Does anyone hunt barefoot horses?

You don't believe in it and you have no experience of it and yet you are certain that your horses feet would wear out if they didn't have shoes on? In the 38 odd years I've worked with horses they have always been shod - until five years ago desperation made me try with two horses, one very much against the advice of my farriers, and none of mine have been shod since and they never will be again.

If you always do what you always did you'll always get what you always got.
 
cptrayes said:
You don't believe in it and you have no experience of it and yet you are certain that your horses feet would wear out if they didn't have shoes on? In the 38 odd years I've worked with horses they have always been shod - until five years ago desperation made me try with two horses, one very much against the advice of my farriers, and none of mine have been shod since and they never will be again.

If you always do what you always did you'll always get what you always got.
Click to expand...

each to their own, ours will always be shod, you do things your way and we do things our way- we are neither right nor wrong, i dont havemuch choice in my life so i am happy to get what i always got.
 
You posted on a forum which was asking if anyone had hunted barefoot horses. If you aren't interested in learning how those of us who DO hunt barefoot horses do it, why bother to post?

We ALL have choices. You think you don't , but you have made a choice not to try to learn any more about hoof health - yet you have a 17 year old with "bad feet" that could almost certainly be improved considerably by a number of people who have posted on this thread. Likewise there are probably quite a few of us who could happily hunt your horses with no shoes on after a sensible transition program and barefoot tuned feeding.

Shoe if you want to, that's not a problem for any of us, but don't be surprised to be challenged if you post implying to the original poster and other readers that it can't be done with your horses when it probably can and it is your choice not to try.
 
i do know what shape the pedal bone is, strangely enough they taught us that at vet school!

my flat footed horse is still flat footed after 9mths box rest so i dont think grass is the route cause of it all. he's 24 now and has had flat feet all his life. he's retired and his life revolves around eating yummy green stuff. i wont be changing that any time soon.
 
cptrayes said:
You posted on a forum which was asking if anyone had hunted barefoot horses. If you aren't interested in learning how those of us who DO hunt barefoot horses do it, why bother to post?

We ALL have choices. You think you don't , but you have made a choice not to try to learn any more about hoof health - yet you have a 17 year old with "bad feet" that could almost certainly be improved considerably by a number of people who have posted on this thread. Likewise there are probably quite a few of us who could happily hunt your horses with no shoes on after a sensible transition program and barefoot tuned feeding.

Shoe if you want to, that's not a problem for any of us, but don't be surprised to be challenged if you post implying to the original poster and other readers that it can't be done with your horses when it probably can and it is your choice not to try.
Click to expand...

please dont try to be unpleasant, you know nothing about my horse, but there are just as many who shoe as do not- my horse is shod most of the year as his feet tend to break, he has never been lame in his life- also i NEVER said it couldn't be done to my horses, i just dont agree with it- old fashioned i may be, but i'm sure all the employers i have worked for throughout haven't all been wrong! so please do not patronise me because of my differing views.
 
LOL - to me there's nothing yummy about the green stuff - I hate it! But to horses it's very yummy... far too yummy in fact and bad for them... I like to think of turning horses out in rye grass green fields the equivalent of letting a child loose in a chocolate factory. They will stuff their faces and look very happy but it certainly aint good for them. Just out of interest what was your horse fed whilst on box rest? Sugar and starch overload doesn't just come from grass but also from molassed mixes, cubes and chops and from licks, carrots and other treats. All things that tend to get fed to bored box rested horses. And of course movement is crucial to growing strong healthy feet, so the moment you box rest a horse their feet will deteriorate. To get strong concave feet you need the right diet for that horse, almost constant movement on a variety of terrains but most importantly hard/uneven/rocky and a good trim.

It does baffle me a little bit that we all seem to have accepted the relationship between healthy eating and human health i.e we eat at MacDonalds on a regular basis and our health will suffer, yet when healthy eating and horse health is talked about people refuse to see the same links.
 
