cateashton
20th Feb 2008, 02:55 PM
Toki is 11 years of age, was totally barefoot his whole life ... born in Italy, lived all over the world, done just about everything you can think of barefoot and then we bought him aged just 10.
Because we event we thought we 'had' to have him shod and did.
This once beautiful forward going horse literally ground to a halt. Became so naughty, bucking and rearing, stamping. For an entire year we investigated every possibility, his back, his shoulders, his saddles (resulting in 2 new ones), his teeth and so on .... even another full vetting (scans xrays) where the vet said 'he's like a perpetulant child' when ridden. Absolutely nothing physically wrong. The back man came up with a niggling shoulder but that could have been caused by himself in temper! Who knows ...
We are talking almost backward. Nothing would move him forward. Beautiful temperament in everyway other than ridden. Was it the move to a new home (having been his whole life with his previous owner was it us, you name it we considered it, unwrapped it, stuffed it back up again blah blah blah
Anyway decided to give him a year off as we had exhausted everything. Took his shoes off and a miracle happened ... we got our horse back!
It was truly a eureka moment, the vet told us to be prepared for him to be sore for a few days to watch him canter back to the field.
He is sooo hardy, hasn't been lame at all and is as happy as larry and not one stomp, kick, temper tamtrum. and so I investigated this and it seems that studies have shown that when we shoe we cover up vital nerve endings and senses. Now to a normal horse that has been shod from early on it would make no difference but to Toki who had only ever known barefoot it was like we had covered up his ears and taken away some of the senses. http://www.equinepodietry.net
Anyway I wouldn't take the shoes off my other two but we are astounded that our beautiful boy was trying to tell us something all along and both myself and my trainer cannot believe the difference it's made. We always said he was too clever for his own good.
Really trying to make the point that somethings suit other more and our horses really are trying to tell us things even if we pull our hair out trying to make out what that is exactly. :D
Because we event we thought we 'had' to have him shod and did.
This once beautiful forward going horse literally ground to a halt. Became so naughty, bucking and rearing, stamping. For an entire year we investigated every possibility, his back, his shoulders, his saddles (resulting in 2 new ones), his teeth and so on .... even another full vetting (scans xrays) where the vet said 'he's like a perpetulant child' when ridden. Absolutely nothing physically wrong. The back man came up with a niggling shoulder but that could have been caused by himself in temper! Who knows ...
We are talking almost backward. Nothing would move him forward. Beautiful temperament in everyway other than ridden. Was it the move to a new home (having been his whole life with his previous owner was it us, you name it we considered it, unwrapped it, stuffed it back up again blah blah blah
Anyway decided to give him a year off as we had exhausted everything. Took his shoes off and a miracle happened ... we got our horse back!
It was truly a eureka moment, the vet told us to be prepared for him to be sore for a few days to watch him canter back to the field.
He is sooo hardy, hasn't been lame at all and is as happy as larry and not one stomp, kick, temper tamtrum. and so I investigated this and it seems that studies have shown that when we shoe we cover up vital nerve endings and senses. Now to a normal horse that has been shod from early on it would make no difference but to Toki who had only ever known barefoot it was like we had covered up his ears and taken away some of the senses. http://www.equinepodietry.net
Anyway I wouldn't take the shoes off my other two but we are astounded that our beautiful boy was trying to tell us something all along and both myself and my trainer cannot believe the difference it's made. We always said he was too clever for his own good.
Really trying to make the point that somethings suit other more and our horses really are trying to tell us things even if we pull our hair out trying to make out what that is exactly. :D