LOSING SHOES

I own a Thoroughbred, 16.2hh ex racehorse. He is now 18 years old. At the moment I seem to be spending a fortune on shoes, because he keeps losing them. The farrier has not suggested a reason why this has suddenly started happening (I've had the same farrier since I bought the horse six years ago), he just says it is because he is getting older. However, I am concerned about this. What are the main reasons for horses suddenly losing shoes and do you think it could be because he is getting older? Would special shoes or a feed supplement help?

I am not sure if you are losing shoes because your horse is getting older or because your farrier is getting older. Seriously, losing shoes is a big headache for farriers and for owners. Lets face it horses are always getting into scrapes. They are the most accident prone creatures under the sun. If all that horses could do is pull a shoe off occasionally by way of a mishap then a lot of vets would be driving around in second hand cars and going without their holidays. However when a horse persistently loses shoes the hooves can get so broken up that it becomes harder and harder to keep shoes on, a vicious circle if ever there was one.

There a lots and lots of reasons for losing shoes but the commonest is when a horse pulls off a fore shoe at the heel by overreaching with a hind foot or by catching the heel of the shoe on a fence. Sheep netting is the worst kind of fence for this. The next most common reason for losing shoes is when the hooves are brittle and break up so that the bit that the shoe is nailed to falls off with the shoe attached. The best solution in both cases is very careful fitting of the shoes, preferably hot fitting. Owners can help by having the horse shod on a regular basis, every 5 or 6 weeks works best for me. Any longer and the shoes are liable to come off beforehand, making a mess of the hoof. Any less and there is not enough new hoof growth to nail the new shoes onto. If clean, well lit, dry and safe conditions are provided, or if you take the horse to the forge to be shod, the result will be more satisfactory.

Older horses usually have less problem with losing shoes than younger ones, as they tend not to tear about so much, they tend to do less work and they tend to be better behaved. The only real problem with shoeing older horses is if they have arthritis and don’t like holding their legs up. Hoof quality is about the only thing on a horse which doesn’t deteriorate with age.

I always tell owners not to waste their money on food supplements as they seem to be a waste of time to me, but they go out and buy them anyway because the lady in the feed shop always has a friend whose horse had terrible feet until she gave it Wondervit and you all love to buy things for your horses so why not? Go on, buy something in a nice tub, it can’t do any harm and it will make you feel better. I can’t say that I have ever noticed that a supplement made a difference to a horses hooves and I don’t believe that the average diet is deficient in any particular respect,. There is evidence that biotin supplements have improved horn quality but only after 18 months of feeding it.

One thing I have noticed is that individual horses tend to go through phases of losing shoes. It rarely seems to go on for a long time with any one horse. Unfortunately for me, when one horse seems to be getting out of the habit another one decides to start, but at least no one owner has to suffer for too long. There is no special shoe for this problem, it is a question of fitting the right shoe for the horse. The only alternative is a glue on shoe but these are very expensive and don’t stay on well for me at least. No doubt they will continue to improve, but if steel shoes can be nailed on then they are still the best option.

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