Trying a horse that wears glue ons

[enjoytheride]

Someone who does their own glue ons and trims likely has a sound horse and is in some sort of Easy Boot instead of traditional shoes for personal reasons.

Glue ons from the farrier in an eventing barn are an entirely different matter and I personally don’t know a horse wearing this type of glue on that doesn’t have intermittent soundness issues due to their feet. I would pass on such a horse unless it were doing the level I wanted to be doing in those shoes at that time. People don’t CHOSE Glue Ons for no reason.

[Old_Mac_Donald]

I follow on FB a rider / eventer / trainer / now farrier, more for any trainwreckage than information. Lots of rants and “welcome to my TED talks” etc. They are big into glue-ons and composites. I swear every horse is in “a package” that lasts four weeks, costs $$$, and looks terrible. One sale horse can’t keep a show for longer than four weeks (and it is being sold as an event prospect).

OP, this horse wasn’t a grey one by any chance?

[Obsidian_Fire]

Just as an FYI, my mare is in glue-ons, on the front only. I picked up the materials from the farrier supply store, 2 shoes (the kind with cuffs, IDK the brand name) and the glue, other materials, was $137.
Yes, rather spendy for 2 shoes. I’m in Oregon, for reference.
It takes my farrier roughly 40 minutes to do her fronts.
He has used a couple different brands on her, sorry I do not know their names. One of them did not have a cuff, one thing I noticed was when he took it off, her feet stank. It was bone dry summer too, so she should not have had stinky feet from being wet. My best guess was that particular set up was holding moisture. I have not noticed that with the cuff-style shoe.
Last winter she was in these and they did not come off at all, and we get very wet. Lots of rain, lots of standing water. We’ve had better luck keeping glue-ons on her feet, than nailed shoes.

Anyway. Just a little info from my experience of one.

[fordtraktor]

Hoof problems are a huge no for me.

[vxf111]

Wow, people really hate glue ons.

Prior to his quasi retirement (and move across the country) I used a farrier (Dave) who just loved glue ons. And honestly, his were kind of amazing. They were not like the sigafoos, with a cuff. He would trim the horse, shape the shoe, and then mix a little container of epoxy-type stuff and use it to set the shoe pretty close to how you’d use nails to set the shoe. Very little glue used and traditional aluminum shoes (or whatever else you wanted. I showed hunters with that horse and used aluminum)

Prior to using him I had from time to time had glue ons from other places (including a couple of times the farrier at New Bolton) and those glue ons SUCKED. The glue ons Dave did were done in a totally different way and they were amazing. Those babies were NOT coming off. And they did help my horse with kind of thin soles and fragile feet finally grow out some decent hoof. In the 6-7 years I used Dave to shoe that horse I think my horse lost one shoe, and it was at a show when he stumbled, almost fell, and literally stepped on himself scrambling to keep on his feet.

Unless you begged him otherwise, Dave would do your horse in glue. It was just his preference. And he charged the same for glue ons or nail ons. So there wasn’t a price difference.

He was a pretty in demand farrier for high profile folks, including horses that rode for the American teams.

So I don’t think it’s ALWAYS a bad sign that a horse is in glue ons.

Now, if you don’t want to deal with glue ons, I get that. No glue ons that I have ever seen other than Dave’s were anything I would EVER want to deal with. But it’s not automatically a sign that something is wrong when horses are in glue ons. There are some farriers that just prefer to shoe that way and do it well.

[Dr_Doolittle]

No foot, no horse…

[Simkie]

I think you’ve shown well why people are wary of a horse in glue ons.

@vxf111

Prior to using him I had from time to time had glue ons from other places (including a couple of times the farrier at New Bolton) and those glue ons SUCKED. The glue ons Dave did were done in a totally different way and they were amazing. Those babies were NOT coming off

So every where else sucked but this one guy can do them in a way that works.

@vxf111

Unless you begged him otherwise, Dave would do your horse in glue. It was just his preference. And he charged the same for glue ons or nail ons. So there wasn’t a price difference.

I mean…have you ever met another farrier with that preference and pricing structure? I sure haven’t.

Let’s say this miracle farrier Dave is doing this horse–and it doesn’t sound like it, with the rest of the barn in steel–is it any wonder that this could be a sticking point for buyers unfamiliar with Dave’s preference and method?

[vxf111]

Is there a national holiday this month where people don’t read to the end of my posts? Here’s the important last part of my post on this thread…

<<So I don’t think it’s ALWAYS a bad sign that a horse is in glue ons.

Now, if you don’t want to deal with glue ons, I get that. No glue ons that I have ever seen other than Dave’s were anything I would EVER want to deal with. But it’s not automatically a sign that something is wrong when horses are in glue ons. There are some farriers that just prefer to shoe that way and do it well.>>

That’s my one and only point. Just one point here. Just ONE. That glue ons do not automatically mean the seller is lying about something nefarious. Some people (me and everyone else whose horses Dave shod) used glue ons for an innocuous reason.

That’s my only point here. Not that someone should buy a horse in glue ons. Not that glue ons are good (or bad or otherwise). Not that it’s easy to find a farrier who does them well or cheaply. Just that there are times when a horse is in glue ons and it doesn’t mean the seller is lying and the horse is really lame.

When I used Dave half the barn used him and the other half used a different farrier. If you walked in and looked at my horse in glue and saw 3 others in cross ties in nail ins and assumed something was wrong with my horse, you would be jumping to the wrong conclusion. Those other 3 just happened to be done by the other farrier. If you looked more carefully, half the horses in the barn were in glue and those were all the horses Dave shod. You just can’t look at a horse in a specific type of shoe and know with certainty why it’s in those shoes. You can guess, but it’s just a guess and there are other possible explanation.

