“I commonly see shoeing done in a way that’s tight to prevent the horse from pulling the shoe, which isn’t beneficial for performance.”
He generally uses hard plastic pads, but notes one horse is in leather pads. “That fits his foot a little better,” he explains. Pam says she tries to avoid pads. “Pads aren’t
great in Florida with the sand. But I do have a horse who lives in them and he does great. He has bad feet and my blacksmith is a magician,” she says. Pour-on pads are another option to prevent
the sole from bruising. Another technique is applying the flexible Magic Cushion as hoof packing under a shoe or pad to reduce soreness.
Top, left: Regular steel shoes on a dressage horse schooling an FEI test. Top, right: Glue-on front shoes on an international dressage horse, school- ing at home. Bottom: Marc Grandia competing Campari FFF cross-country, in steel shoes with pads.
shoe safely on the foot, small percentages reduce the horse’s abilities.” “My blacksmith is brave,” Pam says, “and may have the
shoe out to the side for support.” She adds this placement can aid a horse with narrow feet or long pasterns. “With the highly competitive horses, they work really hard and have a hard time. No feet, no horse. You have to have a really strong base.” Pads between the shoe and hoof can provide addi-
tional protection for the sole. Marc Grandia of Full Gallop Eventing, Duvall, Washington, uses pads when horses move up to Preliminary level. “It does [negatively] affect your traction a little bit. It also protects the hoof against the rock you can’t see at that speed. We train on a lot of hard ground, so it’s really important to protect the health of their soles.”
Aiding Performance Tim points out that dressage horses perform such movements as shoulder-in, haunches-in, half pass, flying changes and pirouettes. “The goal of training is to prepare for all these levels of balance and [positive] tension—the energy that affects footfalls during moments of weight shift.” “With the dressage horses, they have to have so much lift, and to go sideways. That puts a lot of stress on those horses,” Pam adds. “We have different issues because of the lateral work. When you put that leg way over, to support the body weight is a lot. The front leg and the hind leg need enough base to support laterally as well as longitudinally. The horse can quit if he is not supported.” The shoe affects biomechanics of each step as the hoof hits and then springs from the ground. The type of footing also affects how the hoof lands on the ground, placed firmly, softly or slid-
ing. “Today people are used to riding on synthetic foot- ing and let the ground do the riding,” Steve says of jumper arenas. “It’s the traction we have gotten used to, so the sport has gotten so fast.” “Horses get used to fiber footing,” Pam says. “The
concussion moves up the leg to the front end, neck and shoulders. I love competing on it but I’d rather school on sand and firm ground. Horses can also get too used to fiber, then they go off of it and struggle to compete.” “Concussion moves up, not down the leg,” she contin-
ues. “Because horses don’t have that give, day to day, the synthetic footing is not good every day. I ride on my grass field all the time. In New England, I can do grass, soft, or hard—they do pretty well whatever the footing is. I live on a hill, so horses go on unlevel ground too.” In jumping and eventing, studs add traction when
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