Does anyone hunt barefoot horses?

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katherine1975

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I got my cob in August last year and didn't have time to get her fit enough to go hunting. When I got her she had never had shoes on, she now has front shoes but has not needed hind shoes. Do you think I will be able to hunt her next season without hind shoes? (obviously not going every week, hopefully once a month)
 
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katherine1975 said:
I got my cob in August last year and didn't have time to get her fit enough to go hunting. When I got her she had never had shoes on, she now has front shoes but has not needed hind shoes. Do you think I will be able to hunt her next season without hind shoes? (obviously not going every week, hopefully once a month)
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Why did you put front shoes on if she'd never had any? I have hunted three different horses with no shoes at all. Depending on the horse, you might have to be careful with her diet, especially while the autumn laminitis peak is in progress, as they can feel stones if they are getting too much grass. (maybe that's why you felt you had to put front shoes on??) But if you have a solid barefoot horse doing plenty of work on roads and tracks to get fit enough to hunt, you'll have no problem hunting with it. If you get those front shoes back off now, she should be ready to hunt without them by autumn.

I saw two horses last season slip and go right down on the road. You'll never see a barefoot hunter do that!
 
I've seen people hunting ponies (and one woman who hunts her Arab) barefoot - if your mare is happy without hind shoes and you're hunting over ground that she can cope with, then why not? Cobs have fantastically strong feet :)
 
I got her from World Horse Welfare as a rescue horse and she had only really been ridden in the school and around the farm (plus they try to not to shoe horses where possible due to the expense), I found that she was sore on her fronts without shoes on. Was just wondering whether she would still be ok without hind shoes on.
 
katherine1975 said:
I got her from World Horse Welfare as a rescue horse and she had only really been ridden in the school and around the farm (plus they try to not to shoe horses where possible due to the expense), I found that she was sore on her fronts without shoes on. Was just wondering whether she would still be ok without hind shoes on.
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My own experience of barefoot is that people think their horses are OK without back shoes because it is so much more difficult to identify bilateral hind leg lameness than front leg lameness. If she was too sore with ordinary hacking to go without shoes in front then I personally would not hunt her without back ones, when you might suddenly find yourself cantering up half a mile of hardcore farm track with no alternative.

If you want to try and get your mare working more easily without shoes there are plenty of people who will offer you great advice if you post in veterinary or new lounge. The answer is nearly always diet, and usually too much grass. But it can also be mineral imbalances and metabolic issues that are far more difficult to get to the bottom of.

Hope that helps.
 
spacefaer said:
I'm intrigued - why do they feel the stones more if they're having too much grass?
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Shoes have a certain amount of numbing effect, so a shod horse which would have had sore soles (the very first sign of laminitis, comes on much earlier than any difficulty moving) won't feel them until they get quite bad.

Barefoot horses grow foot at roughly twice the rate of the same horse shod. That's because they have a much bigger blood supply. Laminitis (which only means "inflammation of the laminae" not "dog-lame and standing with its feet rocked forward") is caused by bugs in the bloodstream attacking the laminae. If there is more blood, there will be more bugs. It is my belief that barefoot horses get sole sensitivity earlier than a shod horse because of this. Some barefooters in a senior position in trimming organisations don't believe this, but it makes perfect sense to me and fits with what I see with my own horses.

Horses were evolved to eat scrub, not grass, especially not the one-species over-fertilised stuff they are allowed these days. When you take a numbr of them barefoot you get to understand quite quickly just what an astonishing proportion of horses are affected by too much grass sugar. One of mine is rock-crunching if he is kept off the grass from 11 til 7, when the sugars are highest, and really quite touchy about stones if he isn't.
 
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In direct answer to the question...yes, I hunted my Lusitano mare completely barefoot two seasons. She also dressaged, showjumped and hacked barefoot

Good diet and correct conditioning makes all the difference ;-D CPTrayes will be able to help
 
I have a cob and an ISH I hunt unshod (hate the term "barefoot" ;-) ) - they do at least one day each week, the ISH jumps but the cob doesnt, neither have ever struggled with roadwork/tracks/slipping etc - most other mounted followers are usually compeltely amazed that they don't have shoes on. The reason they don't is that they don't appear to need them ... so why waste money is my thinking!!
 
