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Yes it was and a good example of how it is all tied together, horse 
comfort, gait, behavior, etc. The thing I don't get is I don't think 
anyone would disagree that if a horse can go barefoot, that is the 
preferable way. We have a young one we are just starting to ride. She is 
learning a lot, proper balance on the straight away, now we are adding 
some tight curves to get her to balanced under those conditions. She 
gets ridden about twice to three times a week and so far she doesn't 
show any signs of foot soreness, breaking up of the hoof or excess wear. 
We do give her a week off to process what she has learned about every 4 
or 5.

The work has stimulated hoof growth and her hoofs are nicely shaped for 
the work. However, when we start working her more she will need shoes 
and she will get shoes - starting with light weight aluminum and then 
working up to steel as she needs. While she grows tough dense hoof, but 
she does not grow it exceptionally fast and at some point wear will 
become an issue. Her mother grew good dense hoof but didn't grow it 
fast. Given the choice, however, between good dense hoof and fast 
growing "soft hoof" I'll take dense hoof any day.

I can't see where how one manages one's horses feet needs to be a 
religion or what business it is of anyone else if I want to shoe. After 
all we should all be concerned with the comfort, health and safety of 
our horses as we ask them to do things they never do in nature - carry a 
rider for a long distance over trails we dictate - which are not trails 
they would necessarily traverse given their own choice.

Truman

heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Kat, excellent post.
> Your stated: "It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who 
> ride barefoot horses who don't know how to tell when their horse has 
> sore feet. The problem is, horses that are foot sore don't limp 
> (assuming all the feet are sore), so their owners think that just 
> because their horses' feet don't have chipped hoof walls that there 
> can't be anything wrong with the feet." This is precisely the 
> frustration that I feel watching so many of these horses, and is why I 
> bothered to speak up on this topic in the first place. I read posts 
> from people talking about how their horses' gaits have "improved" and 
> yeah, they've certainly changed, but from my observations, usually not 
> for the better.


--

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things 
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil 
things, that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg – Nobel Laureate, Physics


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