How many of you shoe your 3-4 yr old

Would you shoe your 3 yr

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my three year old was backen in july and had fronts on for 6 weeks due to the hard ground and amount of roadwork I was doing due to lack of school.
He is now rising four and back in work and he has now done four weeks walking on the roads and needs fronts again as he is getting a little footy.
I think you need to change your poll, if any horse of any age needed shoes then I would of course shoe it. As for shoes ruining the feet get better farrier!
Ps my 16 and 22 year old arabs have great feet and have only ever been shod when hunting hard.
 
my filly is shod behind only. She is shod with smooth wide and flat shoes to allow her to do sliding stop without knuckling over. She hasn't worn fronts so far but if they were needed, she would wear them.
 
I have just gone through this dilema my rising 4 year old who I backed in September has been barefoot and has coped fine!! He is full connemara and does have good feet, however with a youngster I prefer to mainly hack as its fun for him and don't want to put him off school work in later life by boring him! I have been hacking him 3/4 times a week and going in the school 0nce a week! This however has led to his feet wearing down, I am not lucky enough to have fields etc to ride around it is mainy road! My farrrier who was trimming him was concerned with how worn they were becoming, could also be due to the harder ground with the cold weather wearing them down! I made the decision to have front shoes on him yesterday! He has never been fed mix, starchy food, for the first 3 years of his life he had just grass, v natural upbringing! I believe it depends on the situation I would rather hack him than school and to do that I need fronts on! He will have them off again for his 3 month break in the summer!
 
millitiger said:
as for tbs not having good feet- balls! my full tb has beautiful feet, can do lots of roadwork barefoot, doesn't need special feed etc.

most tbs have less than perfect feet
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You have contradicted yourself here . :)

I also said ....."MOST" tb's ..... and yes its great your full tb has good feet :)


Col x
 
cptrayes said:
Good grief! There is a showing organisation that insists on having two year olds shown shod?!?!?!?!

I've never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life. If a two year old isn't sound and level without shoes then it shouldn't win the class.
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She was and still is sound, she has never been unsound, , infact having the two front shoes on did her the world of good .

It really isn't unheard of over here to have 2 year olds shod for showing, that being said it is only the two front feet .
 
native eventer said:
He has never been fed mix, starchy food, for the first 3 years of his life he had just grass, v natural upbringing!
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The trouble is that we know now that grass is *not* a natural upbringing - especially not the lush stuff, or "grazed to within an inch of its life" stuff, that most horses are getting. Horses evolved thousands of years ago as much smaller animals in semi-desert type environments eating scrub, not lush green stuff.

Many horses who eat a lot of grass will grow soles too thin to go without shoes without wincing on stones. Some horses can't tolerate much of it at all. Lots are fine if they are kept off spring and summer grass when the sun is up. And some can't manage grass at all, but they are probably technically "diseased". I'm hearing of a lot of Iberian horses, in particular, imported to Britain which then have insulin resistance problems when allowed our kind of grass. In Spain and Portugal where they originated, many of them will have had no grass at all, ever.

This isn't just about feet. You can mask the problem with shoes, but the truth is that the horse's digestion is up the creek and its liver quite possibly badly compromised. When I took a Spanish horse off grass completely this year due to his desperately poor feet (he was about to be put down) I was stunned to find that his VERY severe case of sweet itch and list of substances to which his skin was allergic reduced to ZERO. He didn't look it, but he was a sick horse from the inside out. From having had feet I could bend with my fingers, and x-rays of soles 3.5 millimetres thick, he now hacks out without boots on a road made of rubble.

The young horses mentioned in these posts as needing shoes because they had thin or sensitive soles could well have been fine with a more restricted diet. The ones who were fine but whose feet wore away may simply have needed more time for their feet to learn to grow at the rate at which they were being worn.

I do not mean that any of the people above were wrong to shoe their young horses, but I would hate for anyone who is hoping to keep their own horse without shoes not to realise that road work/thin soles etc are usually reasonably straightforward to get to grips with.
 
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Colleen_Miss_Tom said:
She was and still is sound, she has never been unsound, , infact having the two front shoes on did her the world of good .

It really isn't unheard of over here to have 2 year olds shod for showing, that being said it is only the two front feet .
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There are a number of practices in Ireland that others would raise their eyebrows at. It is normal to hunt three year olds, and I suspect you would be hard put to find many English supporters on this site who would think it right to gallop and jump a three year old in the hunting field.

Why does anyone shoe a 2 year old to show it? Why can they not be shown without shoes on? What benefit does it give that I (a non-showing person) am completely missing here :), I really would like to understand?
 
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Just because CMT is getting all the slack!!

Yes, here 3 year olds do go hunting. But they go usually on a wednesday and only for a few hours. I have absolutley no idea whether they are shod or not. I presume so from the amount of road work that happens in a hunt.