Moggie, agree with your sentiments! Several barefoot horses are hunted on Exmoors stony tracks, but I think it depends on the horse. I am not so convinced about the diet business. Some horses will be fine without shoes and others not. Barefoots seem great on roads, not so good on slippery muddy pasture where the hoof cannot grip as well as a shoe.
 
spacefaer said:
thanks for explaning that :)

should we move to veterinary so we don't hijack this post and you can explain "bugs in the bloodstream"??
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No, let's just confuse people like xlthlx on here :)

The bug believed to cause the problem is staphylococcus bovis. If the digestion is wrongly balanced (most commonly by too much carbohydrate eaten too quickly - rich grass, got into the feed store and ate a bag of barley ....) then the gut allows the production of too many of them, and they are sized so they can get through the gut wall and into bloodstream. When delivered to the laminae they cause them to swell. Eventually if they get enough they will die and then you really have trouble, because the foot is literally beginning to fall off.

In a barefoot horse, the swollen laminae will stretch a bit, and allow the pedal bone to drop inside the foot. Barefooters will tell you that the concavity in a foot changes overnight. So at that point you have a pedal bone pressing through the sole on stones on the floor, and a sole that is suffering attack from where it is made (sole corium) exactly the same as the laminae, and a barefoot horse who is not as comfortable on stones as he should be.

Luckily, you get these signs so early that there is no possibility of a barefoot horse ridden regularly on "telltale" surfaces doing himself real damage before the rider knows something has changed, and gets him off the grass.

You might think that barefoot horses getting these signs earlier would be considered a drawback, but for me it is an advantage. It's astonishing the number of grass sensitive horses that are itchy, bad tempered, allergic to things. I reckon that's because the liver is trying to cope with the bugs and a wrong balance in the gut and the horse feels permanently hung over. When the liver works properly those itches, allergies, and temper tantrums sometimes just disappear as if by magic!

The whole health of the horse is all joined up, and the feet act as a "storm brewing" early warning.
 
oakash said:
Moggie, agree with your sentiments! Several barefoot horses are hunted on Exmoors stony tracks, but I think it depends on the horse. I am not so convinced about the diet business. Some horses will be fine without shoes and others not. Barefoots seem great on roads, not so good on slippery muddy pasture where the hoof cannot grip as well as a shoe.
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My experience with slipping in mud both affiliated eventing and hunting does not match yours.

My experience with horses that are not fine without shoes is that I have so far managed with thirteen completely different types as long as I got their particular dietary needs sorted out. It can take time that some people will not wait for. Other than that, the ones that people give up on usually have either a sugar sensitivity (most common) or a mineral imbalance. For example, my friend gave her horses the same regime as mine but they were never as good on stones as mine are. I finally found out that her water is higher in manganese than mine (we are both on springs) and so is her land, and that an excess of manganese prevents the absorption of copper, which is implicated in the regulation of insulin balances and digestion of sugar. She now supplements copper and after five years of one mare in particular of being "just one of those horses who can't do it without shoes", she is absolutely solid on her feet.

It's almost always diet but it can be very difficult to work out what is wrong, especially if the horse is metabolically challenged as my rehab horse is.

I'm sure the genetics argument will raise it's head soon. I've done a racing TB whose aluminium plates I took off myself, he was that new off a racetrack. I've done a horse who a newly qualified farrier and a very experienced farrier both told me would never work without shoes. My rehab arrived with feet I could bend with my fingers, he has such a problem with carbohydrate digestion. We barefooteres have done so many horses between us over the last five years now, and those of us who have total control over our horses environment and an obsessive interest in their diet don't fail to produce one that is rock crunching in time.


ps Any horse can be shoeless. Only horses that do work that other horses need shoes for is a barefoot horse. There is a need for a different term and like it or lump it we have barefoot from the US and it's stuck now.
 
Mine have only got fronts on, and they are perfectly fine out hunting :) Obviously every horse is different, but I'm sure she'll be fine, just see how she goes :)
 
Depp_by_Chocolate said:
That is very interesting cptrayes, what diet should we be looking at to keep our working horses barefoot?
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Ah! 64,000$ question! It depends on the horse, and you can't tell by breed or body shape. I've had a cob who should have had real problems with grass be rock-crunching with 24/7 turnout and I had a fit affiliated eventer who couldn't tolerate any turnout at all even in winter.

But there are some things that many, many barefoot owners will recommend -

- brewer's yeast instead of a commercial feed balancer. Cheaper, contains most of the minerals the horse needs in a form they find very bio-available and they love it. Often stops horses itching too. Feed at 50 grammes a day for a horse. Costs £50 for 25kg delivered from Charnwood milling, more sacks cheaper as the delivery cost is high.

