Barefoot Eventing?

If you're a beginner and going to take it dead steady and can live with yourself if your horse slips or pulls up lame then go for it.

But I personally don't get why anyone would even consider eventing and not giving the horse the best chance.

It's not coincidence that there's no top eventers unshod.

First of all, I am NOT a beginner. And if my horse is not performing her best and is unsafe, I would shoe her. I don't appreciate snippy comments like that.

I have no idea where she'd get the idea you were a beginner! How snippy!

Thank you Kevin. I actually wasn't being snipey at all. I was seriously answering the question but seems now the OP isn't a beginner and knows what to do.

My boy has been barefoot all his life, including on rocks and hard ground, and he's evented to around Training height. He has Arab soles and TB walls, and by that I mean his soles are like steel but the walls are sort of more like hard cheese. They crack and chip if I let them get anywhere close to "traditional" length, he is trimmed in the "barefoot" way because there's no way I can keep his hooves long enough for the other way! Not without shoes, and I don't want to go there with him because he's perfectly sound without them... he just needs to have his feet kept short.

He was shod for a while by someone who leased him for competition because they were one of the many people who believe you can't event without shoes, and his feet got really soft and horrible over that time. They're still toughening back up, nearly 2 years later.

I've been to showjumping days in awful weather on horrible surfaces (fetlock high grass and a particular kind of weed that is like wet ice when it rains), and the horses that slipped the least were barefoot, including the pony I was competing on. And HE slipped going in a straight line twice! The trouble with shoes is that they're metal, and can get very slick, whereas the horse's natural hoof is more porous and therefore doesn't get as slippery.

Shoe when it's needed for soundness or your horse isn't getting through the surfaces you're asking it to get through (if it's slipping, if it's going sore on hard or rocky ground), but if you don't HAVE to, why spend that kind of money when you could be spending less than half that and just getting trims?

Agree with blue eyed...I very much dislike "all or nothing" mentalities...not all horses need shoes to Event. And not all horses can go barefoot either. We need to be evaluating on a horse by horse basis, rather than applying generalities to the whole lot. Just listen to your horse, he or she will tell you if shoes are necessary. And get a good farrier who isn't swayed one way or the other, so that your decisions are objective.
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The big thing I don't like about eventing barefoot is that you can't have studs. I may enter an event in may when the footing is perfect, but at the actual event in june it could be hard as a rock and slick, or deep mud because of rain. You just don't know what you're going to get. I have no problem going with out studs at BN and even novice if theres not much terrain, but anything else, I at least want the option to but my studs in.

*HeAvEn'S a LiE* - barefoot 20yo ringboned TB doing xc - YouTube

Here's a very nice barefoot TB story.

Being "a beginner" and eventing "beginner/novice" are two different things, no?

True...Beginner Novice level has max 2'6" fences, so by no means would an "expert" rider likely enter that division, other than if the horse is new to Eventing. But IMO to Event BN you have to be at the Intermediate riding level to do it safely. I know as a beginner rider I would NOT have been able to enter a BN level Event. I started in the "mini trials", a 1-day schooling show series in my area at the "Intro" level as a beginner. Jumps did not exceed 18" so it was a cross rails level to get my horse and I introduced to the sport. After that we have 2 levels before you get to BN, "Very green" and then "Starter".