Pass him by.

My thinking behind my original post a riding horse is kept successfully barefoot then everything about it's management will be right. The diet and level of exercise, movement etc. In the longer term horses kept barefoot will be healthier as far as metabolic issues are concerned. Not having malformed unbalanced feet caused by shoeing will lead to less muscular, tendon and ligament issues, that's my guess anyway, based on my experiences so far. I don't expect many on here to agree with me, but it's worth thinking about.
 
Spring Feather said:
Since living here (and feed choices have grown in the time I've lived here but they're still nothing in the vast leagues of what you have available in the UK) I've often wondered if the UK makes just too many feeds and people become confused with everything out there. Sometimes it's maybe easier having limited choices and doing your own research to find out what works best. I feed mostly naturals to the regular riding horses and I feed balancers to the mares and foals. I don't overfeed though; the horses all have adlib hay all year round so I'm more a fibre feeder.
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Agreed. Easy to be bamboozled by the shiny packaging and "complete" labels.
 
The one thing that puts me off horses is seeing them always ridden in bandages.

mine get booted if they are doing fast work other wise its just over reach boots. And that's it.

i don't remember from years ago so many ridden in them, i think it makes their legs weaker.
 
A horse can be bare foot, but it doesn't mean the owner is going to feed it well and one of the reasons could be b/f is cheaper than shoeing. Mine aren't shod because I don't ride them at the moment and when I do start to ride them again, I shall ask my farriers advice about their feet whether to shoe or not. I had a tbh that was flat footed and she needed shoes on when ridden.
 
Pale Rider said:
My thinking behind my original post a riding horse is kept successfully barefoot then everything about it's management will be right. The diet and level of exercise, movement etc. In the longer term horses kept barefoot will be healthier as far as metabolic issues are concerned. Not having malformed unbalanced feet caused by shoeing will lead to less muscular, tendon and ligament issues, that's my guess anyway, based on my experiences so far. I don't expect many on here to agree with me, but it's worth thinking about.
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I have a 28/29 year old who has been shod all of his life and has never (now touches wood) had a leg injury and he doesn't even have arthritis! So from my experiences I would think shoes are magical! However I like to judge a horse on their specific needs. My youngster is rising 6 and never been shod and that works for her. I think if people are determined to follow only one view then they can blind themselves to new ideas.
 
Seems a tad extream... I feel there are greater things to be concerned about when buying a horse, other than whether or not they've been shod before?
I am neither for or against shoes, if for whatever reason the horse needs it, then by all means show away! but if they do not then great, don't shoe them! Each to their own :)x
I have a Conni X Suffolk who isn't shod (never has been and an Anglo Arab who is (fronts only) and always has been, I would not take the shoes off my girl but equally I see no reason to put them on my boy!
 
Pale Rider said:
My thinking behind my original post a riding horse is kept successfully barefoot then everything about it's management will be right. The diet and level of exercise, movement etc. In the longer term horses kept barefoot will be healthier as far as metabolic issues are concerned. Not having malformed unbalanced feet caused by shoeing will lead to less muscular, tendon and ligament issues, that's my guess anyway, based on my experiences so far. I don't expect many on here to agree with me, but it's worth thinking about.
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It's good to see you come back and explain in more detail PR. I do think its a bit of a sweeping generalisation to suggest that only a barefoot horse will have been managed correctly.

As for tendon/ligament issues - mine has spavins/PSD, despite never being shod behind, and always being fed and worked correctly. I keep asking the barefoot massif why this should be, but never get an answer
 
We know quite a lot about soundness issues exasperated by shoeing.
We know less however about which lamenesses will be exasperated by working BF.
 
Obviously, some horses can be shod for 30yrs and be okay. A barefoot horse may have a lameness problem. However, generally speaking, a barefoot riding horse will be better managed and healthier on average, is my argument. Shoes cover up for poor diet and management.
 
But you just stated you only want barefoot horses from 'your' experiences which is surely from specific horses that you have met and therefore counters your own argument. Unless you have met around a hundred barefoot horses and a hundred shod horses and noted their progress. Otherwise this is all your opinion (which is fair enough) but I was saying from my experiences shoes are no difference really (I have known just as many lame barefoot and shod horses) which is my opinion.

