I paid a visit to a riding school yesterday evening and was shocked at the state of the hoofs of the horses there. The horses themselves are in fairly good condition, but those hoofs 🙁
All the horses had recently been reshod but, as is the case with many riding-school horses, in most cases only the front feet has been shod. As far as shoeing goes, acceptable albeit that at least one horse has rear shoes on the front feet!
But those rear hoofs – terrible. They had been given a typical farrier’s trim – flat bottoms and no account taken of the natural wear of the hoof. The bars had been left long – one horse even has the bars almost meeting each other just ahead of the frog(!), the quarters were untouched and because there was no mustang roll, the outer hoof wall was splintering or developing flare.
Aside of the fact that shoeing is unnecessary, it is an abomination that a so-called professional farrier should leave the unshod hoofs in such an uncared for state.
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31150 Fenouillet, France
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