Barefootin' To Sylvia

[guest@endurance.net]

Karen Standefer hrschk@yahoo.com
I mean no disrespect to any vet and most particularly Barney.  However,
there has not been any research that I have seen that has been done to
indicate a horse cannot do endurance barefoot WHEN the hoof is working
properly.  I'm not talking about just a barefoot horse.  I'm talking about
a hoof that has a ground parallel coffin bone, for proper weight loading
and balance, the correct amount of sole (for the ground surface at hand)
so that it can draw flat and allow circulation inside the hoof, and the
bars at the correct height so that they are not pushing up into the hoof
capsule and causing inflammation with every step.

I don't think that the horse's hoof has changed in mollecular makeup since
the Hitite days.  They had a conditioning program and living program so
that their horses could travel 40 miles a day, day in and day out.  Their
husbandry methods kept their hooves for hard and dense for the task.
Zenophon wrote instructions on how to do this.  We don't have any
documentation that says at what speed they were travelling over these
miles.  I doubt it was 10 miles per hour, but it couldn't have been too
slow either unless they were travelling into the night every day.

My horse has no competition miles barefoot.  It is my opinion that it
takes closer to 1.5 to 2 years to get a previously shod hoof healthy
enough to be able to compete in endurance  barefoot.  Therefore, I am
rehabilitating and conditioning hooves on my horse.  I don't think that
any one has been using these methods long enough to have a lot of
successful completions on tough rocky terrain.  Darolyn's crew has done
pretty well in their home terrain.  In a couple of years, if we have
enough of us sticking with this, I believe there will be a horses out
there prooving the theories on any terrain that we're allowed to compete
on.  However, you won't catch me out competing on my horse until he is
ready (been there done that).  My horse can currently go competition
speeds on gravel, hard pan and crushed rock for 30 miles or so.  He
doesn't have to slow down and pick his way through, other than in areas
where shod horses will be doing the same.  I haven't been able to ride
longer than 30 miles that during the winter, so I'll have to wait till
spring to see what his mileage limitations are.

I doubt that any of us will be able to do 3 consecutive rocky rides
barefoot (even when our horses are ready) until the ride managers of those
rides quit requiring hoof protection.  However, I'll ask you the same
question that I just posed in another post:  How does that 3/8" of metal
protect the horse's sole from 2" rocks?  It makes no sense!  So,
effectively, the only thing the shoes do is to protect the hoof wall from
excessive wear.  Ok, so I'm conditioning my horse's hooves so that his
growth exceeds wear.  That takes care of the shoes.  Fortunately, I live
in an area where I have extremely hard pan roads covered with various
rocks.  I don't have trails to work on.  It's all logging roads (active
logging, so they're not overgrown with grass) and crushed rock railroad
grades.  There aren't many rides in the US will contain that sort of
abrasion for too many consecutive miles (Biltmore, Weiser River and a few
others are exceptions).

It's not just the barefoot people that are set in their
ways...........it's equally the people who shoe their horses that are set
in their ways.  So, yep, the debate will go on.  That's what makes this
forum (long as we can debate and not flame :-)

Karen

REFERENCED POST:
What kind of endurance mileage have you got on this horse?  I think
there's a big difference between riding a barefoot horse on rocks who is
going slowly and picking his way through for maybe 20 or 25 miles and one
who is going at a bit faster rate of speed for 50 or 100 miles.  I also
don't think this debate will ever get settled -- the barefoot people are
pretty set in their opinions.  I just think its hard to argue with what
most of us actually SEE out on the trail with our endurance horses.  If
any of you have ever heard of a horse who has competed a series of rocky
50s (say 3 of them) completely barefoot, without hoof protection, please
have that rider post to the list.  The rides have to be ROCKY though --
like Silver State, or some such.

Sylvia (anybody want to see a copy of Barney's letter regarding
barefoot -- again?)