Barefoot

[guest@endurance.net]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net

Abby said:

> The other point is that a lot of people are citing shoe wear as a reason
a
> horse couldn't possibly go barefoot over such-and-such terrain-

I cited the fact that my horses couldn't go barefoot not because of shoe
wear but because of HOOF wear.  My barefoot horses, after many miles of
training and endurance competition, just plain old get too short in the
foot.  No chipping, no cracking, no sole bruising...just short.

And when they get short in the foot, they get "ouchy" which has nothing to
do with carefully picking their way through the rocks, when they have
enough foot, they don't care about the rocks :).  When they are short in
the foot, every little pebble would cause them to flinch, shorten their
strides, not freely swing their shoulders or hips in their movement, etc.

> -someone
> already mentioned this in passing, but horses slide their feet when
> they're wearing shoes in an effort to dissipate some of the shock.  A
> barefoot horse does NOT slide his feet.

Some horses slide their back feet, and some don't.  Some horses slide
their feet on some terrain and not other terrain, and others don't.  In my
observation (which, as I have mentioned spanns 10 years of watching and
working with barefoot horses of all varieties over all kinds of terrain),
if a horse slides its foot when shod, but doesn't when barefoot, it is
because the horse would prefer to slides its feet, but doesn't when
barefoot, because it is trying to protect its bare feet from the excess
abrasion caused by slding it (i.e. the horses is afraid to slide its feet
because it knows its gonna hurt)--which is what causes it to become short
strided and to "stab" the ground instead of swinging its leg freely
forward.

And this is not a function of whether the horse has shoes or not, but a
function of whether the horse has sufficient hoof protection or not, and
my barefoot horses consider "plenty of bare foot" to be sufficient hoof
protection.  But when a barefoot horse gets too short in the foot it DOES
alter its gait to accommodate its discomfort (and shod horses can be
"ouchy" too, like if a farrier cuts them too short, at which time they
will exhibit the same alterations in gait).  It isn't a function of the
shoes, it's function of the confidence with which the horse swings its
legs and moves its feet.

And over the years I have become very in tune to the way that my horses
swing their legs and move their feet, since there will start to be some
very subtle changes before they become obviously "ouchy," and the outset
of these subtle changes is the time to be putting hoof protection on.
Don't wait until the horse has altered its gait too much and is obviously
sore, because altering the gait can have consequences that transmit to the
rest of the body.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  Historically speaking, man did not start shoing horses because they
thought shoes would look nice.  Man started shoing horses because their
unshod horses started getting tenderfooted...just like me.

Yes, there are new materials that weren't available to the early shoers
that I am interested in experimenting with, but I am starting to come to
the conclusion that the reason that man has been shoing horses with steel
for centuries is because they have tried everything else and everything
else has proved inadequate :) if you intend to use your horse a lot.