RE: Re: Convention & Shoeing

["Bob Morris" <bobmorris@rmci.net>]

We have used this mode of foot trim and shoeing for a number of years with
reasonable results. It has produced a much more free stride to the horses
i.e. not as high a step and more swing. There are a number of us in this
region (all use the same farrier) who have horses so shod. All of the horses
are consistently in the upper group of finishers at endurance rides.

Now the hook to this is, none of us use the special shoes. Our farrier
forges a similar shoe in steel for us. (alum. would not last in the
decomposed granite soils we have) Most all the horses are shod naturally to
the extent that the hooves are allowed to be bare in the winter and then the
horse is ridden in the spring to see just how the horse wears the foot.
Shoeing is then adjusted to fit the wear. This is about as natural as you
can get in shoeing.

Bob Morris
Boise, ID

-----Original Message-----
From: Duncan Fletcher [mailto:dfletche@gte.net]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 10:24 PM
To: ridecamp@endurance.net; rainbow@montana.com
Subject: RC: Re: Convention & Shoeing


There are a number of aspects to this. I went to a Gene Ovenick clinic with
my farrier. I was there only for the Friday evening lecture. Much of what he
had to say made sense although I wondered how obvious the toe calus (which
he uses as key reference point) was. My farrier attended the 'hands on'
Saturday session along with another client and his horse. The toe calus is
not always so obvious. But more important, he apparently used his rail
system to jack up the heel of every single horse he shod - substantially
above their natural angle. He and his client pulled their horse from being
shod.

As a point of reference my farrier is not LTLH advocate. He takes no heel
off my Peruvians (we constantly fight a low heel problem) and are aiming for
a 51-52 degree angle. My foxtrotter (with more upright pastern angles) gets
wacked evenly all around with a resulting angle of about 55 degrees. Despite
the problems my farrier saw at the clinic with the trim, we have been using
NBS shoes on 2 of the PPs, although with summer riding season coming we will
have to switch to steel shoes.

Another view on this subject came from Doug Butler at a seminar this
weekend. He dislikes the trim (in part because of the reduction in ground
contact surface area). He also dislikes the NBS shoe. He claims (and I must
confess I came in late and had to pick this up second hand from my wife)
that the NBS shoes interferes with an artery feeding the blood supply to the
coffin bone. Quite frankly, I don't understand this - wish I had heard this
first hand and had asked some more questions.

BTW, Drin - check your e-mail settings. The reply-to header contained only
@montana.com and was missing rainbow.

Duncan Fletcher
dfletche@gte.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Drin & Jim Becker <rainbow@montana.com>
To: <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 5:57 PM
Subject: RC: Convention & Shoeing


> I just got back from the aerc convention last night , what a great time
> .Excellent seminars , the trade show was a shoppers paradise , and the
> awards banquet was wonderfull . Angie had us all laughing with her satire
> of the seminars . Kerry Ridgeway did a seminar on Gene Ovenick's natural
> shoeing methods , And it was the first time that anyone has explained it
to
> me that it made any sense at all . Are any of you guys out there using
this
> method ? And why did you start using it ?What difference's are you finding
> between this method and the traditional methods ?
>                                                        Drin Becker
>                                                         Mtn. Region




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