Thinking of barefoot?

[JBM]

Hi
My horse is 20 years old and I was thinking of doing a barefoot trimming course to transition her to barefoot. She usually has her back shoes off in winter anyway and has 0 problems so I think she would do well barefoot. She is currently on livery with no winter turnout as north of Ireland get extremely wet and the fields are like mush. She gets exercised everyday and has no problems. I would be expecting to buy hoof boots to help her while hacking but 90% of our riding happens in a sand arena. We also compete 70/80cm jumping courses at the moment and wondering if she would be able for that barefoot (the shoed photo was done by my old farrier who put the nails in a little to low I have changed farrier and it’s better now but it’s only photo I have of her feet)

 

[Reacher]

Could your farrier trim them at the start? It’s a good idea learning to trim (I do it as I like to do little and often rather than taking a big chunk off every 6 weeks) but I still have a pro come every now and then to keep an eye on things).

I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to do 70/80cm. I am currently doing 80/90cm. We are fine on an arena and on dry grass, though if grass is wet / greasy he tends to slip so in those circumstances I don’t jump.

Yes you are likely to need hoof boots for hacking, at least while you transition.

What I would say though is that when you first come out of shoes the internal “shock absorbers “ (frog, digital cushion) are likely to be weedy due to not getting stimulated in shoes . Because if this I would not jump until they beef up, even if she feels ok. It takes lots of gentle work to build them up.

There are various barefoot resources on this link
https://forums.horseandhound.co.uk/threads/barefoot-info-websites.760014/