barefoot/CPL

What is CPL?

It’s so nice to hear a farrier with knowledge of what’s really goin on in that hoof! Too many think the flared, platters are “really cool” and don’t care what’s happening to the horse! If ya don’t believe that, just go watch a “hitch” class at a draft horse show…pretty pathetic!
John

I noticed that also at our county fair this year. There where some that put so much putty on the hooves that they made them square. Then they painted them black. Even with the paint you could tell they where made up. They looked like he!!. To top it off they make them walk stupid. They would actually stay in one spot and stomp their feet up and down. I am not into show horses, can you tell.

Horses were and still are in some places wild animals. They were not ment to carry a rider, jump over things, pull a plow. They also were not ment to live in a confinement and have thair feed brought to them. You can pretty mutch find any problem with a horse and blame it on man. I love horses and don’t get me wrong I am not bashing horse owners but foot problems, collic, founder, dental problems and probably a hundred more can be blamed on the fact that we keep horses as domesticated animals. In the wild horses feet ware at the same rate they grow, it is when we use horses for work or riding that they need shoes a wild horses feet dont ware out because he is not working, walking on pavement or carring a 200 pound man on his back. A wild horse will not collic or founder because he is eating a diet of pour wild grasses and during most of the year probably has all he can do to keep his belly full. Problems assosiated with older horses are simply explained by a wild horse would not live as long as a horse that has a shelter and all his meals brought to his stall. I am not a expert on the life span of a wild horse but I dont think thair are to many 30 year old wild horses. If your teeth go you can’t get the proper nutrents and probably dont make it through the winter. The point I am making is once you get away from the wild natrual animal part of the horse you can have problems, trying to keep a horse in his natural state or as close as your situation will allow you to is your best bet. If you need your horse in shoes than that is what you must do to keep thair feet in good shape or provide traction. But shooeing to make a horse have a certan gait or look like he has a huge foot is in my opinion stupid and asking for trouble. I went to horse shoeing school after high school and was tought to trim all horses to thair natural angle, the angle of thair sholder should be the same angle as the hoof. If you take off to mutch heal they will be to shallow and will pull and strech thair tendons, leave to mutch heel and they will be at to steep of a angle. I personaly always take as mutch toe off as I can it eases break over and long toes do more harm than short toes. Alot of horses grow all toe and no heels so by the next trim they are triping on thair long toes. In shoeing school we worked on a founderd horse that had a coffin bone about to go through his sole and could hardly walk, we put a regular shoe on backwards so the open part was open towards the toe and rasped as mutch toe off as we could to ease the preshure of the break over the horse could walk better just after the shooeing. This is all just my opinion I would keep all horses as (natural) as your situation allows, nothing drives me more nuts than to see a horse with a soaking wet blankit half falling off because it is so waterloged on a 50 degree day in november because the owner is convinced the horse is freezing to death.

John, here is another farrier’s opinion. the pasture trim that your horse recieved was the farrier being lazy and not a regular trim. i agree with gwpoky. unless a horse needs the longer toe for speed, such as a standardbred, why give them that extra stress. i also agree with matthew about the horses own natural angle. i try to match the shoulder, pastern and hoof angle as well. i also dress all flares, they create too much stress, and if you ever notice on a barefoot horse that is overdue, they usually always start to chip out their flared quarters first. just my thoughts.
Jared

That was a bit of flame wasn’t it? Sorry. I also agree with earlier posters about the contrived trims and double pads and such that are common in some horse show environments…it’s a shame how humans have to take everything to excess