Barefoot and bitless police horses.

At least 3 US police forces have taken their horses barefoot and have noticed far fewer lameness problems enabling the horses to spend more time at work and less time off sick.  The photo below, posted with permission of the original poster is of a US police horse on parade.

If they can do it in the US how come we can't do it here in the UK? It can't be because of diet, exercise, environment or trim. The circumstances for these are pretty much the same both sides of the pond. 



The text below is cut and pasted from a US mounted policeman posting on 'The Right to Trim' FB page.

The horses we have retired recently, all have been in metal shoes most of their lives. We pulled all of our police horses shoes, but the damage was done on the majority of them that limited their careers as police horses. Remember, a lot of other issues can occur throughout the body of the horse because on the constant nailing on of metal shoes. The ones recently retired were not lame so to say but had hock, back and other issues.

My police horse Shadow, aka as Texan Star, has never been shod since we got him un 2002 as a two year old. He was schooled slowly, not rushed into service like a lot of young performance horses, and went to work on the streets as a four year old. He is now 14 and his health record is so far clean of any of the consistent lameness issues we had when we shod all of our police horses.

We now look long and hard any horse people want to donate that has been in metal shoes the majority of their lives because we know their careers will be shortened due to being in metal shoes. There are always exceptions but again we would prefer not to roll the dice taking horses in that have been in metal shoes.

Just 3 weeks later

And another 80km (50 miles old money), only this time all in one day.  (see hooves from one year ago and 3 weeks ago here.  And post the one day 80km ride the hooves look like this:

LFSR post Rufus 50m 2011

LHSR post Rufus 50m 2011

RFSR - post Rufus 50m 2011

RHSR - post Rufus 50m 2011

Ride conditions were wet and muddy. For those who worry about slipping/traction and the need for studs. This horse had minor slips, unlike the shod horse they rode with who slid down one bank on its bottom.

I think the effort that the owner has put into preparing this horse is really paying off. Confident on her feet, the work over varied terrain to build the hooves has also conditioned her body - both body and hooves look great, good structure and strength.

Hard working feet can still get better

RF Mid May 10

RF Mid March 11

LF Mid May 10

LF Mid March 11

I first met this horse May 2010. Never shod, but largely ridden out in boots because of footiness. It was clear that the horse had some degree of LGL because of the soup sinking event lines on her hooves. There were a few structural issues too, massive corn and feet that were spoon shaped in front (narrow, contracted heel and flaring toe).

Now 10 months later the hooves (finally!) are decontracting, they are shorter, with just as much depth to the sole.  These hooves also remind us that they respond to the going they are familiar with - a sudden 1000% fold increase in road work has worn the March 11 hooves a bit too much. But the carer/rider is aware that if they are consistent with the road work they will be fine.

Deviation

Shifts lateral to medial



Works hard, functions well

Collapsed along medial wall - 12 05 10

Straighter - good example of event lines 01 09 10

I love deviated hooves, sorry, probably not the right thing to say, but I find them fascinating.  Generally terribly easy to deal with, if you know what you are doing.

Sad then, that so many people are advised that they have to shoe a horse with a deviated hoof.  I really don't know why, especially as I have seen the problems shoeing this type of foot causes; including for some, quite severe long term lameness.

A deviation is often, but not always a reflection of something going on higher up the horse.  Maybe a conformation defect or some long term soreness.  Other times the foot has just been inappropriately managed/trimmed.

The hoof in the top two photos belongs to a portly traditional hunting print type cob.  Her original farrier said she would never be able to go barefoot because of the deviation - the outer hoof wall would wear to nothing.  In fact she works very hard barefoot including lots of work on roads and stoney tracks and she still needs maintenance trimming.  Far from the outside wall wearing too much, we find the medial side doesn't wear enough.  Her carer has learnt how to deal with this in between formal trim sessions.  Yes it grows that much!

The third and fourth photos belong to an endurance horse that has always been bare.  We know she has had some upper body issues, plus she needed more regular trimming of the overly long wall which was tipping her foot over.  The hoof is now straight - because it 'wants' to be straight, not because it has been forced to be.  This is an example of a true performance barefooter just quietly getting on with it.