In a message dated 11/8/2005 4:00:24 PM Pacific Standard Time,
ridecamp-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
having
been involved in and managing endurance rides (not riding) > for the
last 10 yrs, i still cannot understand how a horse that has to be >
padded or wear easy boots can be considered a "sound" horse. if the
horse > cannot be ridden in a standard horseshoe or bare foot
then he is not > sound enough for an endurance horse and should be
retired to the trail. > Using pads, equitotics, plastic shoes, etc and
then having to Bute the > horse later is closer to abuse than good
horsemanship. > I expect this little note to stir things up a bit.
HA-HA
I do agree that this person doesn't know much of which he speaks. My
shoer has never liked the idea of pads and when I first started in distance
riding she would not pad my horse. After that first season of competition
in CTR I very upset about how much sole my horse had worn off. I promised
I'd never to do that to him again. Where we were doing most of our
training was extremely rocky. I don't really feel it is fair to the horse
to ask him to do all those miles (miles that he would not normally do in that
type of terrain) and not give him some extra protection. He has normally
great feet so we have settled on pour in pads and that keeps my shoer happy and
I can take it out after a rocky ride. I think it makes a better pad
anyway. And when he's barefoot in the winter we boot for rocky
terrain. And for clarification, NATRC rules allow for any type of hoof
protection below the coronet band. So the only boots that are allowed
would be easyboots (without gators) This is because he is being judged on
how well he travels over the trail and you are being judged on how well you can
take care of him over the trails. I do agree that pads won't hide an
unsoundness. Not to the experienced eye.
