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>I admit that on one 50 miler I did over a largely rocky trail in
central Oklahoma, in which we finished in third place, he was a little tender
footed, and had little foot to spare at the end, but he did trot out sound as a
bell, and metabolically in much better shape than the steel-shod horse that
finished second. The reason he was tender footed is that I did all of my
previous conditioning along sandy roadsides, and his feet were not conditioned
to rocks.
I guess your definition of "sound as a bell" differs from mine--in my book,
tenderfooted horses are not "sound as a bell"--they are simply uniformly sore,
so they don't "favor" any one foot.
>I won't make that mistake again, nor will I ever have a steel shoe
nailed to any horse's foot in my care. If a horse needs hoof protection,
as on the mountain trails in New Mexico, I have him shod the week before with
nylon shoes (Equiflex), and pull them immediately after the ride.
Your perogative. That doesn't mean those who use steel shoes are
wrong.
>Since I have begun riding my horses barefoot I have never had a horse
stock up after a race, and I don't use poultice or wrap thier legs (heaven
forbid! wrapping legs only restricts the circulation which the leg desperately
needs after such heavy exertion).
Gee, that's funny--I don't wrap legs either, have only had one horse stock
up in 30 years of distance riding (mare that was not started until she was in
her teens, and she quit stocking up as soon as she got fit), and all my horses
wear steel shoes. So I guess one can't blame the steel shoes for the
stocking up, either. Seems it's more a function of overriding. I
suppose I could make the assumption that the steel shoes enable one to ride more
miles, since hoof wear ceases to be an issue?? Now THERE'S a new
angle...
>Since beginning barefoot, my horses have never had stone bruises, since
they can feel the stones beneath their feet soon enough to keep from placing
thier entire weight on them.
Well, I've had all of two stone bruises on my steel-shod
horses, one in a horse with hoof pathology to start with, and one in a mare
with a misshapen foot which sloped inward instead of outward, causing her
to get corns from pinching, whether barefoot or shod. (BTW, with
the mare, with good shoeing, we were able to alleviate that problem
sufficiently that she was able to do a 1000+ mile season of Top Tens
without bruising...)
> Do not be so quick to judge a method you know nothing
about.
Please read that statement of yours and commit it to memory, as it should
be taken to heart in view of the following:
>And by the way, if I'm not mistaken, in farrier school, they teach the
students how to prepare a hoof for a shoe, not to prepare a hoof to bear the
horse's weight. So they learn this one method of trimming, and practice it
on hundreds of horses. Does that make it right, just because that's what
been done for the past 1000 years?
OK, go back to your previous statement about being too quick to judge a
method you know nothing about. You clearly know nothing about how farriers
are trained, or about the extensive study that good farriers put into anatomy
and physiology of the hoof, modern methodology, and how to trim horses for
various conditions of use. No competent farrier learns "one" method and
one method only, nor do they limit themselves to what was done 1000 years
ago. Perhaps, given your horror of shoeing, it is your own knowledge of
farriery that is restricted to one method and to the techniques of 10 centuries
ago--if you got up to date, you might learn some surprising things.
>Remember, during the same time period in which people began to think
horses needed shoes, doctors thought it was a good idea to let the blood out of
sick patients. And Alexander the Great conquered the eastern world on
barefoot horses.
We still think doctors are good people to have
around, even though medicine has changed dramatically. Shoeing has also
changed dramatically--just because they used shoes back then doesn't mean they
were a bad idea. Furthermore, to Alexander's army, horses were an
expendable commodity--to the majority of us, our horses are NOT expendable, and
we prefer them to last their natural lifespan, sound enough to continue to be
used. I personally don't care to eat my sorefooted ones as part of my
battlefield rations.
>I have seen very few farriers (although, to their credit, there are
some) trim feet correctly to bear the horse's weight and not stress the tendons
and ligaments by leaving the
heel too high and the toe too
short.
I've seen far more cause far more damage by doing just the
opposite--leaving toes too long and not allowing heels to grow. An
imbalance in either direction is unhealthy--each horse must be shod to his
own optimum angle.
> I prefer to follow the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans
who valued logic and reason (and barefoot horses) instead of those from the Dark
Ages who came up with such innovations as the rack, the iron maiden, and iron
horse shoes.
Gee, that's odd--since shoeing is documented back in the time
of Xenophon (an ancient Greek, for those who don't know of him) and
certainly in Roman times. Yes, I, too, value their
wisdom. I'd suspect that a great many more of their horses
would have been shod, had they had more resources to do so. However,
it was likely beyond the means of all but the elite.
> What did your horse ever do to you that he
deserves to have
his feet bound in iron?
My horses have served me well and faithfully, and
for that, they deserve the best care I can provide--which, when conditions
warrant, means shoeing them.
Heidi (who is personally not too keen on going
barefoot in these rocks around here, either)
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