> > Angela said that she was told that > endurance horses may wear their back feet more than their front and > that some compete with boots on the front and shoes on the back, so > maybe that is the explanation, rather than that the racking or > stepping pacing that these horses do is causing extra wear."
Hhhhmmm - I'll ask my farrier. He shoes lots of endurance horses. My horse does LD's (that's 25-30 miles) and gets ridden about 20 miles a week. His preferred gait is rack, but he also has lots of other gears and we use them all. His shoes wear evenly, but he does wear a set out in 6 weeks. I have never noticed an endurance horse with boots in front and shoes in the back, but I have heard of people putting boots over the front shoes to try to cushion a particulaly sensitive horse over rocky terrain. We see barefoot horses, shod horses and horses with various types of boots. One of my favorite riders came in second (I think) in a mileage contest sponsored by Eazy Boot with 1120 miles in 2007 on a very nice rescue horse named Oliver Twist. He is half Standardbred and half Tennessee Walker. Nancy
