barefoot/ride managers

[Toni Jones <tjones@coinet.com>]

Hi all...

Perhaps it would be a help to all those who are planning to do, or are
doing, endurance rides barefoot if all ride managers/head vets begin to
add to their endurance flyers with the other information whether "hoof
protection required" or "absolutely no barefoot horses allowed" or
whatever. They know their trails best. They may not be the best judge of
what YOUR horse can do on THEIR trails, but it is THEIR ride and by
posting what their restrictions are, if any, it could save some people
lots of hard feelings, not to mention time, fuel costs and energy
driving a long ways to a ride only to be told they can't compete. AERC
does give the ride manager a lot of "free rein" and discretion as to
restrictions on putting on a ride, and it does seem to be their right to
require hoof protection.

Surely, a barefoot horse with 4 foamed on EZ boots, or a set of Old Macs
or Horsneakers on would be allowed to go the same as a horse with iron
shoes with 4 EZ boots foamed on over the top of them???? on a ride that
"hoof protection is required"....??? I know that EZ boots are widely
accepted, surely Old Macs and Horsneakers and Swiss Horse Boots would be
too and could be universally included in the phrase "hoof protection
required".... if that is indeed the terminology that is used....
obviously more discussion is needed.

Time will tell.

Based on the reactions I get when I mention going barefoot (for
ANYTHING, bother with endurance), it's going to take a lot more folks
doing it, carefully and intelligently, to have those who are skeptical
even begin to give it a closer look. A year ago I was one of those
skeptics. But after reading the books, the websites, attending seminars,
seeing samples of healthy coffin bones and pathological ones, seeing
healthy hoof capsules and contracted ones and spending a couple days
seeing shoes pulled off cadaver feet that really didn't look all that
bad from the outside (other than they weren't attached to the original
horse) and then run through a table saw for a view at the cross section
of the hoof capsule, well, I guess you had to be there, but I am
convinced of the long term damage that iron shoes can cause horses. So
were a well known vet and a couple farriers.

Anyway, I appreciate ride managers like Dot that are willing to state
what they expect up front about their rides. I hope more will do that as
time goes on. It will make it easy for those of us going barefoot/hoof
protection know which rides we are welcome at or not. It will take time.
Unless you are a "name" like Darolyn Butler-Dial who most will just
accept as "knowing what she is doing" well, it will take time and
patience for the rest of us "no names" to be accepted as well. And we
have to be careful with our horses at a ride (probably more so than one
with iron shoes) to show we aren't going barefoot to "just save the cost
of iron shoes"....

later
Toni Jones
Central Oregon