The farrier was out today. My old farrier emailed me from Bagdad when asked why he missed our appointment. He just left, no call, no nothing. Nope, not in the military, just took a job over there. Musta been hurting for money. I've had a couple of farriers out, but as with any relationship, "we" didn't like them. I knew we had a winner when Hawk, my arabian stood there ground tied. Hawk usually uses the trimmer for target practice. Swipes their hankerchief, or steals their hat. Vince was fast, good, horses liked him and they all five stood there with him while he worked.
When he got to Shaun he was concerned about the terribly thin hoof walls. He said that they throw on shoes for a race, then pull them right after. The horses hoof is put through hell with all the nail holes they endure. Shaun's back feet are looking ok, but the fronts are pretty bad. Instead of making even more nail holes, we decided to try Shaun barefoot. My pasture is like wearing slippers, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Soft footing does not toughen up a foot, and we'll be seeing frozen ground soon. Going to see how he does. Expect him to be a bit ouchy. Hoping he doesn't chip and break off a lot of hoof. Hoping these hoof supplements help him.
Hi I've been following your blog with interest to see how Shaun's doing.
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd provide a slightly different viewpoint on how racehorses are treated. Admittedly this is a NZ perspective and we do do things differently.
Here we don't chuck shoes on and off at a great rate. They are replaced between 4 to 6 weeks just like normal only difference is that once they reach a certain stage of training they have aluminium shoes rather than steel :)
Another major difference (this is partially based on my own observation of us racing) is that a lot of our racehorse get far more time outside in paddocks/yards than in US. We only have a small stable (which is relatively common here) and ours are only boxed when the weather is extreme. Otherwise outside 24/7 in a grass yard.
While he was in NZ Shaun would have had a vastly different life than as a racehorse in US.