When this topic is raised, it is always a hot and controversial one. We are often told that not all horses can go barefoot
, that all horses are different and should be treated as individuals…but with shod horses is that really the case? Isn’t that topsy turvy thinking?Hmmmm….
The horse’s foot for far too long has been subjected to human interference
, in the guise of helping or keeping the horse ‘sound’ for the owner to ride. When the shoes come off, many shod horses are footsore, limping across the ground, clearly uncomfortable….and so more often than not the shoes go back on and the damage continues.Damage? Really?
Very few owners understand that the root cause of the painful feet is the continual shoeing and the incorrect diet. They genuinely think the shoes are helping their horse stay sound and that going barefoot is either cruel
, not for their horse or would cause further damage!Now that is topsy turvy thinking! How can something that is so natural – a bare foot – be seen as something which is unnatural.
Shoes have been known and referred to for many years
, hundreds in fact, as a ‘necessary evil’, nailed onto the horse’s foot supposedly to give ‘support’ and ‘protection’…but at a great cost to the health of the foot (and body).Shoes do not treat horses as individuals and they don’t allow horses to be ‘different’…if you want your horse to be an individual let it decide what shape feet it needs
, not what the human thinks it needs.If you carry on doing unnatural things…then you have to expect unnatural things to happen….and in this magazine we hear countless stories from owners finally making the decision to treat their horses as true individuals, take their shoes off and watch nature weave it’s magic!
See lots and lots of recovery stories of horses going from shoes to barefoot in The Barefoot Horse Magazine.
If every horse is different then let them prove it!
Hmmmmm!
The BHM Team