- magnesium oxide. Spring grass is low in magnesium which is why lots of horses need magnesium calmers to control their behaviour in spring. Implicated in irritated nerve endings if in short supply. Used up quicker if the horse is stressed. Fed at around 25 grammes a day. Available as calmag at £9 for 25kg from agricultural merchants, or if your horse has a sensitive gut feed food grade MgO from eBay.

- expect to restrict spring grazing and if necessary summer/autumn. Most of us find it easiest to control our sensitive ones if they are in during high-sugar hours 11am to 7pm. Also saves them being bothered by flies and sunburn. Mine just sleep and pick a bit of haylage.

For the sensitive ones -

- remove molasses, cane syrup, wheat syrup and corn syrup from your horse's diet. Don't go by the sack, look at the white label. Lots of feeds sold as safe for laminitics have tons of sugar in them.

- soak hay to get the sugar out.

- for extra energy, feed oil.

- if the horse can tolerate carbs feed oats not barley, barley is digested in the wrong part of the gut.

For the ones who can't be controlled with low sugar high fibre diets -

- check your minerals in your grazing and your forage. You may have underload or overload of key minerals causing a problem, like my friend with the copper/manganese imbalance.

- check for Insulin Resistance (IR), Equine Polysaccharride Storage Myopathy (EPSM) and Cushings. My rehab has EPSM, judging by his reaction to the high oil, high vit E diet he has been on for a week.

That's a potted summary, it's not by any means the whole picture but I hope it was helpful. You might find Feet First, available on Amazon, an interesting read for foot health whether your horse is shod or not.
 
my horse hunted all the last 2 seasons barefoot. never a days lameness, never footsore, no abscesses. trimmed every 6-8wks, feet kept neat in between by me. fed normal food, no special supplements, nothing painted on his feet. he has got fabulous natural feet that have never been ruined by shoes.
 
cptrayes said:
Ah! 64,000$ question! It depends on the horse, and you can't tell by breed or body shape. I've had a cob who should have had real problems with grass be rock-crunching with 24/7 turnout and I had a fit affiliated eventer who couldn't tolerate any turnout at all even in winter.

But there are some things that many, many barefoot owners will recommend -

- brewer's yeast instead of a commercial feed balancer. Cheaper, contains most of the minerals the horse needs in a form they find very bio-available and they love it. Often stops horses itching too. Feed at 50 grammes a day for a horse. Costs £50 for 25kg delivered from Charnwood milling, more sacks cheaper as the delivery cost is high.

- magnesium oxide. Spring grass is low in magnesium which is why lots of horses need magnesium calmers to control their behaviour in spring. Implicated in irritated nerve endings if in short supply. Used up quicker if the horse is stressed. Fed at around 25 grammes a day. Available as calmag at £9 for 25kg from agricultural merchants, or if your horse has a sensitive gut feed food grade MgO from eBay.

- expect to restrict spring grazing and if necessary summer/autumn. Most of us find it easiest to control our sensitive ones if they are in during high-sugar hours 11am to 7pm. Also saves them being bothered by flies and sunburn. Mine just sleep and pick a bit of haylage.

For the sensitive ones -

- remove molasses, cane syrup, wheat syrup and corn syrup from your horse's diet. Don't go by the sack, look at the white label. Lots of feeds sold as safe for laminitics have tons of sugar in them.

- soak hay to get the sugar out.

- for extra energy, feed oil.

- if the horse can tolerate carbs feed oats not barley, barley is digested in the wrong part of the gut.

For the ones who can't be controlled with low sugar high fibre diets -

- check your minerals in your grazing and your forage. You may have underload or overload of key minerals causing a problem, like my friend with the copper/manganese imbalance.

- check for Insulin Resistance (IR), Equine Polysaccharride Storage Myopathy (EPSM) and Cushings. My rehab has EPSM, judging by his reaction to the high oil, high vit E diet he has been on for a week.

That's a potted summary, it's not by any means the whole picture but I hope it was helpful. You might find Feet First, available on Amazon, an interesting read for foot health whether your horse is shod or not.
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Thanks for that, it was very helpful I'm definitely going to look into it :)
 
star said:
my horse hunted all the last 2 seasons barefoot. never a days lameness, never footsore, no abscesses. trimmed every 6-8wks, feet kept neat in between by me. fed normal food, no special supplements, nothing painted on his feet. he has got fabulous natural feet that have never been ruined by shoes.
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I have one the same now and have had others. It's a joy to have one like it, and there are many. And I have another kept exactly the same way, who has also never had shoes who can't do rock-crunching in summer unless I restrict his daytime grass intake. It was him who first alerted me to just how important diet is to some horses. I hope people are beginning to realise that it's not an explanation to say "some horses can do it and some can't" until you explore just what it is in the diet that might be preventing your "can't do it" horse from "doing it".
 
