Barefoot Endurance?

["Barbara B. Peck" <bpeck@together.net>]

I think the terrain

and the breed of horse have alot to do

 with how long you can ride bare foot.

 

I have tried to no avail to keep my horses barefoot year round.

I do not ride as many miles as some of you 50+ mile competitors,

 but I rack them up at home, usually doing 700 miles or

so per horse.

 

Terrain:

I ride on sand trails, rocky trails, asphalt roads, and gravel dirt roads (no shoulder).

I've tried shoeing just the back for 6 weeks, just the fronts for 6 weeks.. etc..etc

In that 6 week period,  going totally barefoot, totally shod, just about

every combination you can think of.

The mixed terrain I ride on,

 wears the foot faster than it can grow.  When the walls are

shorter than the sole, they'll start wearing the sole.

I can ride bare foot from October to May, as long as I limit the amount

 of gravel and asphalt roads. I shoe from May to October.

 

The BIG component is the compostition of the digital cushion

and it's relation ship to the ungual cartilage..

 

I'll paraphrase from a recent research paper:

Arabs, Twalkers and Morgans have cartilage-like digital cushions,

technically called a fibrocartaginous, fibroelastic digital cushion,

with thick ungual cartilages,  while most

QH TBs and Standardbreds have primarily adipose (fat) and

elastic compostition of the diital cushion and thinner ungual cartliages.

 

I know this is technical... but it answered for me, why a ARAB has much,

 much tougher feet than QHs. I've had both breeds, and on the whole,

QH feet are never as good as Arab feet no matter what you feed them,

how you breed them or how you trim them.

 

The name of the reference paper is:

 

"Functional Anatomy of the Cartilage of the distal phalanx and digital Cushion in the Equine Foot and a hemodynamic flow hypothesis of energy dissapation."

RM Bowker VMD,  K.K.Van Wulfen DVM, SE Springer BS, KE Linder DVM. AJVR vol 59, No. 8 1998.

 

Regards.

Barb