B..B….B…..Bar Shoes…….Hic!
For those of you waiting for the latest fashion news on appropriate footwear for your favorite saloon outing this is the wrong article. However, if this magazine is flooded with requests for an article of that nature I’m sure I can come up with one. I really am up on the latest bar shoes for stallions and mares, but I wouldn’t have any idea what a gelding should wear. Let’s see…. white bucks, blue suede shoes, cowboy boots, and pumps all have one thing in common with horse bar shoes. They support the entire foot and limb. In other words when you stand in your shoes they support not only the bottom of your foot, but also lend support to your legs on up. As a result of that support the rest of your body moves easier on all kinds of terrain. Now it shouldn’t be hard to figure out that the same theory works on horses. They even have more mass supported on proportionately smaller feet. In theory bar shoes are the perfect horseshoe, but in practicality they are not quite perfect, although they are very good.
When you are at a horse show or horse event of any kind look around and you will see a number of horses wearing bar shoes. Often times, bar shoes are put on arena horses to help prevent injury, especially on jumpers and reining horses. The down side of the bar shoe is that you sacrifice traction because the bar does not let the back of the foot clean out as easily. In an arena this is not as much of a problem as it is out in the wilderness. In no way am I advocating all horses to wear bar shoes. My only point is that when you need them they are a very good remedy to many hoof and joint problems. If your horse is healthy and normal, by all means use regular horseshoes. When your farrier and veterinarian decide your horse needs bar shoes to help relieve or prevent an
injury, be assured this is a good safe method.
We seem to have some horseshoe gurus preaching to us that bar shoes are BAD!!!! Funny thing that bar shoes have helped millions of horses for several hundred years and finally in 2008 some guru decides they are BAD!!!! Now, I’ve warned you before about these nuts that can’t find a real job, so they come up with some half- baked theory and become gurus. If you listen to them and always shoe your horse their way you will never have a lame horse. And if you believe that……… What saviors these folks must be, on their way to sainthood and all. I’m sure even God is laughing at this one. Not only can you buy their theory in a book, but you can buy their special lifesaving horseshoes as well. Then there’s even some European gal out there preaching about not shoeing your horse at all. Just guessing, but I don’t think she’s ever chased cattle in the Chirichauhuas either. As my hero P.T. Barnum once said “ There’s a sucker born every minute!”
I just returned from the National Finals Rodeo where I saw many girls dancing on bars. Obviously they were using bar shoes for dancing. Now I could be on to something here. I could make bar shoes for horses and humans alike. I’m even thinking of some different products like bar none, bar ditch, crow bar, Katie bar the door, bar mitzvah, bar & grill etc.