aluminum shoes when doing hunters “for the daisy-cutter movement” and steel when she did dressage “because the weight caused her to lift her feet more.” It makes sense that more weight would cause them to lift their feet higher and kind of “throw” them out more. But, she has great feet and I show her barefoot. I love the fact that I can get to the hoof and rebalance it every week rather than the up and down of the shoeing cycle. Just me.
I have all barefoot horses. But I do also ride one horse at a facility with a ‘blue stone/screenings only’ arena footing. No sand on top. That stuff us very rough. There are some horses that will need boots or shoes to cope with that kind of surface. I also will not jump on it. It’s pretty hard.
I’ve been showing a bare horse for 5 years, going from training to second successfully. Showing third next season, hopefully earning a bronze someday. I use boots with studs for traction as I have (horrors) a grass arena. This setup works very well for us. If your horse is comfortable why mess with a good thing? My trainer is a Grand Prix rider and has never suggested I need shoes, though many of her horses are shod. She understands it varies.
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I briefly leased a horse who really should have been in shoes. His hooves were soft, and wore down/chipped really, really easily. Basically when he was in work his hooves wore faster than they grew. The tell for me was that, when I was riding, he preferred to avoid the gravel lane going out to the farm’s back 40. The other horse there I would ride, who was also barefoot, would gallop up it with glee if I asked. And half the time he’d try to do it regardless.
So yeah, gravel seems to be the way to tell.
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