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Re: [RC] This is one enlightened vet! - heidiGee, I wonder who puts shoes on all those wild Mustangs to protect their feet from excessive wear.? Good grief. Wild Mustangs are not asked to go at speed for long distances carrying a rider. They pick their way, take their time, and only run in short bursts unless being chased. Guess you are unaware of the main way of capturing wild mustangs in the days prior to technology?? A rider on a shod horse simply kept them moving for three or four days, and then they were so sore that they could be easily outrun and captured. I never said all horses should go barefoot; You certainly insinuated it, and inferred that shoeing was a cruel and unwarranted process. and you admit that "like most of us", you knock barefoot horses.. What a load of codswollop. I've passed many a barefoot horse to compete at LD levels, and have been interesting to note that if the riders get very serious, they almost invariably end up shoeing. As Dr. Balch stated, it takes years of dedicated conditioning to keep a barefoot horse going, and even then, the work load and the terrain may well dictate that the horse not be barefoot. I don't "knock" barefoot horses--my entire herd runs barefoot out here on the hill, and they don't get shod until their workload exceeds their growth rate. But in my experience, if one is not willing to damage their feet, one has to shoe before one seriously takes on 50-mile competition. (And JMHO, but when people say they are promoting "barefooting" and then put boots on, that's kind of contradictory. The horse still requires hoof protection to do the job.) I am protesting their rigid mindset in refusing to print my article about the success I've had. Rigid mindset? How about concern for the welfare of the horse? The most rigid mindset I've seen with regard to this subject has come from "barefooters" who proclaim that they will NEVER shoe (quote from one of the posters in this thread), and who scream bias because not everyone rolls over and buys their often-faulty logic. Or did it ever occur to you that your article may have been rejected for reasons totally unrelated to the subject matter? Most publications get WAY more articles than they can use, and one of the most common things in the mailbox of even the most successful of freelance writers is the rejection letter... THAT'S BIAS and uncalled for, as is your crack about ocean front property in Idaho. Sorry, I had to try to put it in perspective. The site you gave was very much LIKE trying to sell oceanfront property in Idaho. That's not bias--that's calling a spade a spade. Bias is being so wrapped up in your "cause" that you can't accept a middle ground. I can personnly tell you, the more I ride I horse, the better he gets. Of course! That's conditioning. That isn't a justification for not shoeing. And 99% of the shod feet I see are sickening.....WAY too long, high heels, flares, you can only imagine the DAMAGE being done to the horse's joints, not to mention his feet. I'd like to see where you get your numbers. But you're right that there ARE a lot of disgusting shoeing jobs out there. There are also a lot of disgusting barefoot horses out there. Wander through just about any large broodmare band if you want to see some atrocities. Again, that is not an argument against a job done right. The position on the website is not extreme, Oh? You sure could have fooled me. just ahead of the times. Or maybe behind the times... Extreme positions are not healthy for the population at large--one could certainly find cases in which going barefoot was a beneficial treatment for poor shoeing. One can also find just as many cases where good shoeing has been the optimal treatment for horses with barefoot problems. A non-biased person does not harp about one or the other as being "the" thing--a non-biased person looks at each case with an open mind and chooses the approach that will do the most good. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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