Last edited:
both my horses eat fibre only diets. my old one is fat so he lives on hi-fi lite and unmolassed sugar beet and soaked hay. my youngster with his fabulous feet (incidently still fabulous after a few mths box rest) eats molassed chaff, big sticky molassed licks and shed loads of apples and carrots. when he's not on box rest he lives in a flat, sandy field - no variety of terrain at all. his feet just stay wonderful.

i'm a vet, i totally get healthy eating for horses, but i dont think diet alone is the answer to everything. horses were designed to eat grass and wild ones would have good feet or die. grass isn't the route of all evil.
 
star said:
both my horses eat fibre only diets. my old one is fat so he lives on hi-fi lite and unmolassed sugar beet and soaked hay. my youngster with his fabulous feet (incidently still fabulous after a few mths box rest) eats molassed chaff, big sticky molassed licks and shed loads of apples and carrots. when he's not on box rest he lives in a flat, sandy field - no variety of terrain at all. his feet just stay wonderful.

i'm a vet, i totally get healthy eating for horses, but i dont think diet alone is the answer to everything. horses were designed to eat grass and wild ones would have good feet or die. grass isn't the route of all evil.
Click to expand...

But the grasses horses evolved to eat are nothing like the grasses they eat here in the UK. It's as different as apples and elephants. That's one of the reasons why wild horses have great feet - they wouldn't if they were stuck on green grass for a few days (and this has actually been observed - a small band of wild horses got trapped in a nature reserve, almost all of them came down with laminitis within a few days). Plus wild horses have a far more varied diet - the dried grasses make up only a small proportion of their diet, they also eat a huge variety of herbs, bushes, trees, twigs, mud and mineral rocks. In the UK our horses tend to be in single species pastures, usually ryegrass. In the wild a horse would never encounter rye grass. So to say horses were designed to eat grasses is fine, but they certainly weren't designed to eat the grasses they eat in this country.

Your youngster is clearly one of the lucky horses with a very fast metabolism though you may find he is less able to digest all that sugar when he matures and stops putting energy into growing. Lots of people find they can feed their horses anything until they reach eight or nine years old and then suddenly they start having problems. Interesting you say your oldie is fat... well if he's fat he isn't healthy is he? No wonder he has flat feet.
 
my youngster is 8 now and yes, he has a very fast metabolism. i have to feed him a lot to keep weight on him.

my old one has always had flat feet, no matter what weight he is. when i say fat, i dont mean obese, but i like my horses lean and he is carrying slightly too much for my liking. somehow i dont think that's the cause of his flat feet though! i'd rather you didn't pass judgement on how healthy he is without actually seeing him. he's 24 and everyone who meets him cant believe how amazingly good he looks for his age, so actually i reckon he's pretty damn healthy, but he's not in work so I'll let him get away with carrying a bit more weight than my youngster.
 
star said:
i do know what shape the pedal bone is, strangely enough they taught us that at vet school!

my flat footed horse is still flat footed after 9mths box rest so i dont think grass is the route cause of it all. he's 24 now and has had flat feet all his life. he's retired and his life revolves around eating yummy green stuff. i wont be changing that any time soon.
Click to expand...

Your point is? His flat feet are hardly going to improve stuck without movement in a box for nine months. Correct movement is essential too. If his life revolved around yummy green stuff for 23 years followed by the best part of a year stuck in a box it is no wonder he has flat feet.

I find it interesting that some people (I don't mean you) think that it is unfair not to allow their horses to have unlimited access to the "yummy green stuff", irrespective of the fact that for many horses it is causing liver problems which must give them a constant hungover feeling. I suspect that a lot of the issue is that it is easier and cheaper for us as owners to have the spring summer and autumn off from mucking out stables.

As a vet I would hope that you would be more open minded about whether diet contributes to your old boy's flat feet. But it sounds as if you could be one of those vets who are still recommending people with horses that have had tildren, adequan, HLA injected into the navicular bursa and bar shoes and are still lame should be shot? It's a good job that my rehab didn't quite reach that point with his vet, because after having had all that lot, he was sound ten weeks after taking off his shoes and at twelve weeks did a 6 mile farm ride with plenty of cantering and jumped ten fences on the way round, all on rock hard ground. The flat feet, however, in spite of being off grass completely, did not resolve until I worked out what diet he needed, and have since got deeper every day.

I simply don't buy the "genetically flat feet" argument. I bought a horse with them. Only to find out when he was eight that after three months without shoes his feet weren't flat at all - and I can guarantee you have NEVER seen a flatter foot than his, he was one of those who can only be shod one front foot at a time because he could not stand with both front shoes off. I haven't failed to see one concave up yet when you have worked out what the horse needs, but as Mr Darcy says it can sometimes be very difficult and for some people and horses it's better to shoe.

