by Kelly Case

Seems every time I turn around I am assaulted and in some instances insulted by the “Au Natural Barefooters club” for being a farrier.  I actually had a gentleman (and I use that term loosely) step into the ShurShod/BWFA booth at Horsefest in Springfield Missouri this year and proclaim loudly enough for anyone within a 3 mile radius to hear that in his words “I can’t believe that anyone still teaches that archaic method of abuse!”

Now there was a time I would have stopped and debated with the guy and tried to show him the errors of his ways but I ve learned that these folks are more zealous and more misinformed than your average jihadist hell bent on fighting the great satan.

 So after escorting him from our booth (and saving him from a severe pummeling by  Max)

 

I got too thinking and one thing that he said that kept coming back too me was the phrase “archaic methods” this led me to do a little research of Shoeing History notice I said Shoeing History not barefoot history, because there is NO historical data to support the barefooter claims.

 

Pictured here is one of the shoe boards featuring hand forged shoes by Max Williams

The shoe board on the left shows the steps in making a shoe from flat stock to aid students in learning these “Archaic methods”

We have a few shoe boards here at ShurShod and on them are  shoes by some people, who have shod a few horses  Grant Moon, Jim Keith, Jay Sharp, Max Williams, Bud Beaston Bucky Hatfield Reggie Kester  just too name a few.

 

 Now the shoe that fascinates me the most is this old  shoe which was  given to us by a former student from Israel,  he found the shoe in the Golan Heights, there is no way of knowing who made this shoe and besides carbon dating or something of that nature we probably will never know  the age of this shoe but according to a friend of mine from the University of Wisconsin the last time this type of shoe was used in that region was about 200 yrs ago  he went and factored in some variables weather, humidity etc…. and said that in his  opinion and from his experience handling other mid eastern artifacts that he had worked with he would estimate the shoe to be between 300 and 500 years old. Three hundred or five hundred years is by no means archaic but let’s face the fact that’s still old!!

Now I’m not saying that this one old shoe made by some unknown farrier proves shoeing a horse is correct however when you look back in history you will find that even though shoeing is a an ancient art it was and still is practiced by essentially civilized nations, for instance, there is historical references to iron or metal shoes used as early as 320 b.c. Now we are starting to get back far enough to be archaic, we know for a fact that the Romans used a method that had been perfected by the Greeks, for the trimming and shoeing of there horses, the shoe was fashioned from a piece of thick wet rawhide formed to fit the horses hoof, after the proper trim was done, oddly enough the trimming protocol the Greeks and the Romans used was not what is being pushed by the all natural faction!

The iron Hippo sandal Was developed by the Romans for the Roman Calvary

The trimming method used by the Greeks and the Romans is almost identical to the trimming protocol published in the U.S. Calvary Manual,.   Eventually the Romans developed a metal plated rawhide shoe that become the standard for all of the Roman Empire.  Just think about how much of this planet was conquered by the Roman armies, why could they move so fast? Why could they travel greater distances over various terrains? Because there horses were well SHOD. Not barefoot not natural balance but good solid shoeing protocols that were used by many other famous and infamous folks,

 

Like Napoleon, going across the Alps was it on shod horses or barefoot horses? Shod of course, the French army was adamant about hoof care. Did you know that according to author Glenn Vernam in his book Man on Horseback   credits much of the Northern Calvaries rapid movements through the South due too the fact that the North had found a way to mass produce the horseshoe, and the North’s horses were continually Shod and maintained where as the South’s were not. Now let’s jump forward to the westward expansion that made our country grow, some of the first people to set up shop on the trail or in town were who? Barefooters? Blacksmith/Shoers?  Yep you guessed it Blacksmith/Shoers!  We have to ask ourselves why when a settlement or ranch were raided by the Native Americans of the great plains  did they take well shod well fed well maintained horses and not barefoot horses?  Did the tribes realize that the white man was getting more out of his horse on a daily basis and could move farther and faster?

 

When you look back at the history of horseshoeing that is exactly what you will find a history of horseshoeing not a history of barefootin.

Our tools have gotten better over the years and our knowledge has gotten better, the shoes we use are manufactured to higher quality standards we have learned more about shoeing a horse when too shoe when not too shoe.

But the principle is still the same as it was in ancient times, shoe the horse to protect the work you did on the trim realignment of the bony column better support for a horse that’s working, traction, there are even more reasons to shoe a horse than what I ve listed here. 5 years ago I had never heard the term chronic heel pain, your horse either had navicular or didn’t it was that simple, now I see more and more horses that are diagnosed with “chronic heel pain” and most of the horses I deal with that have this diagnosis have either been shod repeatedly in the natural balance methods or have been butchered by a barefooter.

Just seems to me that we can learn a lot from history.