When To Shoe Your Pony

While there are lots of angles to horse raising and coaching, one outwardly minor detail that will pose a large dilemma for horse owners and trainers is whether to let the steeds go shoeless or shod.

Leaving horses shoeless or having them shod both have their own benefits. Having the horses shod will protect the feet especially if the hoof gets worn quicker than it can get replaced. On the other hand, allowing horses to go shoeless will improve their overall hoof health. Being shoeless provides horses room for movement, growth, and circulation. The heels of the horse expand, the walls of the hooves thicken, and the depth of the soles grow deeper.

But you simply can’t settle on a whim. You must first know what’s going to be better for your horse, as is your responsibility as an equestrian. How are you to grasp that? Consider your mare and her condition: her workload, the environment she is in, the health of her feet. Putting these things into perspective will aid in making it simpler for you to decide whether it is better for your mare to put on shoes or go shoeless.

Take a look on your mare’s feet. Are the feet of top quality? Top-grade feet have solid heels with cup on the sole, thick walls that don’t have flares, and frogs free of any disease. Such feet can put on a shoe real well and can also go barefooted. You’ll know it when you are one of the lucky few who got a horse with such healthy feet. The telling signs are: you—well, your mare—hasn’t faced feet issues, like a fungal disease among others; your farrier gives a positive evaluation; and your mare’s feet displays the standard of healthy, solid feet, e.g, front and back are relatively even.

Checking the state of your mare’s feet is just the first step. You still need to mull over her environment—the kind of footing the horse has in the area where she lives and works—and her workload.

If the ground where your horse works is soft and non-abrasive, and her workload is low, (you do little more than enjoy basic horse riding), you can leave your horse without shoes. Then again, regardless of if your easy going horse riding is on rough terrain then your mare will be much better off being shod. If you’d like to promote the barefoot methodology, just take away the shoes in the months when your mare has no workload, say in the winter.

Other circumstances where it’s best to have your horse shod are: when she has got a navicular illness; is badly foundered; has sensitive feet like Thoroughbreds or have little hooves like a quarter horse, which sometimes can’t go without shoes; or if her feet has cracks, which if it’s the case, you will have to wait for the cracks to heel before it’s possible to show them again to being without shoes.

Horses are Heather Toms ‘ passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100’s of articles with other horse lovers like all things about horse rugs .