“No foot, no horse” is the old saying, and it’s very true. Some ranch horses receive very little hoof care and are only shod when their feet wear down too much and they start to get tender. But hoof care is important to make sure the horse will be able to do the job you ask of him.
Each horse is different; some need more foot care than others. Some have tough feet that never crack. Horses that run in hill pastures all winter may self-trim enough that their feet are in pretty good shape in the spring, while the ones that lived in soft pastures have long, soft feet.
“Many horses are put in a pen or pasture and fed round bales, and stand around in the mud eating the hay—and this can be hard on feet,” says Jeff Minor, a farrier at Baker, ID. “This is generally when it’s hardest to get the feet back in shape. Sometimes it takes a couple of shoeings to get the feet back to good condition,” he says.
When shoeing ranch horses, methods often depend on the individual horse. Some farriers only use six nails because if the horse gets a hoof caught they want the shoe to come off, rather than breaking off part of the hoof wall with it and crippling the horse. On horses with tender, fragile feet, you’d generally use all the nails, however, to make sure the shoe doesn’t come off, leaving the foot with no protection.
If shoes wear out too fast when horses are ridden constantly in the rocks, farriers may reinforce the shoes before nailing them on, using a hard surfacing rod and welding a spot on each side of the toe and a little on each heel. This can keep a shoe from wearing out too fast and also give a little more grip and traction in the rocks.
Ranchers who ride in rocky terrain generally want more heel on the shoes than people who ride in softer country or an arena, just to get the heels up off the ground a little more and keep them from bruising in the rocks. Horses raised in rocky country, running out on big pastures as they grow up, often have strong feet. But genetics is also a factor. Some horses have weaker hoof walls, and if you lose a shoe you are afoot. They quickly become sore and tender. — Heather Smith Thomas, WLJ correspondent