The class CMT is talking about is for potential hunters - who WILL be shod in later life.
We have mainly competition horses - who will all be shod.

If you want to keep a horse barefoot, then fine, that is your choice. I however, will shoe anyhorse that I have because I need to (lots of road hacking & I event) and at 3 a horse will probably have fronts, then they would be taken off and when brought back into work as a 4 year old will be shod all round as they will be starting their hacking.

Maybe I am just lucky that my farrier is excellent.
 
I have a 3 year old Welsh Section A gelding and he hobbles a little bit when walking on stoney ground but when walking on smooth ground he's absolutely fine, he isn't laminitic or anything just a lil foot sore. Isn't really sore at the moment so i thought maybe he'd bruised his sole or something cos when my cob went lame she had only stepped on a stone and had exactly the same symptons as he did but she has very hardy feet. His feet aren't really that brilliant as they're very boxy but they're still hardy. I suggested maybe putting shoes/plates on him would be a good idea but then thought better of it as he's still only young and like many people have said his feet are still growing. I will look into it more when he's older. :)
 
only_me said:
If you want to keep a horse barefoot, then fine, that is your choice. I however, will shoe anyhorse that I have because I need to (lots of road hacking & I event)
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You do lots of roadwork and you event? Me too. And hunt.

If you want to shoe your horse, then fine, that is your choice. But shoes are not necessary to do roadwork, or event, or hunt. I do/have done all of those and more on a variety of horses from TB to Shire x.

I am genuinely perplexed at shoeing young stock to show them. But if you choose to take my query as criticism rather than explain, I'll be none the wiser, will I?


ps you only hunt 3 year olds for a few hours on a Wednesday? I would not dream of putting my weight on the unmuscled back of a three year old for several hours at a time no matter what day of the week it was.
 
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Well, tbh I found it patronising. And critical.

Ireland have long been producing top horses. So what if they hunt 3 year olds. We race 2 year olds too.

It is my choice to shoe my horses. And I will continue to do so. I have nothing against those who do not shoe, but I do when they try to tell me that I am "wrong" and "evil" (not you cptrayes) for shoeing my horses.

They shoe youngstock as it is part of the rules, if you want to know why then ask the rules committee.
 
only_me said:
Just because CMT is getting all the slack!!

Yes, here 3 year olds do go hunting. But they go usually on a wednesday and only for a few hours. I have absolutley no idea whether they are shod or not. I presume so from the amount of road work that happens in a hunt.

The class CMT is talking about is for potential hunters - who WILL be shod in later life.
We have mainly competition horses - who will all be shod.

If you want to keep a horse barefoot, then fine, that is your choice. I however, will shoe anyhorse that I have because I need to (lots of road hacking & I event) and at 3 a horse will probably have fronts, then they would be taken off and when brought back into work as a 4 year old will be shod all round as they will be starting their hacking.

Maybe I am just lucky that my farrier is excellent.
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Head, desk, thump.
 
At the end of the day, it is my choice to put shoes on her, they are lightweight shoes, she has never suffered any cracks in the hoof walls, her shoes have been taken off for some part of that time, and when doing road work/pleasure rides they have been put back on, I am wondering why I am having to justify it . lol .

If you would like the answer to sticking shoes on a 2 year old for showing then I suggest do as Only_me says and ask karen at http://www.balmoralshow.co.uk/index.html, Im sure she can put you in touch with the committee :) .

I genuninely do my best for my youngster and I KNOW I have done her no harm from having her shod . :)
 
I'm sorry, but you hope you have done her no harm. You cannot know unless you have MRI scanned her. It is unlikely that a shod 3 year old has the same size lateral cartilages at 4 as an unshod 3 year old. Typically, in an adult horse which has been shod several years,the lateral cartilages will be much lower in volume and they will lack an internal blood capilliary network that is present in the unshod horse. We get away with shoeing most horses, heaven only knows how, but the internal structures are usually compromised.

You take those risks with an unformed 2 year old if you like, but it isn't something I would do and I am still stunned that it can possibly be a rule of a showing class.
 
Colleen_Miss_Tom said:
You have contradicted yourself here . :)

I also said ....."MOST" tb's ..... and yes its great your full tb has good feet :)


Col x
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not really...?

I know lots and lots of tbs with great feet and the ones with bad feet have them due to other reasons, not their breeding.

out of interest, why do you think 'most' tbs have bad feet?
 
No I wouldn't shoe a 3, or 4 year old. The internal structures are still developing so whacking a shoe on will mean they may never develop and the horse could have a permanent weakness in their hooves (as many racehorses have).
 
Funny enough shes had scans done due to her kicking the wall whilst feeding and thinking her shadow was attacking her . She has shown no signs whatsoever, if I thought for one minute I was doing her damage then do you think I would carry on, Shes had shoes on for a short time and then removed for over a year, then shoes been put back on again, again lightweight shoes !

