Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

"I probably ride them barefoot more miles than most 
people ride (shod or not) and don't feel that my horses have enough 
(hoof) conditioning to actually compete them barefoot on the kinds of 
trails that are at the rides I regularly attend.? At least not for 
more than a handful of rides in a year, on footing like in other 
regions on a few select rides.? I'm a little too conservative and 
still would not be willing to risk hurting my horse by riding him 
barefoot in a 50 or longer distance."

I must wholeheartedly agree with Karen's statement.  Even though I have yet to do my first 50, I've found that terrain in the SW varies far too much for me to be riding my horses without any kind of hoof covering. And I am one of those people who doesn't shoe any of my horses.  

I did learn the hard way about using hoof coverings for endurance riding (or LD's, as the case may be).  When I started LD's in '03, I rode Doimas barefoot in every ride and he did great. The second year is when we had problems.  I took him to one ride where the ground didn't appear to be any worse than other places we had gone, but he ended up badly bruised in the first loop (I knew immediately when he hit that rock), and it developed into a solar abscess, which took several months to heal.  My bad.  And my horse had to suffer for it.

I won't be forgetting any time soon how terrible I felt to see Doimas in such pain.  Knowing I was responsible made it worse, especially when this horse trusts me to keep him safe.

So, I'm with Karen in that I'd rather boot my horse and not have him suffer the consequences of travelling over harsh terrain.  Yes, Bruce, I agree that my horse has more protection by being booted than shod.  Anything I can do to help protect his hoofies is fine by me. 

Cindy Edwards
Buckeye, AZ