I have nothing against anyone who shoes. Some people need to. But I find it irritating (have you noticed :)) when anyone says their horse "can't do it" without making any attempt to test what dietary changes might mean that the horse can indeed "do it". It puts other people off trying what is, for most of the horses who are barefoot, a major holistic improvement in their health.
 
rosiefronfelen said:
please dont try to be unpleasant, you know nothing about my horse, but there are just as many who shoe as do not- my horse is shod most of the year as his feet tend to break, he has never been lame in his life- also i NEVER said it couldn't be done to my horses, i just dont agree with it- old fashioned i may be, but i'm sure all the employers i have worked for throughout haven't all been wrong! so please do not patronise me because of my differing views.
Click to expand...


Now I am baffled. You don't agree with hunting horses without shoes? Why not? My horse gallops up farm tracks made of hardcore alongside everyone elses. Why would you want me to have him shod? Or have I misunderstood? I can tell you that either your old employers were wrong in believing that all their horses needed to be shod, or, with no training at all (just a sharp brain and a good rasp) I have been flukily lucky with horse after horse after horse, eventing and hunting, including one who farriers told me could not possibly "do it" and now one who was 24 hours away from being put to sleep for foot issues.

You posted that your horses' feet would wear out (I read that as "it couldn't be done to your horses", I can't see how else to read it.) and this is misleading to other people who might want to try it, because they almost certainly would not. I am not being patronising. You patronised me with your 38 years experience, probably thinking that I was young and naive, and actually I'm an old fart and have 39 years experience. You chose to enter this debate but you don't want your views challenged. It doesn't work that way, sorry.
 
*slight funny moment of cptrayes explaining to the vet the shape of the pedal bone and how to feed...*

Anyway=cptrayes-is this all stuff you have thought up or is there actually any research behind it-proper scientific stuff? Since there should be if this is true. And I for one would love to read a study on it.
 
SusieT said:
*slight funny moment of cptrayes explaining to the vet the shape of the pedal bone and how to feed...*

Anyway=cptrayes-is this all stuff you have thought up or is there actually any research behind it-proper scientific stuff? Since there should be if this is true. And I for one would love to read a study on it.
Click to expand...


Do a search on the other threads on this forum and you will find that there is a ton of research. Google "barefoot" and follow the pointers to all the barefoot sites on there and you will learn as much as you can spare the time to study. Take your own horse barefoot and you will marvel at what a difference it will make to his feet.

I was completely unaware that Star was a vet when I explained the shape of the pedal bone, though I'm sure other people learned from it and I'm pleased if it gave you some amusement.

You think vets in general are experts in feed? More fool you! If I had ten quid for every metabolically challenged horse who cannot cope with feeds marked "laminitic safe" and stamped with the approval of a leading set of Veterinary Surgeons I'd be rich.
 
Last edited:
cptrayes - OMG, could you make any more assumptions about me in one reply? i cant even be bothered to respond to the derogatory statements about what i might or might not do as a vet.

but i will say that my horse doesn't live out on the nice green stuff because i cant be arsed to muck out - he lives out because he gets COPD, box walks, weaves, gets filled legs and stresses himself into a skeleton. now i wonder which is the lesser of 2 evils - oh yes, the grass he's been eating for the last 24yrs that keeps him looking so good the envy of most people with horses anywhere near his age. he is sound and happy - that's all that currently matters to me. so, he has flat feet and i let him eat grass - well, shoot me now! perhaps i should be struck off and hand my job over to you as you clearly know far more than me and i am obviously being so cruel to him.

may i remind you i have a barefoot horse who hunts who has the most amazing feet, is never ever footsore, eats grass and has no special diet or footcare. obviously he is a complete freak though as the grass should be poisoning him and dissolving his feet and liver.

:goes off to bed chuckling with amazement at some people!:
 
No-surely if you have the authority to tell everyone all of this stuff-you should be able to direct them to the research that led to these conclusions? It is a question I would imagine you get asked often.
It can be tested for what horses are processing of their food, so have studies been done on this? Where is the evidence for where food is digested in the gut? Are the assumptions made just compared to humans-silly as their digestive system is massively different to ours...
Or is this all anecdotal evidence based on horse owners (often with little scientific training) observations?
I don't want to use barefoot sites-these are not scientifically peer reviewed or controlled studies-they could be written by anyone and about anything. I could make up a website about two headed fish.
I won't marvel at the difference it will make as I have both shod and unshod horses-and sound and unsound horses.
 
star said:
cptrayes - OMG, could you make any more assumptions about me in one reply? i cant even be bothered to respond to the derogatory statements about what i might or might not do as a vet.

