Barefoot Eventing?

Keep in mind, however, that "Top Eventers" are not going BN or Novice, they're several levels higher than that! And the OP was talking about Eventing her horse at the BN level this year, possibly Novice next if it works out. She's not saying she's planning on going Barefoot Rolex'ing

When I was a working professional, I used to bring young horses out at Novice, but would occassionally bring one out at Beginner Novice if I felt they needed a confidence builder.

It's just the naming convention for American eventing. Some riders happily spend their whole careers at Beginner Novice, 1.) because of limitations or soundness issues in their horses 2.) job and family obligations that keep them from conditioning a horse to compete at higher levels.

"Beginner Novice" as the name of a division means nothing about the rider's level of expertise, it only says something about the horse's level of training and/or fitness.

BTW, event organizers will make an effort to split divisions appropriately. So Beginner Novice A may have people in their first year or two of eventing, Beginner Novice B may have people on young or new horses, and BN C may have a bunch of professionals bringing green horses out.

It's your horse, so do as you please. However for me, I would want to set the horse up for as much success as possible, and for me that would mean shoes with studs.

If you are concerned about the impact shoes have on horses, due to the whole barefoot movement, then I would consider another discipline for the horse - one more suited to barefoot.

Yes, two very different things. In the group I'm in, lots of middle aged women who either are starting eventing or just getting back into it, they actually call it "beginner nervous". I just started last year and did elementary. If you ever see a real beginner doing BN, they probably shouldn't be there yet.

Actually, hoofprints, BN is 2'7"! =P

Yeah I know I just caught that too, I just always tend to think in 3's because that's how my jump standards are set up LOL

I know, it doesnt make much sense, does it ?

Thanks for all of the input!

No it doesn't lol

At Beginner Novice, I don't see much risk in trying your horse barefoot. One of three things is going to happen - 1.) your horse will adjust to being barefoot, stay sound, and compete safely 2.) your horse will not stay sound barefoot and you willl have to put shoes back on. You may lose a little time as the horse recovers from being footsore, but I'm guessing that's a risk you've already considered and are willing to take 3.) your horse will have trouble negotiating deep footing barefoot and after spending some time slipping and sliding, you'll decide to go back to shoes. Some risk here, but essentially the same risk as someone who stays in plain shoes until the horse starts slipping and sliding and then goes to studs.

So if you're interested enough to consider this, I just don't see an enormous downside to the experiment.

I will admit it's an option I have never considered, I usually went along a continium of barefoot to plain steel front only to shod all around to shod all around/rim shoes behind and then finally to studs as a horse progressed and was doing more demanding work.

However, I have had trail horses and school horses go barefoot if they had good feet and otherwise tolerated it well. So I don't see the harm in giving it a try.