| On August 10th I put Epona shoes put on
Visa. I have had Visa for 11 years and until just a few years
ago it has been a constant struggle to keep shoes on him.
He has very weak/brittle hoof walls and if left barefoot for any
length of time he gets a crack that goes all of the way up the
hoof to the coronet band. When I first bought him he had
the crack and even though I have let it grow out several times,
it always come back if he is not wearing shoes. It will be
interesting to see if the crack comes back with the plastic
shoes since they all flex to some degree.
For the first several years that I had Visa, I couldn't find
a farrier that could get front shoes to stay on him if he was
getting ridden at more than a walk. When he would trot,
his hind feet would catch his front shoes and pull them off.
Eventually, after I started shoeing my own horses, I learned
about different things that can be done to help horses like him.
These last few years I have been using Natural Balance shoes so
that he has a better breakover and have been using a small
enough size that there is no extra heel to be caught by the hind
feet.
Unfortunately, a few weeks before I put the Epona shoes on
Visa, he threw his front shoes on a long trail ride (my fault
because I was lazy and thought I could get one more ride out of
them). Between throwing his shoes and when we made it back
to camp, he managed to knock a big chunk out of the inside of
his right front foot. I put a set of Natural Balance shoes
on him at that time and figured that the hoof would have grown
enough in time for this testing to start.
When I put the Epona shoe on his left front foot, it went
great. Sizing was good and the nail placement worked well.
However, when I went to put the shoe on the right front foot I
had some issues. Because of the missing chunk of hoof and
the inability to shape the shoe, I ended up having to rotate the
shoe slightly to catch a spot to nail the back inside nail.
Here are pictures of the day I put those shoes on.
Since putting the shoes on, I got some acrylic and repaired
his hoof. I also then put a couple of nails through the
repaired area.
On August 13th I took him to a horse show. Afterwards I
checked the heels of the shoes for marks and it appears that he
wasn't stepping on them. I'm not sure if this was because
of the footing, or because the shoes are lighter, or some other
reason.
*Note: The manufacturer says it looks like this shoe is
too big for the hoof.
Today (March 14) I reset one of Visa's front shoes and it
occurred to me that I never took pictures or posted any
information when I put the Pony W'air shoes on him. As you
can see in the following picture the shoes fit the left hoof
fairly well, but are too big for the right hoof. This is
why I ended up having to reset that shoe. It had only been
held by two nails on the inside and the back nail had gotten
pulled loose. Now it is being held by 3 nails on the
inside so hopefully it will stay on without any issues.
Over the last 3 weeks I have decided that I don't like these
shoes on Visa. He keeps slipping and sliding on hard dirt
roads. I have only ridden about 50 miles with these shoes,
but I can't wait to take them off of him.
I finally took the Pony W'air shoes off of Visa today (April
14). This is the first time I can remember being happy
that a horse had a loose shoe. That loose shoe gave me a
chance to get these off of him. These shoes were on him
for about 100 miles and traction was constantly an issue.
After pulling the Pony Wair shoes, I put on Ground Control
shoes. I will post the pictures soon.
|