20/11/2025
I recently watched a podcast with a farrier and vet and someone that keeps their horse barefoot a someone that has a shod horse ( this equestrian life podcast) , and the rider with the shod horse said she was scared to transition because she didn’t know how that would affect her horses way of going and training (they did xc), and the reply from the farrier was well should we be at all putting that much strain on the leg that we need studs, is it a fair thing to expect of a horse, or would we be able to wait for better footing when it’s possibly easier for the horse to move across a cross country track.
Recently I’ve applied it to most things, I think, am I doing this for my gain or my horses gain, and you can say that riding as a whole is unnecessary, and looking at current training modalities maybe it is, but I know so many people are starting to look at how to better train horses and honestly when a horse is looking and feeling good, they really don’t mind. But I mean, should we be individually letting our horses go out so that we can fit more horses on the property, should we be stabling horses so that we can spend more money(I really don’t understand this one), should we be feeding them high performance feeds when most horses have got inflammation. Similarly I saw a post about thoroughbred classes being something wrong but looking at breeding of warmbloods and their neurological and physical problems coming through because we are breeding for high mobility over function, could we say there is a correlation with putting our horses in dangerous situations for our benefit or gain?
Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this?
