Having had one foray into boots, and having smaller Arabians, after much thought and weighing al options, we found that, with a quality farrier who DOES provide first a suitable trim, plain plates are the most workable solution. We DON'T shoe any horses until and unless they are going to a 50 miler. We live in pretty rugged terrain, yet our horses all conditioned TOTALLY barefoot for over a year! Boy do they have nice feet! So, between ride season, taking off all "footwear" and continuing to ride them as long as the seasons permit makes sense. WHat DOESN'T make sense to us is fighting so hard to make boots work for horses who don't seem to work well with them - just so no one whines to us about how we mistreat our horses by putting shoes on them, and believe me, we have had it. Of course, carrying a quality boot in the pack for emergencies is a good plan; but in the end, our horses simply go better and have SUPERB feet shoeing for competition and running barefoot the rest of the time. NO need for boots. In any case, boots get expensive as well, and I would prefer to put what $$ we have into great feed, xlnt vet care, and going to maybe an additional event during the year. Works for all 3 of our working horses - and the rest are also BF> S
