A warmblood owner at our barn tried a pair on her mare. It did not make a
difference in her motion, etc. and the rubber bottom came coming out of place
more than once. Our farrier is an excellent shoer and though he was not
impressed with the workability of these shoes, tried his best to please the
owner. She finally "admitted defeat" and took his suggestion to go to
regular shoes with leather pads. He got a better custom fit and more heel
support with the regular steel shoes. (Another owner wanted to try the
Slypners, but it did not come in a big enough size for her large footed WB
mare.) If you are particularily interested in the "rubber" aspect of the
Slypner, I would suggest checking into the aluminum racing type shoes,
commonly used on the quarter horses. It is a simple racing plate, with a
molded yellow "rubber" type rim pad, already affixed to the hoof side of the
shoe. It might give you the same type of cushion effect of the Slypner's
without the high maintainence. For the cost of the Slypner's, I would
investigate other options. The company literature said you could get 2
resets out of them, but it rarely worked. The base shoe showed too much wear
and tear and would not hold the inset for the entire time between shoeings.
It was no fun trying to dig the mud and small stones, out of the attachement
points!
Randi