I guess things can go wrong with anything, but here’s my caveat: A couple of months ago, a friend of mine’s horse slipped and fell on him while riding on a narrow mountain trail. The metal EZ Ride style stirrup crushed under the horse’s weight and trapped his foot inside the stirrup. The horse got back to its feet with the rider still on the ground and with his foot stuck in the stirrup. His wife jumped off her horse and stopped his horse and kept her husband from being dragged by the panicked horse, but her horse spooked and took off back down the trail. It took a long time and a lot of muscle, leverage and prayers to pry his foot out of the stirrup while the horse was dancing around on a narrow ledge. Once his wife got his foot free, his horse, still panicked and wanting to follow the other horse, took off down the trail. He now had a seven mile hike down a narrow ledgy rocky trail ahead of him…after a fall and with an injured foot.
Their horses ran back to the trailer. He hobbled down off the mountain trail eventually, and when she got home, his wife bought new stirrups for all of their saddles…non-metal stirrups. And then advised all of her trail riding friends to consider doing the same. She said it was one of the scariest moments she’s experienced.
Oxbows hurt my feet. All the pressure is concentrated on a small area either side of the foot instead of evenly spread across the wider surface of the bottom of one’s foot. It’d be okay if I didn’t ride more than an hour or two. I consider them stirrups for arena work where the stirrup needs to be right in front of the boot heel to stay put while riding fast and turning quickly. (And you better have a tall boot heel or your foot might slip on through.)
If you get shin splints while trail riding, you might try lengthening your stirrup leathers. The longer the time you spend riding, the longer your stirrups leathers will be. ¢¾ I have mine adjusted so that when I stand in the stirrups, there is about 2" of space between the saddle and my crotch.