but i will say that my horse doesn't live out on the nice green stuff because i cant be arsed to muck out - he lives out because he gets COPD, box walks, weaves, gets filled legs and stresses himself into a skeleton. now i wonder which is the lesser of 2 evils - oh yes, the grass he's been eating for the last 24yrs that keeps him looking so good the envy of most people with horses anywhere near his age. he is sound and happy - that's all that currently matters to me. so, he has flat feet and i let him eat grass - well, shoot me now! perhaps i should be struck off and hand my job over to you as you clearly know far more than me and i am obviously being so cruel to him.

may i remind you i have a barefoot horse who hunts who has the most amazing feet, is never ever footsore, eats grass and has no special diet or footcare. obviously he is a complete freak though as the grass should be poisoning him and dissolving his feet and liver.

:goes off to bed chuckling with amazement at some people!:
Click to expand...



I think you missed these words in my post "(I don't mean you) "
 
SusieT said:
No-surely if you have the authority to tell everyone all of this stuff-you should be able to direct them to the research that led to these conclusions? It is a question I would imagine you get asked often.
It can be tested for what horses are processing of their food, so have studies been done on this? Where is the evidence for where food is digested in the gut? Are the assumptions made just compared to humans-silly as their digestive system is massively different to ours...
Or is this all anecdotal evidence based on horse owners (often with little scientific training) observations?
I don't want to use barefoot sites-these are not scientifically peer reviewed or controlled studies-they could be written by anyone and about anything. I could make up a website about two headed fish.
I won't marvel at the difference it will make as I have both shod and unshod horses-and sound and unsound horses.
Click to expand...


I fail to see why I should do your work for you. If you are interested, research it for yourself like the rest of us do.
 
star said:
cptrayes - OMG, could you make any more assumptions about me in one reply? i cant even be bothered to respond to the derogatory statements about what i might or might not do as a vet.

but i will say that my horse doesn't live out on the nice green stuff because i cant be arsed to muck out - he lives out because he gets COPD, box walks, weaves, gets filled legs and stresses himself into a skeleton. now i wonder which is the lesser of 2 evils - oh yes, the grass he's been eating for the last 24yrs that keeps him looking so good the envy of most people with horses anywhere near his age. he is sound and happy - that's all that currently matters to me. so, he has flat feet and i let him eat grass - well, shoot me now! perhaps i should be struck off and hand my job over to you as you clearly know far more than me and i am obviously being so cruel to him.

may i remind you i have a barefoot horse who hunts who has the most amazing feet, is never ever footsore, eats grass and has no special diet or footcare. obviously he is a complete freak though as the grass should be poisoning him and dissolving his feet and liver.

:goes off to bed chuckling with amazement at some people!:
Click to expand...

This is turning into one of those pointless arguments - nothing new there... we're used to it!

But I am genuinely interested in how much teaching you got about horses feet at vet school - both theory and practical. I have been told by another vet that it was at most a week. A week out of five years is no where near enough IMO. But perhaps things have improved since they were at vet school. I would hope these days that the horses hoof would merit at least a semester of indepth lectures. It would also be really useful if you could point me in the direction of the syllabus you studied with regards to the feet - I'd be interested to know exactly what was being taught because IME the vets I have come across have very limited, and sometimes wildly incorrect, knowledge about feet. But again perhaps the vet schools have improved their training in the last few years. One vet - a very experienced and respected equine vet - actually stated that horses in the UK could never manage barefoot because the wet conditions gave them all white line disease!!!! I was walking past him leading one of my barefoot endurance horses over the gravel yard at the time. White line disease... what white line disease??!!! LOL!!!
 
cptrayes said:
Now I am baffled. You don't agree with hunting horses without shoes? Why not? My horse gallops up farm tracks made of hardcore alongside everyone elses. Why would you want me to have him shod? Or have I misunderstood? I can tell you that either your old employers were wrong in believing that all their horses needed to be shod, or, with no training at all (just a sharp brain and a good rasp) I have been flukily lucky with horse after horse after horse, eventing and hunting, including one who farriers told me could not possibly "do it" and now one who was 24 hours away from being put to sleep for foot issues.

