Different Surfaces for unshod horses

sjp1

sjp1

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Sep 14, 2009
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Took Tobes for a 5 mile walk yesterday. Fellow livery can only walk her mare, Tobes tendon swelling has gone down massively and he is becoming 'bored'!

So decided to lead him as thought he doesn't want another 9 stone on him weighing down his recovering leg. Made the track successfully, big lumps of gravel washed onto it from the big rain we had, and he zoomed across the tarmac no problem.

Our biggest issue was on a tarmac back lane which had tiny itty bits of gravelly stuff on it. He was quite pecky on that, so made him follow me on the smoothest route and he was OK then and once we got onto the smooth main road again, he was back to striding out.

Do any of you have horses who are OK negotiating those tiny little gravelly bits on tarmac road, is it just a question of time and conditioning on it?
 
My guy has been barefoot for over three years and he still has Ouchy moments.

I think you just need to give them access to as many different surfaces regularly :)
 
My older horses who have been barefoot for 10 years plus (or in the case of the little one who is 22 years old and always been barefoot) are all fine on the small bits of gravel on tarmac, Kiki is still footy on anything that looks like a stone, which involves most of my fields and half my drive which is 1/2 mile long :( I'm on the hunt for another set of boots for her, I had really hoped she would be able to go without boots but doesn't look that that is going to happen. Baby pony seems fine on all stones so far.
 
my last driving boy was unshod, he had feet like rock never lame on any surface. If had been lame I would of shod him or put boots on him. The way I see it 'ouchy' means lame and its unfair on the horse.
 
Neala is OK now, she used to struggle but it was due to bad flare, bad thrush when I got her, now everything is sorted she is grand but we only walk and trot a wee bit in hand. If it's been excessively wet she will be ouchy on large stones but that's the only time. If I felt she was struggling in general I would boot and possibly pad if I felt she needed it.
 
I agree with you Gimp, and if Tobes continues to be ouchy over small bits of grit then I will put his boots on.

I do think that horses are able to cope with the terrain they are asked to go on - so far as Tobes has been off work with a tendon issue, so his 'work' has consisted of walking up and down the stoney track or bed and out in the morning and poncing about in the field during the day - initially the stoney track was a problem, now it isn't after coming in and out for turnout.

If he continues to be ouchy on grit, then I will just boot him. He isn't tripping at all which he was in shoes and for the amount of work he does, even when sound during the winter I don't think it is fair to shoe him when I could just boot him.
 
I think Annie could walk on broken glass and not feel it! She has got super tough feet. I think 2 years of hacking out on the stony tracks of the Algarve probably contributed to that! I thought I would end up having to have her shod in front as we do a lot of roadwork and I assumed her feet would wear down very quickly - but they don't, they hold their own and do just the right amount of self-trimming. Even though she rarely steps on stones here, when she does she doesn't seem to notice! Mouse however has quite sensitive little feet - no surprise really as he spends most of his life in fields and the majority of his ridden work is either on sand or tarmac. We don't have off-road hacking here so there was no way to help them toughen up, so front shoes it was.
 
Jess doesn't fuss much on the gritty stuff as long as it's uniform size, she gets my luck tho and can always find that one huge one to ouch on :rolleyes:
 
When Ziggy was newly back to barefoot he stuck on two surfaces: large chip stone lanes (the chips about the size of the top joint of my thumb) and freshly gritted tarmac. He would pick his way along the tarmac but I could not get him along the large chip lanes at all.

He is fine on both surfaces now though.
 
You may well find that with time he won't even notice the gritty bits, Belle was a bit un comfy on gritty bits for ages but once her hoof had grown down and the white line tightened up she was fine. He's doing really well and you must be chuffed to bits with how he's coming on. :)
 
Thank you all, i shall monitor and boot accordingly as needed.

I am amazed i have to say. This was a horse who if he threw a shoe hobbled unbelievably and had to have one front on whilst the other was being done.
 
Mine are both barefoot. Every place I ride around my property or the neighborhood its fine. There are a couple of parks/forest I can also
go barefoot, but for the others I have Easyboot Gloves.

I also liked the Boa boots I have but when just starting out on a ride the wire broke on one of them so we had to go barefoot.
 
We have top dressed tarmac roads with very rough surface. It wears feet down like a carbide disc on a drill. so we shoe them.

Imagine driving a pair of horses , and trotting up a hill, and suddenly one goes "a bit ouchy" it totally interferes with the other horse. So it's only fair to shoe them for the road work we expect of them.
 
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Wally said:
We have top dressed tarmac roads with very rough surface. It wears feet down like a carbide disc on a drill. so we shoe them.



Imagine driving a pair of horses , and trotting up a hill, and suddenly one goes "a bit ouchy" it totally interferes with the other horse. So it's only fair to shoe them for the road work we expect of them.
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If course, but mine is recovering from a tendon issue so not working, just walked out for a change of scene. Just wondered if over time their feet harden to different surfaces and it seems they do.
 
Rosie and Major are never bothered by any surfaces. Moët can be more sensitive with fine gravel on Tarmac. Usually though I just let her choose the route, and I use boots on her at certain times of the year if she shows any sensitivity.
 
I am sure the majority of driven horses need to be shod because all of their work is on roads. I can keep ZIggy unshod because we only have to do about a mile on roads tops and the rest is on soft sand and duff. My trimmer says the bit of roadwork is good to keep his feet growing.
 
sjp1 said:
If course, but mine is recovering from a tendon issue so not working, just walked out for a change of scene. Just wondered if over time their feet harden to different surfaces and it seems they do.
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No, they don't, because if I gave mine time to "adapt" to our road surfaces we'd be down to the coffin bone. Hoof cannot grow and keep pace with the wear our roads cause.

If it was the case the horse I used to do endurance riding on would have managed the 100 mile rides. 25-40 he managed for years shoeless, 50 to 100 mile rides he could not cope with, and he had maybe ten years of being ridden without shoes to adapt to those kinds of mileages. If you want to work a horse seriously, he needs help.
 
They do harden (become less pecky) to different surfaces in my opinion, but can only tolerate a certain ammount of wear from what ever surface even if the are good on it as Wally says.
 
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