Another Level

A compliment a few weeks back set me thinking. Last spring, I sold a horse to a college student who wanted to endurance race. He rents a cabin here at the ranch so we're in constant contact and train together. In view of a college student budget and good feet on his horse, we started in softer footing and barefoot, later as the training got more intense, we added boots on his horse and as the season approached we went to shoes. He later told me " I really didn't see any difference from barefoot to boots, but the shoes took my horse to a whole new level".

I guess, while many barefooters at least claim to have seen great improvement from the overdue, poor shoeing that they picture to barefoot, they never see (or admit to seeing) an improvement from barefoot to shoes. Nor do they admit that many farriers (including me) have the majority of horses on our books barefoot and that we trim every foot we work on. When someone wants performance, IMO good shoeing will always take a horse to another level.

I've found that as well. I have customers who'se horses do well bare foot, but when shoes go on, it's a whole new level.

Jack, I don't think that idea of good shoeing taking a horse to a higher level is just a matter of opinion. It is a scientifically quantifiable fact.

Something I keep pointing out to the barefoot brigade;

• Maybe if the barefoot gurus like Ramey and Jackson had learned to trim and shoe properly in the first place they wouldn't have washed out as farriers.
• Neither of them put much dedication into learning the art and science of farriery.
• Both admit they were failures.
• Both are quite closed minded and extremely arrogant to presume that because they couldn't achieve competence as farriers, nobody else can either.

Tom, I heard that at the start of a clinic a couple of years ago, Pete Ramey asked for a show of hands of Farriers, and then apologized for what he had been saying for years. That's good I guess.
A true believer BUA can not ever admit any positive benefit from shoes. The latest I've heard from them and their (former) clients is that when a good BUA horse goes sound after a shoeing, it's because the shoes numb the foot so they quit limping. One BUA gal told me this and I asked if she could please explain the physiology involved, she said she'd look it up for me. Never heard back from her but she has told others this since then.
The ones who do notice and appreciate good shoeing are the recovering BUA horses and their owners.

Jack I'm getting a few Endurance horses here in Qld, never done any before now so it is interesting to observe... as endurance has always been the hotpot of barefootery amongst the performance disciplines.

Went to a 40km event and there were quite a few BF/Booted, but most vetted out... all looked gympie to me. These folks whinge bitterly about losing boots all the time.**

Then I was official farrier for a 100km & 160km, which was the sate championship. Every single horse, bar one in the 100km(which vetted out) was shod in either steel or polyurethanes (eg ceras, but there is a locally made one). Only one or two polys were glued, the rest nailed.

Those getting to the "next level" in endurance are certainly realizing the pragmatic reality of nailed on shoes.

**Didn't have to replace a single shoe all weekend either.

Bob Bowker is the guy that started the nonsense of shoes making sore feet numb so it only APPEARS that the horse is more comfortable. He used the analogy of putting a tight rubber band around one's finger and when you remove those evil shoes, much like removing that rubber band from your finger, the horses' hooves experience that same tingling and that is what the "transition phase"is all about. Note, he stated this before an audience with a straight face.

I stood and asked him if he really meant that horseshoes on horses were exactly like tight rubber bands around fingers, he stated that he could not be more certain and he had empirical evidence to prove it.

I then asked why, with yrs of personal experience of castrating calves and lambs with tight rubber bands, I had not witnessed any hooves sloughing off horses after wearing shoes... I did not get a response for him

Brian,
Was this guy wearing shoes when he said this?

Yes he was when he said the same crap here in AZ. He was so arrogant and ignorant it was sickening. He would say horse shoes and act like it made him sick and he was about to throw up. Then he would say, I prefer peripheral loading device.

The stuff he talked about was of his own finding and never peer reviewed or proven. He was just an arrogant know it all trying to prove he was right and the rest of the world was wrong. It was quite funny yet disgusting to set through 2 days of his lectures.

Gad what a bunch to respond to.

Tom, you're comments are good ones, I've tried W/O success to find out:

Where Ramey learned to shoe -- I suspect he was self taught since no schooling is ever mentioned.
How long he worked as a shoer -- Seems not long
What kind of horses he worked on -- trail ride horses are the only ones he mentions
Any input?

Bill, David, Yep! In his book, Ramey says on one paget hat he has no quarrel with those who apply shoes and on the next page says that he sees no reason to ever apply shoes. - sounds quarrelsome to me. There are other examples of him talking out of both sides of his moth, but that will do.

Bryan, Ben. When I look up Bowker's refereed publications at Mich State he was a neuro biologist and he published on nerves, not circulation. After he retired from the academic world he turned to feet (almost all, if not all, cadaver feet that don't show much circulation) and that work is not refereed. Yep! Ben noticed it to.

I tell folks who give me the circulation BS that most of us have at some time crossed our legs and have a leg go numb, then tingle as we uncross them and the circulation returns. The numbing is not instantaneous, yet I see horses get instantaneously better with shoes. The tingling may cause one to limp as the circulation returns, but its about the same regardless of the surface while a horse that has just had the shoes removed is comfortable on a soft surface, uncomfortable on a hard or rough surface. A boot or steel shoe can make him instantaneously better. Not the same - not a return of circulation.

On that I might mention that in the Ramey clinic I attended he described himself as a boot salesman and at the end pulled shoes on a half dozen horses, non of whom were comfortable and he sold a set of boots for each one.

Ray, thanks, but I don't need a bigger head.

Anthony, Glue on boots are changing the picture some with some top races like Tevis being won by glu booted horses (generally by someone in the boot business with a large and well trained crew), but I can list horses like RO Grand Sultan (Rio) who did 10,005 AERC miles winning about half and awarded the best condition trophy more than a third of the time, not to mention three world championships (1988 in Virginia, 1990 in Stockholm, 1992 in Barcelona). Several of those wins were in multi day rides where he did 50 miles a day for five days and beat horses only doing one day. Rio raced on steel and retired sound placing 6/24 and 8/42 in his last two races at the age of 21. In AERC he completed 143 of 145 races including 39 of 40 one day 100 mile races. I can list a number of shod horses with similar records, (Bill shoes one of these) but I don't know of a single booted horse who has raced rather than been middle or end of pack to an 8 or 10,000 mile career.

I shoe for a lady here who used to work for that guy when she was in the States.

She won't have a bar of boots... I shoe in steel for her.