I have joined the barefoot taliban

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Jazzy B

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well all shoes came off yesterday (the one's he hadn't over reached and pulled off) then last night went for a spin in the arena - I have never seen my horse move like that ever, he was dancing - has made me even more determined to stick with this and not give up!

Today we had our first potter down the track and back again in his trainers, and he seemed more than happy to trundle around in them and we then went back in the school again with me on board this time for ten minutes and wow - I never thought taking shoes off would make that much difference to a way a horse went.

I realise it's not going to be easy and we my have some blips along the way... Is anyone else going through this at the moment?
 
Since my lads shoes came off he's SOUND :) and has never moved like he does now. In fact I now have 5 bare and one still with fronts at the mo ;)
 
I'm almost exactly a year into it and like you, I am stunned by how well my boy is doing. So far this year he has done xc (Corsliehill and North Ayrshire at Eggy park - dont think I am too far from you cos I saw Brightbay replying on one of your threads and she is my buddy ;) ), pleasure rides, beach rides, sj, loads of hacking. There is nothing that I have wanted to do with him that I havent been able to do without shoes although I did boot for some things.

I'm not quite bootless all the time but I am nearly there - living in the wet west of scotland doesnt help :(
 
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Congratulations! It's the best road to be walking (or galloping!) I've been doing it now for 3 years and you can safely say I would like to be the leader of the barefoot Taliban ;)
 
Now I do need to ask about this - I have a confession to make as I am considering joining the barefoot taliban myself. My cob is 19 years old, has feet like iron. In fact in the 8 years I have owned him he has only lost 3 shoes, and one of them he pulled off himself while travelling, while at the same time he ripped his travel boots off and wrecked my trailer. (I now travel bootless with him, shame oh shame .........) he does the same to any form of boot and positively loves peeling bandages off, so now we dont bother.

He is now 19, hacked about 3-4 times a week, we dont jump and most of the hacking is on either roads or off road on grass, with some stoney tracks. I do wonder if he needs to be shod. Is 19 too old to be converted to the barefoot taliban? I would add my farrier thinks its fine and when I bought him he was only shod on front
 
I'm 3 weeks into the barefoot journey. Finally plucked up the courage to post some pics in stable yard too.......

Mine is still footy but her shoes came off unplanned due to bruising. She's really walking out in her trainers though!
 
TheoryX I had similar concerns about taking Frank's shoes off, also 19 and wondered if it was a bit unfair when he has likely worn shoes for the previous 15 years!

I didn't need to worry ;) he currently copes fine with the roads and most of our stoney tracks with no boots, although we did use them quite a lot for 2-3 months at one point whilst his feet changed.
 
TheoryX1 said:
Now I do need to ask about this - I have a confession to make as I am considering joining the barefoot taliban myself. My cob is 19 years old, has feet like iron. In fact in the 8 years I have owned him he has only lost 3 shoes, and one of them he pulled off himself while travelling, while at the same time he ripped his travel boots off and wrecked my trailer. (I now travel bootless with him, shame oh shame .........) he does the same to any form of boot and positively loves peeling bandages off, so now we dont bother.

He is now 19, hacked about 3-4 times a week, we dont jump and most of the hacking is on either roads or off road on grass, with some stoney tracks. I do wonder if he needs to be shod. Is 19 too old to be converted to the barefoot taliban? I would add my farrier thinks its fine and when I bought him he was only shod on front
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Ben was 19 when I had his shoes off, and although he is fine with his hinds, I do have to boot him on the fronts for rides of more than an hour. He is on restricted grazing however it is lush so this is probably our problem tbh, but he's nearly 22 now and I'm not going to change his routine as he's a happy chap :) Boots are brilliant
 
My lad's 12 so I guess his quite old to be having his shoes off for what I can probably imagine is for the first time ever.
:)

This is proabably a stupid question to everyone, but how quickly did you build up work, I feel that I am airing on the size of caution as don't want him to get footsore, but do they all get footsore at some point, is this something that I am not going to avoid?
 
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