something i have never understoood. why dont race horses especially jumpers wear protective boots?? surely it is so easy 2 hurt them selves at that speed and over jumps, or just leaping out stalls. so many knock thier legs and hurt themselves? or am i missing something here? could someone enlighten me please as i am sure there is a reason especially if not used on such valuble horses.
racehorse boots?
- Thread starter cloudandmatrix
- Start date
As HelenC said, some do. I think the main reason others don't is it's that little bit more weight to take round a course.
ALso remember that most of us see our horses as pets, we think an awful lot of them & want to protect them as much as we can. A lot of racers, on the otherhand, are a commodity. If one gets damaged there are plenty more out there
ALso remember that most of us see our horses as pets, we think an awful lot of them & want to protect them as much as we can. A lot of racers, on the otherhand, are a commodity. If one gets damaged there are plenty more out there
ALso remember that most of us see our horses as pets, we think an awful lot of them & want to protect them as much as we can. A lot of racers, on the otherhand, are a commodity. If one gets damaged there are plenty more out there
Thats right we all don't give a sh*t about our horses... *sigh* Nope they aren't pets, and they are commodities and they are your business so you look after them. Generally they will be a tiny bit more valuable than your "pets" Obviously we are the worst kind of horsey people as we are also involved in polo where horses are definitely not pets but EVERYTHING is booted and bandaged. Simply the difference is racehorses rarely need boots, polo ponies always do.Most trainers would think.... Half a ton of horse traveling at thirty miles an hour through solid birch... the boots are doing what?
That said some of ours wore boots to race (fronts).
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WELL SAID! Wooo the first sensible post here for weeks ;-)
Its a similar argument as the riding school bashing threads, how we are all so cruel to our horses, work them into the ground and dont love them like babies,
No we don't usually, that is right, but we do care about them and respect them, they are our livelihood and it would be bad business sense to thrash our source of income around!
Can I also add - that perhaps becuase - generally speaking - racehorses have much better confirmation and build for athleticism than Joe Bloggs' Pony they are much less likely to stand on themselves as everything is going in the right direction as intended!
yeah if you watch a racehorse as they are galloping then their legs very rarely come close enough together to brush each other - they tend to stay under their respective shoulder.
It could also be dangerous if a boot started coming off at full pelt and could get stood on. Also agree about the extra weight - racehorses have their shoes changed to lighter aluminium ones, wouldn't seem much point doing that and then having extra weight on their legs instead
Also, wouldn't the lighter shoes mean that they do less damage to their legs if they were to have an accident than a horse with iron shoes on?
And if you look at any older picture of hunting, almost none of the horses wear any boots, even though they weren't all as well built as racehorses, and they didn't all lame themselves.
And if you look at any older picture of hunting, almost none of the horses wear any boots, even though they weren't all as well built as racehorses, and they didn't all lame themselves.
another reason we never used boots at my yard was because when it was heavy or on some courses even just soft, the boots would get wet and slip round or down , and i know off one then had a boot slip over the fetlock joint so the horse fell on the flat
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