I'm very lucky in that all my horses are happily Barefoot / un-shod whatever you want to call it. I'm not evangelistic nor am I against farriers or shoes. Im a realist I understand that without having the knowledge I have & the ability to be able to make changes quickly to there management & diet my horses probably wouldn't be successful without shoes.
But the shocking truth is after many years now BF & many different breeds & ages of horses I haven't had any problems, I hack out, I ride on different surfaces & train without issues ok my current top horse is only competing at Medium, but he is training to a higher level. BF gives me the ability to see any diet related issues quickly & act accordingly.
My big turning point to BF totally was in 2010, I already had a horse that I had taken BF but I was still not totally dedicated to it. Then my WB Troy had a life changing field injury on MRI scan he had done significant damage to the Impar Ligament & DDFT as well as being severly damaged we had the added problem of the impar lig being adhered to the DDFT the Navic Bursa was almost unrecognisable.
His future was poor & I was told if he came field sound I would be lucky, we went with Vet recommendations & had him shod with Bar shoes & frog supports. My gut however was telling me to take shoes off.
Long story short the shoeing did not work out & he was even worse than before hopping lame just on box rest, so after speaking with the vets at leahurst they agreed to taking his shoes off. Was it an instant miracle cure no!!
But he was much looser & the stride increased immediately, in the next few weeks his bouts of lameness changed for the better. We decided the best course of action was to actually do nothing apart from slight re-balancing for a period of 3 months & let his hooves decide where they needed to be.
This worked so well & we where cracking on with in hand walking, we had occasional set backs when he would have a loopy day but the lameness was less & didn't last as long. We tell when the adhesions where breaking as he would go lame for a day & then come out better in walk the next & this carried on.
He then came completely sound, but I continued with a small t/o pen & hand walking progressing the ridden walk & then hacking. No issues throughout.
The days then came to up work & again done slowly we had no issues, we then introduced lateral work, (which would of made him hoping lame before) & no issues. Needless to say we cracked back on & started competing him again in 2012 at Adv Med, he was training happily at PSG when I lost him to another freak accident.
I can honestly say BF made a life changing difference to this horse, yes it was hard work but it was so worth it & is now the reason I advocate it so much where possible.
The key I personally believe to successful BF is without a doubt the owner!!
I also believe the reason we are not seeing horses at GP BF is because there are still so few BF in the dressage world, to say that the work of GP horses demands shoes is rubbish there hooves are perfectly adapted to load bare, they have been doing it for thousands of years!
A horse needing the support of shoes to be able to Piaffe without damage is obviously a horse with compromised hooves. Then yes shoeing if the owner hasn't or doesn't want to go BF is best. But horses can Piaffe perfectly fine without damage to any ligaments BF. There is no need for any lateral extensions because in an uncompromised healthy bare hoof the baring surface is greater than shod.
I am sure that we will be seeing BF at GP in the not so distant future & will be able to prove that a horse can do GP with or without shoes once & for all!!
My post is dedicated to Castle Troy, he changed my whole world so much I will be forever grateful to him.
Castle Troy 2000 - 2013
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