No Shoes for Horses

If you own a horse, you know that having it's hooves trimmed regularly is something you cannot avoid. What you may not be aware of is that there is a growing mountain of evidence to suggest that shoeing your horse is less advised than once it was and that with a bit of instruction and understanding and a few tools you could be trimming your horses feet yourself.

Below is a youtube clip by Joe Camp. He gives a beautifully simple demonstration of what physically happens when a horses's foot impacts the ground. Understanding how this complex structure has been anatomically built to hit the ground running and sometimes very hard ground is not difficult to grasp. Once this concept had been explained to me, I was a convert, and could instantly appreciate how a steel shoe would inhibit-- to a fairly severe degree the operation of this neat anatomical action.

When I was a little girl of eight I had my first pony to look after, an elderly grey called Benji. I would hear the Kennedys (no not the ones you’re thinking of) taking their sleek, warmblood, show horses for a walk around the town. I loved the sound shod hooves made on the bitumen and I longed for Benji to have shoes so we would at least have a hope of sounding sophisticated, where I had to concede we had no hope of looking sophisticated. Benji was both ancient and borrowed and was never going to get shoes. Years later and for years, when the decision was all mine and I knew no better I found myself spending quite a bit of time chasing farriers to come and shoe my horses.

(I know now thanks to Monty Python just as delightful a sound can be made by clapping two coconut shells together! )

The history of shoeing horses is not exactly clear, but it seems horse shoes came into more widespread use in the Middle Ages

Horseshoes seem to have been invented in the Middle Ages in Europe, to keep the feet from falling apart when knights' horses had to live for months in slop-filled tie-stalls while the castle was under siege. At that time, the modern study of Anatomy and Physiology did not exist yet, so there was no way to study what the shoes did to hooves and legs. [source]

Another theory of why shoeing became a widespread practise was because it was something once only royalty and the landed gentry could afford and it became an issue of status anxiety that subsequently gained ‘traction’ amongst aspiring peasants and beyond. Not so unlike my story as an eight year old on hearing the Kennedys approaching down the road.

A discussion and a bit more of the history of horseshoes can be found here on this blog by Carla Nayland.

That it’s probably not such a good idea to shoe your horse as a matter of course, has only started to gain widespread popularity in the last ten or so years. Many old school farriers readily concede that where possible it is better to leave a horse unshod but usually they mean a horse not in work.

In some countries, some farriers are notoriously unreliable. Either unavailable to come when you need them or standing you up completely. Being able to dispense with shoeing altogether and this being beneficial to your horses overhaul health and being able to trim your horses feet yourself when they need it all add up to a triple win.

There is great deal of of very detailed information on net about the benefits of going barefoot and instructions as to how you can trim your horse's hooves.

Two sites I recommend are:

Successful Natural Horse Care

And

Bare Foot Horse

Both these sites, provide step by step instructions and plenty of moral support.

I would recommend finding a specialist barefoot farrier who can trim your horses hooves the first few times and instruct you as to how you can maintain them and whether they think you can continue on your own. There is still a certain amount of enthusiastic zeal for barefoot trimming and most practitioners will generously impart their skills because they want to spread the word. My farrier is a woman who rings me every month or so to organise a trim. (This is unheard of for me from a farrier!) She has explained to me in far greater detail than any other farrier I've known what she is aiming to achieve with my horses hooves and what his particular problems are. I only wish I had known about the benefits of having my horse going barefoot many years ago.

Proponents of the barefoot horse do warn that it can take anything up to a year to transition your horse from a lifetime of being shod to one of being shoe free. Trimming a horse's hooves in order to shoe it is different from trimming the hoof in order for it to be a hard, sound structure for him to gallop over hard surfaces. Horses who have been shod all their lives may need the extra protection that wearing a pair of boots can give. Boots for horses is a great idea--superior to shoes in every way.