I mean… Dave is still out there shoeing Maybe he’s shoeing this horse

And maybe I have bad luck (good luck?) in farriers because the farrier who does my horse now has a similar pricing structure as Dave. Shoes costs more than just a trim. 4 feet costs more than 2. But beyond that it costs pretty much the same no matter what shoes those are. He’s just always $$$ LOL.

[Simkie]

@vxf111

Here’s the important last part of my post on this thread…

Sure, here’s mine.

@Simkie

Is it any wonder that this could be a sticking point for buyers unfamiliar with Dave’s preference and method?

[cheektwocheek]

My 4 yr old, short coupled & long legs. I put glue-ons on a few times a year when I’m tired of his shoe pulling. These were not sigafoos, but I do prefer them. He plays hard with the boys, as you can tell.

[vxf111]

@Simkie

Is it any wonder that this could be a sticking point for buyers unfamiliar with Dave’s preference and method?

Not at all. All I’m saying is it doesn’t mean the horse must be lame and the seller is lying.

[IPEsq]

But if someone asked you why your horse was in glue, you’d probably say, because that’s what my farrier likes, and I think my farrier is amazing! Not, he was sore in nailed on shoes. The undefined soreness is a red flag.

My farrier can do glue ons, but basically only Polyflex or glue with a regular shoe. He doesn’t want to handle the other kinds with cuffs, etc. For a half set of Polyflex, he charges $500 (full set of steel is $250 for comparison). I don’t think there’s any discount on a reset—he says they are hard to wear out but it’s the application process that is a pain.

[Simkie]

@vxf111

Not at all. All I’m saying is it doesn’t mean the horse must be lame and the seller is lying.

Sure, if the seller says their farrier prefers to glue on, but the horse also does fine nailing on, they could be telling the truth. It would certainly behoove the seller to be up front about that, because public perception of glue ons is pretty poor. And not undeservedly so.

That’s not what the seller is saying here, though.

[vxf111]

Sure, I would 100% for sure ASK and I would evaluate the answer and decide whether it seemed ok to me. But I would not presume that because the horse is in glue ons that something must be wrong. This seller said the horse was sore with nail on shoes and the OP felt like that was enough for her to pass. Fair enough. But I wouldn’t just see the glue ons and be like “that horse must be lame and the seller is lying.”

[Simkie]

@vxf111

But I wouldn’t just see the glue ons and be like “that horse must be lame and the seller is lying.”

I just reread the thread looking for the post that said this and couldn’t find it. Who said they automatically assumed the seller was lying if the horse was in glue ons?

[skipollo]

Sure, I would 100% for sure ASK and I would evaluate the answer and decide whether it seemed ok to me. But I would not presume that because the horse is in glue ons that something must be wrong. This seller said the horse was sore with nail on shoes and the OP felt like that was enough for her to pass. Fair enough. But I wouldn’t just see the glue ons and be like “that horse must be lame and the seller is lying.”

^^^^this

My horse wears Polyflex in the front because I don’t want to deal with the “what if” stress of him losing a shoe the day before a show, lesson etc. Is he more comfortable in the Poly, yes absolutely, but is he totally fine to work in a standard metal nail on shoe instead? Also yes.

[Scribbler]

@Simkie

@vxf111

But I wouldn’t just see the glue ons and be like “that horse must be lame and the seller is lying.”

I just reread the thread looking for the post that said this and couldn’t find it. Who said they automatically assumed the seller was lying if the horse was in glue ons?

I said that if you get a vague answer like “horse was sore in regular shoes” without details why (,thin sole, crumbly hoof wall, etc) then either you aren’t being told the whole story (lying by omission) or the seller is clueless. And it can be expensive to verify which it is.

Not a problem with glue ons. A potential problem with the reason for glue ons in an environment where they aren’t common.

[SRA]

Right this was my biggest concern. The seller wasn’t giving any specifics other than it was sore with nails.

Personally, I didn’t feel like spending a ton of money to figure out why or if it needed glue ons. Especially when I had tried a different horse at another barn that I also really liked.

If this had been my first PPE, I may have been willing to spend the money to investigate. But now that I’m at my third PPE, I don’t want to go into it with any red flags.

[beowulf]

@SRA

It’s at an eventing barn and from what I could tell, several horses had regular shoes on. Which makes me worried they’re covering something up. Hard to know without doing X-rays. I talked to my trainer again and we’re not going to do a PPE. Not worth the risk or added expense for me.

Responding to this specifically as I could think of some reasons a horse would need glue ons that aren’t a red flag - not to dissuade you from passing, as I think you made a good choice with the information you have.

Some horses don’t have much area to drive a nail into. I own one of those. He grows great feet and if we weren’t in a rocky/wet climate, he’d go barefoot. For a long time my younger horse was a candidate for glue ons. No history of anything inside his hoof - we just couldn’t drive a nail into his foot without causing endless hot nails.

In the end this was a farrier caused issue. As so many hoof issues are.

The old farrier hit my geriatric horse with a rasp – which prompted me to swiftly re-examine being a client of his. I found a different farrier and after a few cycles, the hot nails disappeared. That was over seven years ago; something to consider with horses, that the horse’s need for shoes may be entirely farrier driven.

The more experience I have with horses and farriers, the more I am realizing that farriers – and how they trim – are the progenitors of many physical ailments in horses, from NPA (negative palmar angles) causing soft tissue blow-outs, to pedal osteitis, to laminitis, to yes, a horse needing glue on shoes.

Something to consider.

[Simkie]

Yeah, totally agree–your distrust of the seller came with (imo reasonable) conditions.

I just don’t see where @vxf111 is seeing a blanket “glue ons = lying seller.”