um, I don't have a special barefoot trimmer and my mare doesn't live in
any special conditions. At age 5, she's never worn shoes and is ridden a lot
on rocky terrain and gravel roads. Her soles are tough and her hoof walls the
thickest my farrier has ever seen, and he's seen a lot of horses.
He's not a big barefoot advocate, but says it would be a crime to shoe
this horse,, so I'm going to ride her as long as I can barefoot and see what
happens. But if she needs hoof protection, she's going to get it.
***Hi Chris,
Not arguing with you at all; agree with a lot of
it...
But when someone is adamant about saying "this
horse will never need shoes" or something like "this horse has
terrific feet, shoes will ruin them"., I really
take it with a grain of salt......
I have seen so many come into our county that fit
that category......they maybe make a month and half later we are calling the
shoer..An Anglo Arab with "the best hoof wall" my shoer has ever seen, my
mustang mare, also with almost perfect feet, the mule I bought (barefoot until
I bought him), and another Arab a friend bought.....well, the LSD miles on our
trails and roads wore down hoof faster than it grew.....and the metal shoes
are worn down to paper thin each time...and we are not, by any means, even
doing the conditioning these days to be doing 50's!
I don't mean to imply that some sort of hoof
protection (easy boot, Boa boot) would not also have worked......but plain
barefoot, carrying a rider on our terrain?? Nope.