We aren't going to agree on this, so lets just leave it there .

She is sound and will remain sound, but if she falls lame or has any other boney tendencies you will be the first to know ;)
 
millitiger said:
not really...?

I know lots and lots of tbs with great feet and the ones with bad feet have them due to other reasons, not their breeding.

out of interest, why do you think 'most' tbs have bad feet?
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You seem to have a bug bear with the above statement because you have a "full tb" ......yes you are lucky your tb has good feet .

From the tb's I have seen throughout the years many of them have been flat footed, low in the heel and foot sore . This is just my opinion, so dont let it bother you :)


Col x
 
Not a bug bear really :)

And I wouldn't say I am lucky either- I don't think it is a fluke I found a tb with good feet.

I just get a bit sick of people blaming any tb blood in their horse's breeding if the horse has any foot conformation issues- without anything to back it up at all.

I genuinely would like to know if the people who spout about 'typical tb feet' believe they were born with those rubbish feet or if they are manmade :)
 
QR

A cautionary tale for those who shoe their three year olds and don't take them off again, even over the winter:

My horse (ex BSJA) was shod too young (not by me!), probably at around age 3, before he had finished maturing. His feet are now permanently damaged as they have been prevented from reaching the size/shape they should be. He is now 15 and the problems have started to show up and it has been very hard work trying to sort them out! Something to be especially aware of with slow-maturing breeds...
 
millitiger said:
Not a bug bear really :)

And I wouldn't say I am lucky either- I don't think it is a fluke I found a tb with good feet.

I just get a bit sick of people blaming any tb blood in their horse's breeding if the horse has any foot conformation issues- without anything to back it up at all.

I genuinely would like to know if the people who spout about 'typical tb feet' believe they were born with those rubbish feet or if they are manmade :)
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If you think this is the case with myself then you are sorely mistaken, Do you think I would have bought a 3/4tb ?

I am not one of those people :)
 
apologies then, it just seemed you were as you said he had good feet for a 3/4 tb which seemed to indicate you expect them to have poor feet. :)

"I don't understand how you think me saying " she has good feet for a 3/4tb" suggests that she doesn't have good feet ? hmmmm let me explain, What I mean is most tb's have not got great feet..... yeah ? and for her to be a 3/4tb you would think shes against the odds .
She does not have terrible feet, not bad feet for what she is . She also had corrective work done due to a slight imbalance, so the shoes actually helped "
 
I have a 4yo wb x tb who I have had since a 2 yo. I have never had her shod.

From when I bought her I regularly exposed her to different surfaces to harden off her feet that were once used to a soft grass covering all day everyday. I believe that if you do find it necessary to shoe, not to have them shod until atleast 6 years old, just until the feet having finished growing internally.

When I first broke her in and started hacking her feet wore down a lot, to a point where I thought she'd go sore, but I persevered, took my time, built up the time spent on tarmac (and gravelly surfaces) gradually and found that in time her growth caught up with the rate of wear. This is when I also bought myself a rasp and kept a roll on everytime we'd been out for a hack to prevent splits.

She currently lives out 24/7 on grass. I'm still learning about this whole barefoot lark but I'm assuming she has great feet without being managed on the grass because of her having a high metabolism?? (Please correct me if Im wrong here) or she has a high insulin resistance and can process sugars without affecting her hooves?

Currently I am only able to ride her on the weekends and her feet are still great, I've only gone as far as twelve miles due to having bum ache! (I'm not very fit!) but i have no doubts that we could go double or treble that without any problems with sole sensitivity/wearing down too much. Her feet are like rocks!

I am worried about how the spring grass will affect her feet but it's all a learning curve. ( I dont particulary want to have to restrict her because of my laziness, but I know anything which is coloured green is sugary and may affect her in the future, but i hope she will be ok this year just as she was last)

I also have a rising 4 year old trotter x tb who I aim to keep barefoot.
 
Blooming heck.

If your horse needs shoeing, shoe it. If it doesn't, don't.

Age, breed, height, colour, which side of the box they sleep on, is irrelevant.
 
Wow this thread has gotten a bit feisty!!

Colleen_Miss_Tom said:
From the tb's I have seen throughout the years many of them have been flat footed, low in the heel and foot sore . This is just my opinion, so dont let it bother you :)
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I also agree with this^^^ ... They may not have cracks and have a good looking hoof wall but from all the Tbs iv seen they are flat, low heel and quite sensitive soled. When we got mine as a 4yr his feet were in a dreadful state as they hadnt been attended to in a while!! It took 2.5yrs for his feet to look good, no cracks etc but he had very sensitive soles so had concussion pads aswell. When he lost a shoe he was very lame, so for him i would never have when barefoot!!
 
I wouldn't unless I really had to. My 7year old tb is barefood and my coming up 3 year old has pretty good feet so I am going to try not to shoe her.
 
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