You posted that your horses' feet would wear out (I read that as "it couldn't be done to your horses", I can't see how else to read it.) and this is misleading to other people who might want to try it, because they almost certainly would not. I am not being patronising. You patronised me with your 38 years experience, probably thinking that I was young and naive, and actually I'm an old fart and have 39 years experience. You chose to enter this debate but you don't want your views challenged. It doesn't work that way, sorry.
Click to expand...
the question was" does anyone hunt barefoot?" my answer was no. you misconstrued my answer to suit your beliefs, this is my last post to you to which i will no doubt get the "i know everything and you know nowt" retort. before i go i was not patronising you by saying i'd been employed for 38 years( of course you typically had to take yours 1 more year lol- i said that in case i was considered a newbie to the horse world, nothing more.as i said before, i am of the old school and cannot remember barefoot in my younger days. i have absolutely no interest in this particular research and will continue to shoe- is that so wrong?? answer can be either a 2 letter or 3 letter, not another epistle- i really dont care if my views are challenged, but a nicer way of going about it would have been appreciated! so with that i buy your leave and agree to disagree.
 
Just some musings on the whole issue of peer reviewed studies - requests for these seem to come up regularly with regard to barefoot.
A published peer-reviewed study isn't gospel. Anecdotal evidence isn't necessarily unsound (no pun intended...). One case study obviously doesn't give strong evidence for anything, but a large body of anecdotal evidence should be at least seriously considered.
I'd be quite surprised if there is ever any strong scientific evidence to support points made in the discussion above that isn't based on case studies. The influence of diet on hooves is unlikely to attract lots of funding which is what's usually required for large scale studies to take place. And small scale studies are really just the same as case studies.
Would be interested to hear ideas about how a peer reviewed, controlled study could be done?
There's also the whole tradition issue. We're at the point now where we have very effective hoof protection available in the form of hoof boots. Is it simply the tradition of shoeing horses that keeps most people from using these instead of shoes, or are they regarded as inferior? If so, why is that?
 
cptrayes said:
Now I am baffled. You don't agree with hunting horses without shoes? Why not? My horse gallops up farm tracks made of hardcore alongside everyone elses. Why would you want me to have him shod? Or have I misunderstood? I can tell you that either your old employers were wrong in believing that all their horses needed to be shod, or, with no training at all (just a sharp brain and a good rasp) I have been flukily lucky with horse after horse after horse, eventing and hunting, including one who farriers told me could not possibly "do it" and now one who was 24 hours away from being put to sleep for foot issues.

You posted that your horses' feet would wear out (I read that as "it couldn't be done to your horses", I can't see how else to read it.) and this is misleading to other people who might want to try it, because they almost certainly would not. I am not being patronising. You patronised me with your 38 years experience, probably thinking that I was young and naive, and actually I'm an old fart and have 39 years experience. You chose to enter this debate but you don't want your views challenged. It doesn't work that way, sorry.
Click to expand...

actually, reading back to this, you are insulting my old employers-which i find unforgiveable. how many employers have you had over your 39 years? i haven't just worked for any old hick but then i'm not one for bragging so i'll say no more!!
 
soloequestrian said:
Just some musings on the whole issue of peer reviewed studies - requests for these seem to come up regularly with regard to barefoot.
A published peer-reviewed study isn't gospel. Anecdotal evidence isn't necessarily unsound (no pun intended...). One case study obviously doesn't give strong evidence for anything, but a large body of anecdotal evidence should be at least seriously considered.
I'd be quite surprised if there is ever any strong scientific evidence to support points made in the discussion above that isn't based on case studies. The influence of diet on hooves is unlikely to attract lots of funding which is what's usually required for large scale studies to take place. And small scale studies are really just the same as case studies.
Would be interested to hear ideas about how a peer reviewed, controlled study could be done?
There's also the whole tradition issue. We're at the point now where we have very effective hoof protection available in the form of hoof boots. Is it simply the tradition of shoeing horses that keeps most people from using these instead of shoes, or are they regarded as inferior? If so, why is that?
Click to expand...

in my case, its tradition which suits us, i have no knowledge of these boots and am simply not interested, they may be brilliant but why fix something that aint broke, as they say!!
 
SusieT said:
so in other words you have none to direct me to.
Not surprising really.
Click to expand...

You aren't interested in the research susiet or you would go and look it up like the rest of us have. You are interested in a fight, but like Mr Darcy says, we're used to it. The information is out there if you want it. I fail to see why I should spend my time spoon feeding you it.

