>From another forum: About barefoot trimming. I think he has alot to say.
There is no big secret to trimming a horse. Pete Ramey didn't invent anything, he just found a marketing ploy just like the person who marketed the natural balance nonsense. The person who designed a horse did a great job in creating a hoof that would carry the weight of a horse over all types of terrain in all seasons and conditions. The people that own horses have done a terrible job since the original design came about. Too many people thought that they could build a better hoof genetically because way too many people thought that smaller was prettier. Too many people thought that they had to manipulate angles. Too many people thought they had to change the shape of the hoof. Please remember that the original design of the hoof and leg of a horse was to carry the weight of the the horse. Now we expect horses to carry not only themselves but the weight of the rider and saddle and too many times the weight is more than the horse should carry. I do not think it is a travesty to put a shoe on a horse. Remember that we are asking them to do something that is not natural in the first place. We are asking them to carry us. With that said, why should people be selective in what they deem natural and not natural? Shoes only cause problems if they are put on the hooves wrong. If they are put on correctly, and if the size is correct, there is not chance of damaging the hoof. In my business, I see too many horse shoers putting shoes on wrong or usng the wrong sizes. There is also a tendancy for those guys to also disregard the element of balance. I would venture to say that 75% of the horses I shoe each year do not need shoes. The owners think they need shoes, but the horse doesn't need them. I try and talk many of the owners out of the shoes but if they really want them, they will find somebody else to do the job. I do not give in and put the shoes on to make money, I put them on to prevent problems in the future. Where I live, I know who is available to shoe horses. If I don't do it there is a really good chance that they will get a hack to make a mess. Guess who will have to go in later and clean up the mess? Too many horse shoers are good at creating problems but lack greatly in their abilities to fix problems. It is absurb to think that horses can be housed is soft dirt paddocks or lush pastures, have their feet trimmed and then be ridden down a gravel road. House the horse in an area that has hard ground and rocks, then the situation would be different. Horses will harden their feet according to the terrain they live in. Feral horses live in rough, rocky country and they develop feet that stand up in those conditions. Horses that are genetically selected to have poor feet and live in soft ground conditions will not perform well in rough, rocky conditions. First off, if a person wants a barefoot horse, stop trimming them every 6-8 weeks. Let them go and trim them 3-4 times a year. When the horse is trimmed every 6-8 weeks, the sole callous never gets a chance to develop. When there is no sole callous, then there will never be the natural protective layer that a horse needs to survive barefoot on rocky ground. We as humans have ruined our sole callouses because we wear shoes. If we went barefoot all the time, we too cold walk on rocks with out flinching. Secondly, stop reducing the thickness of the hoof wall in an attempt to make a smaller, prettier foot. A horse was give the hoof wall and sole for protection, if we remove it, it is no different than removing our shoes and expecting us to walk in all conditions without problems.
