Only shoeing in summer?

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J has great feet and had never been shod when he came to me. We did fun rides and hacking with no problems, but I got him shod when I wanted to put studs in.

Now he has been shod, can I get away with taking his shoes off in winter when he won’t be Eventing and then having him shod again in spring? Over winter we will just be hacking and doing arena work

 

[Shay]

It's quite common to take the shoes off if you rough off over the winter -or summer if its a hunt horse. Although you have to keep trimming of course. But as you plan to keep him in work you may find he'll go footy for a short time - both when you take the shoes off and when you put them back on. No harm in trying and see what happens.

 

[albeg]

I've started taking the hinds off over the winter (last year the horse pulled both of them within a week of each other, so I decided to give it a go), and this year they came off at the start of September, when I knew I wouldn't be doing much road hacking. Have continued other work as normal though and so far so good. As shay said, no harm in trying.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Yes, my lovely loaners have pulled M's shoes for the winter. She will have them put back on when she's back out competing on grass in the spring and needs studs. She has a busy winter program of arena eventing, dressage comps and PC rallies planned which are all on surfaces. Their hacking is almost all off road.

They have reported back how much her feet have improved already . M was sailing over rather large arena XC fences at a PC rally at the w/e, she's very happy without her shoes.

 

[Polos Mum]

Lots of eventers have shoes off in the winter and hunters have shoes off in the summer. My farrier thought even a 6-8 week break from shoes was worth it for one of mine who's feet growth was slow.