I am not posting to get in the middle of the barefoot debates; what
works for some will not work for others. I do not believe it would work
for me, and my horses live on extremely rocky, hard ground. The kind that
drains in two hours after 24 hours of rain, so you rarely need rubber booties
type-of ground.
Several of us "boogie riders" (1000's of miles between us, Tevis
completers, 100 milers, top tenners, BCers, even a couple of newbies, etc.)
condition at Whiskeytown National Park near Redding, Ca. We are able to
ride all winter, if we don't mind getting rained on because almost ALL of
Whiskeytown is rock, and I do mean SERIOUS rock!! Granite,
Quartz,decomposed granite, and big, nasty rocks that stick up through the ground
and look like shark's teeth and granite gravel roads (3 inch minus stuff)
up and down and UP and DOWN!! My horse and my riding partner's
horse, (she's a DVM) were wearing out a set of shoes in 3 WEEKS or
LESS. I mean, they (eventers) were as thin as butter
knives, and the nail heads were plumb wore
off, and then, of course, the shoes fall off. Our training
rides are 12 to 20 miles, twice weekly. In addition, I have a weekly
dressage/reining lesson in sand. We collaborated with our farriers
to find a solution, as they were getting too rich (HA!) coming out every 3 weeks
to put on new shoes. So, they apply 3 spots of hard surface steel to each
shoe and now we can get 5 weeks out of a set.
There have been a few barefoot horses start the Whiskeytown ride, but
none have ever completed the 25 or the 50. The ride manager
finally refused to let any without shoes or boots even start the ride as it was
frustrating to have to go in to rescue them when they became lame. Attempting
Whiskeytown barefooted would be as foolhardy as attempting Tevis
barefooted. My point is, barefoot would
probably not work for a single rider in our
situation. renie