ETA my unshod and shod horses are fed exactly the same and neither has problems . I don't feed the anything special really!
 
I have raised everyone of mine on what could be described as the barefoot diet and still have one that after 8 years is wearing her first set of shoes It is of course horses for courses if the horse is in pain or uncomfortable then it needs shoes to participate in the work it has to do. She had several weeks off being foot sore so her feet could grow and she did come sound without her shoes but since having them on she has excelled she is working better, more comfortable and although I am totally a barefoot exponent the shoes are working for this mare It is not always practical to say cut the work so the feet grow. These are competition animals and need to be fit in this instance the way forward is shoes in the other ponies instance it is barefoot they all do the same level of work the others are fine barefoot she evidently wasnt
Dont get me wrong every foal raised here has remained barefoot while here this is the first in over 20 years that has benefited from shoes
 
Goldenstar said:
In my defence it was very late
And I had been to a party.
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Tee hee! :D

windand rain said:
I have raised everyone of mine on what could be described as the barefoot diet and still have one that after 8 years is wearing her first set of shoes It is of course horses for courses if the horse is in pain or uncomfortable then it needs shoes to participate in the work it has to do. She had several weeks off being foot sore so her feet could grow and she did come sound without her shoes but since having them on she has excelled she is working better, more comfortable and although I am totally a barefoot exponent the shoes are working for this mare It is not always practical to say cut the work so the feet grow. These are competition animals and need to be fit in this instance the way forward is shoes in the other ponies instance it is barefoot they all do the same level of work the others are fine barefoot she evidently wasnt
Dont get me wrong every foal raised here has remained barefoot while here this is the first in over 20 years that has benefited from shoes
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Therein lies the hoof paradigm.... The weak would have perished in the wild, failed to thrive. We don't have "natural selection" in captivity/domestication and so we have things like shoes as a compromise.

What PR is trying to say I think is that he believes that what you say is true, some horses need shoes, and these are the ones that are weak and so he doesn't want them. That's fair enough. It's like me saying I won't buy a cribber or someone saying they'll never buy a horse who has had lami. It's no biggie.

We see posts like "would you buy this horse - it wind sucks" and we give our opinion. What PR has written is just that really but because it's about hooves, it gets a little heated. However, it does generate interesting discussions whether one is exasperated by it or not :D
 
I need shoes I hack 5 or more times a week on roads horse gets frustrated in arena and his walls wear right down if I don't shoe.
 
Cortez said:
Yes, well, shoes were invented for a reason..............not all horses can work without them.
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Yes, that is true, plus horses did much harder work in the past. How many people work their horses the same level as a London cab horse in Victorian London (for example) worked?

I know that even in the height of the summer (or other times of the year when there's enough daylight to allow evening hacking) when I hack for hours several times a week, CM does not come near that level of work. As long as I change/increase her work gradually she's fine doing all the roadwork/bridleways I can manage. For those who don't know, this is a horse that the last Farrier I had, said would never cope without shoes (as she's part TB *rolls eyes*).

Fundamentally, I don't want to go through another hoof rehab. It was really hard emotionally, so I will actively look for horses that have good hooves and aren't shod. I actually prefer to buy unbacked too, so anything that was shod in those circumstances would really be a red flag.

If other people disagree with me, that's fine. I don't expect everyone to agree and if they have sound, shod horses with balanced hooves, then that's great. :)
 
Faracat said:
Yes, that is true, plus horses did much harder work in the past. How many people work their horses the same level as a London cab horse in Victorian London (for example) worked?

I know that even in the height of the summer (or other times of the year when there's enough daylight to allow evening hacking) when I hack for hours several times a week, CM does not come near that level of work. As long as I change/increase her work gradually she's fine doing all the roadwork/bridleways I can manage. For those who don't know, this is a horse that the last Farrier I had, said would never cope without shoes (as she's part TB *rolls eyes*).

Fundamentally, I don't want to go through another hoof rehab. It was really hard emotionally, so I will actively look for horses that have good hooves and aren't shod. I actually prefer to buy unbacked too, so anything that was shod in those circumstances would really be a red flag.

