Friday, August 26, 2011

Thank god I don't have to shoe horses for a living

I'd be hard pressed to feed myself and certainly couldn't support 4 horses and do fun stuff. I removed Shades RF shoe this morning. Rasped and rasped and rasped before I had the clinches off to where I thought the shoe should pull w/o too much difficulty. Then it still took me multiple goes with the pullers. I think part of the problem is I'm not supporting Shades hoof/leg very good. I didn't even try to use my legs to hold it while I rasped.

I was drenched with sweat and had taken at least half an hour by the time the shoe was off but at least I did get it off cleanly with no nails left in the hoof and didn't seem to break out the holes any extra. Gave a few quick passes with the rasp to smooth off the edges of both front feet --the one where she had lost the shoe at HJ was pretty nice to start with. Hopefully the easyboot epics will work pretty well. There are some big name AERC riders who put thousands of miles on their horses using boots instead of shoes. Hopefully I can manage a hundred, maybe 120 miles of trail riding and then 1 50 mile competition ride with boots on the front feet, but I am also hoping I find another good farrier next year and can do things the easy (for me) way.

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