Should you ride a horse if he has lost a shoe?

Mary Poppins

Well-Known Member
Oct 10, 2004
13,735
4,832
113
Visit site
Ben is shod on his front feet only. On our hack on Sunday he lost a shoe in the woods. The farrier is being arranged by the YO and will hopefully come tomorrow. I asked yesterday if i should rest him until the farrier came, but the YO said that as long as I stick to the school and don't jump or do overly fast work, he will be fine. I asked a couple of other people and they agreed that light school work was fine.

Does this sound right to you? Do you ride in the school if your horse has lost a shoe? I did tonight, but I couldn't help feeling that I was doing something wrong. We stuck mainly to walk even though Ben could really have done with a good trot and was certainly up for working.

I'm just interested in what everyone else does.
 
I didn't on the one occasion it happened while Ziggy was shod.

I can't help but feel it would be like walking with one shoe on. How could he be balanced? Unless you took the other one off, of course... :unsure:
 
I didn't on the one occasion it happened while Ziggy was shod.

I can't help but feel it would be like walking with one shoe on. How could he be balanced? Unless you took the other one off, of course... :unsure:

I know and that was what was on my mind. The thing is that I am working against the spring grass belly and he puts on weight overnight if I don't ride him. He hardly broke into a sweat tonight though!
 
Personally, no I wouldnt - at a push, work in a walk but no more than that as i'd be concerned about the horse being uneven....

If the farrier is due out tomorrow, a couple of days not working wont harm him even with the spring grass coming through - IMO
 
I've hunted 2 and a half hours on 3 shoes before, horse felt fine, and is still sound! If he feels fine then carry on!
 
I don't see an issue on soft terrain like a school. After all, I expect Joy to be able to balance us on some very uneven terrain. Even the camber on the road means she has to walk differently to compensate. The lack of shoe is constant so it's easy for the horse to adapt.
 
As above. Personally wouldn't think twice about schooling on sand with a missing shoe (unless the horse was noticeably footsore). I'm a bit ?? about the idea that a horse will be "unbalanced" just because it's missing a shoe, total tosh IMO :giggle: So a showjumper who loses a shoe half way around a Grand Prix course is suddenly going to go wobbly and knock everything down? - I think not ;) If I was schooling on sand and my horse was unbalanced because he'd lost a shoe, I would be looking at what else was going on tbh...
 
I think it's ok to ride in a sand school if they loose a shoe, the depth of the sand will cushion their shoeless foot and help them maintain their balance :smile:
 
Have competed with a front show missing but actually didnt know it was missing until I got off :wink:

Lost it at Fence three out of 20 fences, didnt feel any different to how it she normally went and no repurcussions afterward :smile:
 
I ride in our grassy field with a missing shoe. He lost a shoe and I had to wait 2 weeks to get it sorted last summer. No way is he having 2 weeks off!

He lost a front shoe last week and I rode in the field. He is absolutely fine and will happily do walk, trot and canter. I cant hack him out with missing shoes as he would get very sore on it
 
Prince is shod in front only and there have been quite a few times he's lost a shoe in the field and I've ridden him in the sand school without it.

Once, he lost a shoe out hacking and I didn't realise and when we got back I was horrified to find his hoof looked like a claw with pointy cracks in it :frown: Luckily the farrier came out as an emergency and it was soon sorted out. Phew!

No harm on sand though IMO... that time was only a problem because we came home on the road, not realising the shoe had gone.
 
newrider.com