If other people disagree with me, that's fine. I don't expect everyone to agree and if they have sound, shod horses with balanced hooves, then that's great. :)
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I think it is very fair indeed to prefer a horse that hasn't been shod, same as one that hasn't been backed - it's a clean slate. Personally, I always start off a horse barefoot and see how we go - some will be fine, others might need fronts, others all round. However I don't agree with the whole 'if it's shod, it hasn't been well managed, all horses can go barefoot' malarkey that often gets bandied around.

My personal experience has been very much 50:50 on whether they cope without shoes, however mine all have a reasonable workload with lots of roadwork - and I am prone to 'picking up' cheap horses that are chronically lame, and my farrier and I sort them out with proper foot balance and shoeing to support the limb (two that I've owned have had twisted fetlocks that have been lame barefoot but sound when shod to support the leg). Conformation problems aside though, I think its definitely better if you can get away with going barefoot.
 
Depends what you want from a horse, and the facilities you have got to keep it in.

barefoot on a horse you are looking at to buy can be a very useful indication of it's soundness - but only if you see it run up on a variety of surfaces. I would look at lots of other indications when buying a horse in addition - is it going sweetly in minimal tack, is it friendly in the stable, does it show signs of mane being rubbed out which can indicate tendencies towards sweet itch etc etc, then evaluate against whether the horse will thrive in the management that I can give it at home.

I'd always like to know what management regime has been followed to get the horse to that condition - for example if it needs to be grass-free and only worked on soft surfaces to be successful barefoot then it wouldn't do for me as my facilities do not allow for keeping a horse like that
 
My horse has been out of work for nearly 2 years and in that time has been barefoot. She still struggles over a short stony track to her paddock from the stable and if she gets a stone in her foot I have to give her a piggy back. In an ideal world I'd love to have a barefoot ridden horse - think of the money I'd save. Btw my farrier is brilliant so it's not a case of a bad farrier :wink3:
 
khalswitz said:
My horse DOES need shoes. He has good feet, even though a TB, and if we went barefoot he probably would cope fine to an extent, but our problem is that we do LOADS of roadwork. As in about 90% or our hacking is roadwork. We're decreasing our shoeing time from 8 weeks to 5 as he is wearing shoes to razors super quick. Can you imagine if that was his feet? Whilst good quality horn and hard, they don't grow very quick - and I could see them wearing to nothing with the amount of roadwork we do.
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That is the reason I ended up taking mine's shoes off. We were doing a lot of roadwork and he was wearing his shoes out faster than his feet were growing enough wall to hold the nails. We tried at first strengthening the shoes with road studs and borium but in the end his feet were too broken up to hold shoes. We started booting instead and his feet gradually recovered and now 2 1/2 years later we do a mixture of booted and barefoot roadwork and his feet are great. It saves me a lot of money too.
 
Very true - we musn't forget that boots are an option and that they have developed greatly in recent years. It's not a choice between shoes 24/7 and BF 24/7 and nothing else.
 
severley limits available horses next time you are looking, you will probably have to buy a baby, i guess that is ok, although natives and smaller ones tend to go unshod.
it is, however, completely your choice.:)
 
Faracat said:
Very true - we musn't forget that boots are an option and that they have developed greatly in recent years. It's not a choice between shoes 24/7 and BF 24/7 and nothing else.
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This is true, I didn't try boots. However if he's wearing out plates of metal... how long will boots last? Personally, in a toss up between boots or shoes every five/six weeks, I'd rather not use the one that could rub etc as he rubs so easy you wouldn't believe (rugging is a nightmare). Plus, as he is now very happy in his shoes, and feet looking great tbh other than having nail holes :P, I'm not about to go shaking things up.

Gloi- like I said earlier, I did try him barefoot when doing even less roadwork than now, and he was reduced to pure ouchiness very quickly. He had been barefoot for two years prior to me getting him too so wasn't a case of hadn't had long enough to adjust. He just doesn't cope with the amount of roadwork (walk is the worst as he is a bit toe-draggy, was never one for heavy going!) without shoes. And he grows enough horn that shoeing is no problem, he isn't using the same nail holes or anything, but his feet wear out too quickly without something between them and the road.
 
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