Overnight I have worked out why I am so concerned about a vet who is adamant that there are horses born to have flat feet. Take a horse like my rehab. Flat footed for all his adult life. Radiographs showing navicular syndrome and very thin soles. Treated with tildren, adequan, hyaluronic acid injected into the foot and in bar shoes. Still lame. Even if that vet believes in barefoot rehabilitation for navicular syndrome, they are going to say to that owner "there have been some good results with barefoot for a navicular rehab, but I'm afraid since yours has been flat footed all his life and has such thin soles, he simply won't cope", and he would have been put down, because he was too unsound to be a happy paddock ornament.

Instead, I removed him from grass completely, worked out the rest of his issues, and have him on a diet that now obviously suits him perfectly. The concavity in his feet is still increasing every day. He is sound, being placed in dressage competitions and doing farm rides and jumping. He's only ten, looks happy to be alive, beautiful and extremely talented with a wonderful piaffe. What a shame if he were to be dead because of a vet who didn't believe a horse that was flat footed for life could be changed :(

He needs a loan home for life now if anyone thinks they can offer him the life he deserves. With grass free turnout of course. Please PM me if you think he could be the horse for you.
 
rosiefronfelen said:
in my case, its tradition which suits us, i have no knowledge of these boots and am simply not interested, they may be brilliant but why fix something that aint broke, as they say!!
Click to expand...

But that's the point. There are hundreds of thousands of horses that are broken - navicular, arthritis, tendon and ligament issues, spavins etc etc. A conservative estimate put it as 80% of domesticated horses at any one time have some form of lameness. That tells me that something is very wrong with the way we manage our horses. And as the old saying goes 'no foot no horse'. A healthy strong foot that functions as nature designed it to is crucial to a sound horse. The moment you put a shoe on a foot you compromise the natural function - reducing circulation, reducing it's ability to absorb concussion, stopping it flexing/expanding and contracting, preventing the frog from any ground contact, changing the horses natural gaits, even changing the way the hoof hits the ground (toe first landing in shod horses is very common and puts a huge amount of extra strain on tendons and ligaments) etc etc. All those things lead to lame horses both short term and long term.

If shoeing was so good for horses why do we see so many horses with lameness issues?
 
cptrayes-I would be delighted to see the research-and if it was there you would be able to show it to me.
I have no problem with case studies-done by more than just barefoot fanatics or barefoot haters.
You are just interested in making yourself out to be a horse foot/feeding god and criticising everyone else without anything to back it up. Typical barefoot evangelism-and doesn';t do anything for your cause to say' this is x because I say so'.
There obviously is not any research, not taht I have found anyway (other than a yard doing some interesting work), and you cannot direct me to it-so you are just pulling theories out of thin air and touting them as fact...
 
SusieT said:
cptrayes-I would be delighted to see the research-and if it was there you would be able to show it to me.
I have no problem with case studies-done by more than just barefoot fanatics or barefoot haters.
You are just interested in making yourself out to be a horse foot/feeding god and criticising everyone else without anything to back it up. Typical barefoot evangelism-and doesn';t do anything for your cause to say' this is x because I say so'.
There obviously is not any research, not taht I have found anyway (other than a yard doing some interesting work), and you cannot direct me to it-so you are just pulling theories out of thin air and touting them as fact...
Click to expand...

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh! Sticks and stones :)
 
still no research?Not of any sort?
I am quite gobsmacked you could write such reams of text in such an authoritative manner and then not be able to direct people to the information that led to your conclusions
 
mrdarcy said:
But that's the point. There are hundreds of thousands of horses that are broken - navicular, arthritis, tendon and ligament issues, spavins etc etc. A conservative estimate put it as 80% of domesticated horses at any one time have some form of lameness. That tells me that something is very wrong with the way we manage our horses. And as the old saying goes 'no foot no horse'. A healthy strong foot that functions as nature designed it to is crucial to a sound horse. The moment you put a shoe on a foot you compromise the natural function - reducing circulation, reducing it's ability to absorb concussion, stopping it flexing/expanding and contracting, preventing the frog from any ground contact, changing the horses natural gaits, even changing the way the hoof hits the ground (toe first landing in shod horses is very common and puts a huge amount of extra strain on tendons and ligaments) etc etc. All those things lead to lame horses both short term and long term.

If shoeing was so good for horses why do we see so many horses with lameness issues?
Click to expand...
look, MR.Darcy, shoeing suits our horses end of,i do not believe in this barefoot stuff,nor does any one else round these parts so, i am not getting into anymore arguements on this rediculous thread-so leave it and me be!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top