Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Title: "Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back

Renie wrote:

Same here;  my horse can wear a set of hinds down to butter-knife thinness in 3 weeks, but the fronts have lots of wear left.  The area I ride, in North California, is granite and decomposed granite, lots of rock.  It has been one of my concerns which has kept me from going to barefoot and boots. In fact, i put easy boot epics on my horse one year, and in 2 training rides, totaling 37 miles, the easyboots were worn smooth on the bottoms, no tread left.  I figured that it would get a bit expensive replacing boots every week or so!  Right now, my horse is barefoot and getting rest from a sore hock issue.  I am going to try the easy boot gloves when I start riding him again, as these will probably be easy rides for awhile. I would never ask a horse to do the trails I ride to go barefoot;  solid granite like shark's teeth in lots of places, and rock covered roads, very abrasive.  I figured if the trails can wear down metal shoes in 3 weeks and boots in 2 rides, how can a horse's hoof keep up?  We'll see how the "experiment" goes. BTW, I have an excellent farrier who is working with me while I try the "no metal shoes" program.     Renie

One year we were out West. We did a ride near Missoula, MT and then two days of the Shamrock. We started our with new shoes. After 150 miles I could have shaved with the hind shoes on the Jbird. I am actually surprised one didn't break. The fronts were reset. That's pretty normal for him when the surface is abrasive. My old mare was the same way - she through hind steel shoes 3 to one over steel shoes in the front. In fact for weight I normally put aluminum on her front and steel on her back. She was a walking horse so I thought that might have something to do with it. However, the Jbird is an Arab so I guess not.

Truman

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"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back."  - Paul Erdos