Philosphical meanderings....

[guest@endurance.net]

Kerry kerrydykes@yahoo.com
Sorry, Abby, but that logic just doesn't fly.  Sure, we could all take the
shoes off and run our horses barefoot -- and very few would ever finish a
ride.  Because the horse was inherently flawed and the "artifical" help of
the shoe masked it?  Nah, because horses in nature don't use their feet as
much (or fast) as we are asking them to.

Take your reasoning to it's logical conclusion and we'll need to do the
following:

Stop using any feed other than grass hay
Stop electolyting
Stop supplementing
Don't use injectible glucosomine
Don't blanket after we ride them
Don't ice/wrap/poultice legs after riding them
oh yeah, stop immunizing them cause after all in nature only the fittest
(and luckiest) survive.

We condition our horses over time to withstand the rigors of the 50 mile
rides (and for those so inclined, the 100's).  Some horses are suited for
it, some aren't.  Getting a stone-bruise is not "the gods" way of telling
us to stop or we're gonna over-use the horse.  It's one of those little
"gotcha's" in life.  Putting on shoes/pad/boots simply improves your odds
of maintaining a sound horse.

Kerry