My horses are on grass pasture 24/7. Their pasture does have rocky areas, but not much. They get walked across short gravel roads whenever we ride them, and they are ridden in sandy arenas. If I wanted to take them on a short-ish (5-10 miles?) trail ride over possibly partially rocky ground, could I expect their feet to be up to it? It would be mostly walking and maybe a little trotting and cantering. I don’t really want to buy boots for all of them for what might be a one-time event, but obviously I don’t want their feet getting sore either.
Or is this just one of those things that depends on the horse?
Unfortunately, I don't think there's any reliable way to predict that. Some breeds do better than others but even within a breed there's considerable variation. One of the reasons I always shod my horses was so that they could contend with whatever we encountered.
You could get some trail boots, my mare is barefoot & pretty surefooted, but on trails I use them for extra protection. Sometimes she's a bit ouchy on rocks. No way to really tell...but get a pair of boots just to be safe. Doesn't hurt.
You can just go ahead and try it. In my experience, it is quite obvious when a horse starts to step gingerly and/or trying to avoid a rocky trail in favor of the softer edges. If he struts out with no care in the world, chances are he's not feeling tender. If he shortens is stride, carefully looking where to step or gravitating towards the edge of the trail (where there is often a grassy edge), he's probably not happy.
Soles also have a way of building up under "abuse", just as you'd build up the soles of your feet if you walked barefoot a lot. The idea is then to slightly "aggravate" the feet without injuring them (just as if you lift weights to fatigue, you're aggravating your muscles without injuring them).
Ditto what others have said. My horses are on pasture, and these days I have nowhere near enough time for 'conditioning work'. I have 2 horses that I wouldn't consider making them carry me on rocky trails unbooted, though they do gravel roads well enough. I have 2 horses who I rarely have to boot for anything - well, one of those came to me easter 2018 with crap feet, needed booting for everything first few months, then only rocky trails, but hasn't needed boots even there since last year.
I wouldnt generally trot or canter on rocks unless I knew the horse had great, thick soled feet & rocks weren't big & sharp. Even my boys with the tough feet, we only trot or canter on the smoother sections unless theyre booted.
Perhaps there are verges that are easier for them. On a lot of bush rides I choose to stay off the actual trails & leave my horses bare.
For a one time deal wouldn't worry about hoof boots. Most trails have edges that are sandy or grassy. Let horse ride edge of trail, where trail is rocky.
That is what I do when my horse is barefoot early spring & late fall keeps him from getting sore footed.
We generally have rockless ground here, but if we haul out to trail ride, rocks are more prominent. The easiest thing to do is start off small--- do a shorter ride and see how the horse does. Try to pick somewhere with some grass or softer ground on the edges of the trails if your horse gets sore-footed. Some horses can traipse along happily over miles and miles of rocky trails without issue, while others are sore in the first mile. It all depends on the horse.
For what it's worth, it's pretty common here for horses ridden on a variety of trails to be shod in the summer/fall when they're being ridden. It keeps you from losing the use of the horse for a month if he gets sore, or if you have to wait a few weeks to get on someone's shoeing schedule. My current horses don't need shoes, but I did shoe previously, and would have my saddle horses shod from early June until mid-late November (or whenever winter set in). I had my farrier make an extra front and rear shoe for each horse, and kept those and a handful of horseshoe nails in my trailer should a horse pull a shoe on a ride. If your horse is really touchy or you're farther than a few miles from the trailer, carry the spares with you, along with a nipper and hammer and learn now to pull and reset a shoe if needed. It can save a riding weekend with a tender-footed horse in rough country to have this simple skill. The advantage to shoeing is that it was nice to be able to load up and haul on short notice and not worry about the ground, whether it was an arena or trail or road. If your horse generally has good feet but will occasionally take a shorter step, shoeing in front may be all that is needed. And some horses, like my Paso, are rock-crusher sound on any surface without shoes at all gaits.
I really don't think it's fair to ask a flatlander, pasture-tender horse to trot and canter on rough, rocky ground without knowing if it will make him sore. Carry boots or go ahead and shoe if this is more than a one-time thing. If not, consider what you will do if your horse goes lame 2 miles into a 10 mile ride... you need a plan to minimize his pain and get him back to the trailer as comfortably as possible. It's always a good idea to start out with a short distance and see how things go. You can usually tell within a few hundred yards if your horse's feet are going to bother him or not.
How rocky are you calling rocky? Creek beds or areas leading up to a creek with gravel and the rest is sandy or clay? Gravel roads to cross? Short areas on the trail where you encounter a slab or two of larger but smooth rocks on the trail where the soil has washed out and they're pretty flat? Or are we talking loose, jagged, big, MEAN, ROCKS?
Unless we're talking about the first or second, I'd shoe all four feet or get boots.
I would NOT trot or canter them on rocky ground without boots or shoes, but also consider that makes footing treacherous for horses. IMO, depending on what I call rocky ground vs. what you call rocky, you're asking for a wreck when a rock flips up and they lose their footing, or one stabs the frog (shoes won't help there), or you hit a surface akin to blacktop because steel shoes + rocks = a tough and treacherous ride.
Pix below are what I'm calling rocky btw. We ride there, and it is way above my skill level, or was. Not so much any more but it is not anywhere you'd want to go without shoes.
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