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i dont think there's anything special about the diet of my "cant do it" horse. he eats the same as my fabulous footed horse. But he naturally has the flattest soles I've seen in my life! It's not surprising he cant do stony ground. I think diet does play a part, but genetics is a huge factor.
 
star said:
i dont think there's anything special about the diet of my "cant do it" horse. he eats the same as my fabulous footed horse.
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But that's exactly the point. Like humans individual horses have very different metabolisms. So whilst one person can eat fatty food, chocolate and sugary drinks and never put weight on the person stood next to them would be the size of a house on the same diet. Exactly the same with horses - they can all cope with different amounts of sugar and starch in their diet. So one horse can eat limitless grass and still be rock crunching whilst his field companion will be extremely footsore eating exactly the same amount of grass. Genetics probably play a part in the type of metabolism a horse has - just as skinny parents with quick metabolisms will tend to have skinny kids and vice versa - but that's different to the actual ability to have great feet. ALL horses can have strong healthy feet if you get the diet right, though for some horses getting the diet right is extremely (and sometimes impossibly) difficult.
 
There was a lovely picture in Horse and Hound at the beginning of last season (one before last) of an old hunter that had been retired due to navicular. After going barefoot and being correctly trimmed and rehabilitated he was back hunting again.

Interesting theory about the laminitis causing "bugs." I have long subscribed to the "leaky gut" theory behind laminitis, which is why I feed my two, one working and one not working "an expensive feed supplement" with digestive yeasts and the only time the non working pony showed any symptoms of laminitis was when I ran out of the supplement.
 
rosiefronfelen said:
no never, our horses wouldn't have any feet left!!
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Interesting! Why would yours have no feet left when mine and all the others posted about on here are absolutely fine??? Plllleeeeeeeeeeze don't answer that it's the terrain or the mileage! All my horses fittening work is done on roads (hours and hours of roadwork) and tracks that are the rocky beds of streams, so it's not the wear, or the quality of the surface, or the distance you cover.

Star, ditto Mr Darcy. Your horse does not "naturally" have flat feet. The pedal bone is saucer shaped and the shape of the sole matches it provided that the hoof is properly attached to the pedal bone by the laminae. The rehab horse that I have now has had "naturally flat feet - inherited from his half TB father" since he was born. He's now ten. I have his diet absolutely right now and his attachment is so much better that in the last 14 days he has developed significant concavity and a hugely increased ability to cope with stones, to the point where he is now hacking on roads with no boots. Ten years "genetic" flat footedness changed in three months? I'd bet my bottom dollar your "naturally flat footed" horse would concave up if you stopped letting it eat the sugar that your other horse has no problem with.

Anyone who wants to see a picture of a foot so flat that the frog is far and away the highest thing on it and there is no height whatsoever in the heels (no bars), PM me with your email address. That horse is one who two farriers told me would never work barefoot, and although it took nine months, he competed affiliated eventing at Novice level without shoes.
 
cptrayes said:
Interesting! Why would yours have no feet left when mine and all the others posted about on here are absolutely fine??? Plllleeeeeeeeeeze don't answer that it's the terrain or the mileage! All my horses fittening work is done on roads (hours and hours of roadwork) and tracks that are the rocky beds of streams, so it's not the wear, or the quality of the surface, or the distance you cover.

Star, ditto Mr Darcy. Your horse does not "naturally" have flat feet. The pedal bone is saucer shaped and the shape of the sole matches it provided that the hoof is properly attached to the pedal bone by the laminae. The rehab horse that I have now has had "naturally flat feet - inherited from his half TB father" since he was born. He's now ten. I have his diet absolutely right now and his attachment is so much better that in the last 14 days he has developed significant concavity and a hugely increased ability to cope with stones, to the point where he is now hacking on roads with no boots. Ten years "genetic" flat footedness changed in three months? I'd bet my bottom dollar your "naturally flat footed" horse would concave up if you stopped letting it eat the sugar that your other horse has no problem with.

Anyone who wants to see a picture of a foot so flat that the frog is far and away the highest thing on it and there is no height whatsoever in the heels (no bars), PM me with your email address. That horse is one who two farriers told me would never work barefoot, and although it took nine months, he competed affiliated eventing at Novice level without shoes.
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our 17 year old has bad feet anyway, but the main reason is i dont believe in it. this is just my own personal opinion being of the old school as they say, also in the 38 odd years i've worked with horses they have always been shod.
 
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