A poll about barefoot, shoeing, studs and slipping

[TGM]

I know one of the concerns of many people about riding and particularly competing barefoot is loosing the facility to use studs and therefore risking a fall. Barefoot devotees usually claim that the unshod foot actually slips less than a shod foot, so studs are not necessary. However, I know there was a case recently where a well known show rider broke her leg badly when the unshod M&M she was riding slipped in a wet grass ring. But perhaps studded shod horses are prone to slipping as well?

I'd be interested to hear your experiences of horse falls due to slipping. For the benefit of the poll, we will define a 'horse fall' as one where either the horses shoulder or hindquarters (or both) touch the ground.

 

[LucyPriory]

I have T for Time in my barefoot protocol for a very good reason. A barefoot horse needs time to relearn how to use his feet and retrain his body.

But even more importantly a not so well balanced rider can no longer rely on the studs to compensate for them throwing the horse off balance - so they need time to improve.

A bare horse rarely slips and when they do it is 'controlled' and often appropriate to prevent damage to the leg higher up.

A studded horse loses the ability to protect his legs - the strain is thrown up the leg rather than being dissipated by a controlled slip.

I always refer people to the example of the Houston Mounted force - they have far fewer problems bare than they ever had shod and that includes slipping. And they end up cantering after suspects........ and crossing concrete bridges with steps up and going across marble........ they only put on boots for transition and when they expect to be assaulted or come across glass debris

 

[Ali2]

My boy, P, is barefoot.

P is well balanced and aware of where his feet are and very rarely slips (or enough for me to notice anyway). We jump up to 3 ft SJ and XC (He'd go bigger, I'm a wimp!). In the almost 3 years we've owned him we've had 3 slips that were sufficient to remain in my memory. 2 SJ on grass and 1 XC warmup. On all 3 ocassions he was excited, tearing around and not listening to me in the slightest. They were reasonable sized slips but they felt controlled and he was able to recover and rebalance (and then think better of tearing around and not listening).

We went XC schooling earlier this year when it was quite wet and slippery. The shod pony in the pair that set off round the course ahead of us was not at all happy jumping and had to go back to the lorry to have studs put in, after which he was much happier. The unshod pony in the pair was not at all bothered. My lad had no problems either.

 

[Ali2]

Double posted

 

[MagicMelon]

I couldn't tick any box as the only time one of my horses has fallen by slipping over was due to a wet patch in a rubber school so although horse was barefoot shoes wouldn't have helped anyway! And as it was an indoor event, studs weren't required.

Actually thinking about it one horse did fall with me when riding in the field at home a few years ago - he was shod with no studs (I never use studs at home) and we were just striking into canter up a hill when he slid over.

 

[GLEEK]

I was riding out in Newmarket and the horse slipped behind and fell. It was quite a worn out road as you could imagine