Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Title: Message

No, that long toe is taken back to  (and kept in ) a more normal position, then the boot goes on. The nice thing about the barefoot horse is that the long toe doesn't have to be taken back so far to allow for growth that will occur between shoeing, since it will possibly self trim some, and hopefully the owner/rider will be vigilant in keeping it rasped to a good length. I can't even get the boots on my horse if I let his toe overgrow, the boot won't go on right.

 

Riders who use boots for long rides have more than likely already ridden enough conditioning miles to have the horse accustomed to moving in them. I certainly don't think they need to have them on 95% of the time....after all horses don't carry extra weight of rider and saddle around that much and still do quite well at the rides. The older boots weren't made with any toe rocker, the new ones already have it built in and if your horse needs more or needs it in a different spot, you can always take your rasp to it. Most horses I've seen don't move any differently in boots, and there doesn't seem to be any learning curve for the horse. Unlike the hiking boots that may be stiff around your very soft and flexible foot and ankle (as compared to a horse's hoof) there isn't much to worry about with boots as long as they fit. This puts a silly picture in my mind of horses with feet like us instead of hooves, and we could put trail shoes on them, can you just picture them running down the trails with their flexible feet padding along (:>) As always, on ride day,  never try anything you haven't already tried and know it will work,  whether it's a new feeding regime, saddle, pad, bit, or shoes or boots, right? Some horses don't do well in boots and those owners usually find out pretty quickly and don't use them. No big deal.

 

That's an interesting observation about rear end lameness in horses that are booted in front. I've never seen or heard of that before. For many years before I'd ever thought of keeping my horses in a barefoot lifestyle, it was common practice to only shoe the fronts of horses with exceptionally though feet and ride them that way. Personally, I don't think it's a problem. The hind end lameness that I've seen is more often insufficient selenium. The other observation about the hind hooves looking short...I'd have to say that in general bare hooves absolutely do look shorter than shod horses hooves. After all, their hooves are hopefully kept  at an optimal length, which means wall, sole and frog all share the load, at least in most situations. Look at your shod horse and you'll see that there is the extra length of the shoe, then the growth of the wall in between shoeing. A lot of barefoot horses rarely have more than a little rasping to do so there's not a significant difference in the before and after trim.  I think a better comparison of hoof length would be the barefoot horse compared to the freshly trimmed and not yet shod horse. Even then you'd likely see some differences.

 

Kathy