Re: Shoes, Boots, Barefooted, whatever.....

["Tina Hicks" <tina@autoairbagcovers.com>]

I think the statement below sums it all up -

> Dru Montemayor tdmonte@theriver.com
> Believe me,if you do
> enough miles, you will find out what works (for you) eventually.

we can all talk till we're blue in the face about the barefoot issue and
whether horses can go 100s of miles with no shoes on successive Saturdays :)
but the proof will be in the pudding.  When those of us riding barefoot can
report back after a ride or several rides or a season without shoes then
we'll have a leg, so to speak, to stand on when we say "this is a viable
option for this sport". Right now, looking at this objectively as someone
who is riding a barefoot  horse, most of this discussion is just conjecture.
There are a few folks out there who have done a ride here and there but no
one's been at it long enough to put up any serious, long-term competition
miles barefoot and those that have tried (like Kat) have ended up shoeing in
a lot of cases.

It's hard to look at the thousands of miles Tammy or Karen have done and say
"barefoot is a better way" for this sport. It may be, and I hope we find
that out, or it may not always be as Kat and others have suggested.

Tina