Does Your Horse Have Shoes

Both of my older horses have shoes on all around, my colt does not, he's barefoot.
Why? Their performance horses, just like athletes need special shoes for their sport so do the horses. Their feet would get worn and with have barrel rims on they can grip the dirt better without sliding. Both of them also have natural balence shoes on. My colt with have shoes put on him when he starts showing.

Mine are all barefoot and if I can, I ill keep it that way. I strongly believe it is healthier.

All of my horses show, in speed events, pleasure events, they jump, ride on roads, rocky ground.

Unless the hoof is not functional, shoes are not essential for showing/performance exept for specialised disciplines like reining.

In the winter, all my horses are kept barefoot because they don't get ridden really hard and the traction is much better on frozen ground without shoes.

In the summer, our horses that get used all the time get shoes all the way around because we do a lot of cattle work in rocky terrain and on rocky roads, often times at pretty high speed with sudden stops and hard turns mixed in. My thinking is that keeping them shod for 6 months out of the year is a small price to pay to prevent a stone bruise and abcess.

All our mares are barefoot (trim myself). The two younger ones have never been shod. Our lead mare has thinner soles and was always shod (all four) by her original owner (who shod every horse), but has been barefoot since then (the original owner was amazed when she saw the horse doing the rocky trails barefoot without a problem). We just do pleasure riding, but they are all fine on the roads and trail riding even over the gravel and rocks.

Cost: some sweat and a new rasp every once and a while.

Mine's shod for the winter because we have a lot of ice on the ground so we need to put rods or whateveryoucallit in the shoe.
But for the months that I'm not riding him (July-December) he's barefoot.

I have two barefoot and two with shoes.

One mare is in them 24/7/365 with pads in front
Dukey has all four cause he might be going to shawnee yet this year and he does better with shoes then without

Lazy is now barefoot for good with hoof boots as needed
Moosa normally wears fronts when he is being ridden he has shown me he does better with the protection then without

All my horses are barefoot. I use a certified natural barefoot trimmer that I love. I have 4 TB, 1 Arab, and 1 Appy. Two of my TB's had terrible feet when I got them a year ago. One is still not the best but found that it was her diet. A few weeks on Focus HF and she's looking great.

I stopped liking shoes the one and only time I put them on my first horse. Everyone put them on so I thought I needed to. She cut up her legs from poor clinching and slid everywhere. That's the last time I ever put shoes on my horses. I was so glad when natural trimming came out. Even my Arab who has weak pasterns is doing better. Plus they all love him, even my TB who hated having her hooves messed with now stands beautifully. Any new horse I get after two or three trims stops fussing. I think because they realize that thier feet won't hurt or ache afterwards.

I will tell you that a natural barefoot trim is loads different from a barefoot trim
Done by a normal shoeing farrier. Just like its best to make sure your shoeing farrier is certified, make sure your natural barefoot trimmer is certified. These people may be more expensive, but then they've spent lots of money on learning how to do the trimming right. For riding on rough terrain they are coming out with some very nice boots that work great.
Current price is $35 for horses, $25 for minis. But he says that with my herd growing I'll soon be qualified for a discount :).

I keep my horses shod pretty much all the time. In the winter I pull the shoes from all but one or two because I'm not using them as much. My horses have pretty decent feet but I ride too fast in too rocky of terrain to go without shoes. I do it myself so it's not a matter of cost. I like to be able to ride my horse without them gimping over rocks or getting stone bruised and abcessed. In addition when the wear exceeds the growth there is no other option but shoeing or less riding. Someome mentioned hoof supplements but a horse must be on them at least a year before they make any difference and for most horses the difference will be slight. A horses hoof grows about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch per month so until the more heathy hoof grows down most of the way to the ground you won't see much difference. When most people talk about how some supplement strenghened thier horses feet in a few weeks they are demonstrating the placebo affect. Topical hoof treatments mostly only make the outside look better but do little for the health of the hoof.

There is nothing wrong with a well shod horse. If done properly the hoof functions just fine and the horse will be every bit as sound if not more so than a barefoot horse.

I took them off because they were too big and messed up her footing and she was always stepping on my foot and too re-shod her is alot of money so she' going bare

Just because she is barefoot doesn't mean you don't have to keep her feet trimmed and in good health. She should see a farrier about every 8 weeks regardless of rather she has shoes on or not.