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I have read a fair bit about horseshoes over the years but haven’t seen a systematic analysis. However, I was prompted to enquire about them by a remark somebody made about backpacking. Apparently a pound on the shoes is worth 5 pounds in the rucksack. This makes sense because one lifts one’s feet up and down even when carrying the rucksack on level ground.
Now horses have twice as many feet as humans so maybe the ratio should be 10 to 1. If so then very lightweight shoes would be desirable.
I have come across 4 types: aluminium, steel, stick-on and mud-caulks. I believe some conduct electricity better than others, as it was mentioned as a factor in the Newbury electrical incident. But surely the key is weight, in which case aluminium (or titanium?) would be best. Stick-on seem to be for horses with bad feet and mud-caulks for heavy going, but apart from that I don’t know what they are.
Anyway the bottom line is that horses with lightweight shoes ought to go slightly faster. Trainers who use steel shoes are at a disadvantage. Furthermore, using steel shoes might indicate a cost-constrained attitude to training in general, further disadvantaging the horse.
So my question is, assuming the above is correct, which it might not be, do we know which trainers are using the best shoes?
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I have researched this statistically.
People were saying the difference between steel and aluminum is that of an athlete with athletic shoes and one without.
When I was at school I remember one day I forgot them. The gym teacher said you won’t run today but then he changed his mind and he said go with the others and run. It felt terrible aftewards !
I doubt it very much makes that sort of a difference to horses, but with horses there appears to be a definite correlation in favour of aluminum and against iron, when counting winners in the proportional sense.Aluminum plates are said to absorb vibration better when the foot hits the ground.
But there are exceptions.
Top Greek trainer Chris Theodorakis who also trains horses in France, never uses them. I keep a chart and Theodorakis seems to be totally insensitive to type of plate.
Is he using some other type of plate ?
Can it be true that the correlation exists but it is artificial ?I’m pretty sure aluminum are the most common in racing, although I know a Turnell lass, and I’m sure she mentioned something about theirs being in steel, so who knows. Thoroughbreds have infamously terrible feet, so stick on will probably be a popular option rather than whacking a set of nails through them every 4 weeks!
Steel shoes will be the standard hunter-type shoe that are the most common across the board of equestrianism.
Mud Caulks are a sort of substitute to ‘studding up,’ which are studs screwed into shoe –> shttp://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipedia … _studs.JPG you can’t really stud up racehorses – would be a total recipe for disaster if they fell and caught themselves/another horse/rider. They are probably more common over winter months, as they allow the horse to ‘grip’ the ground, rather than slide around on top of it. Would be useless on an AW track
You also have remedial shoes, but I don’t have all week!
I reckon aluminum are easily the most common, and are only really used for racehorses (tend to get called racehorse plates by most farriers), and not that much more expensive a set, considering they get replaced every time a horse races, I can’t see why anything in training would really be in anything else? but then the fact you really need to look after feet/horrible ground might change things. I think the reason more things win in aluminum than steel will be because so many more things are shoed with the former!
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I think the reason more things win in aluminum than steel will be because so many more things are shoed with the former!
No because we counted proportions.
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froddo – where do you get all your stats from ? Do you have a horse shoe database?
Not me.
But I copied some to settle the dispute between believers and non believers in an impartial way.
Our jockey club declines to include the relevent info in the daily cards. But punters die to have this information and the latest changes so a few guys have succeded in striking it rich by putting up websites. They did so to the extent that the inland ravenue visited their premises one day to check their books.My stats showed this:
Aluminum is better but you also have to check the trainer’s habit.
Chris Theodorakis is the best trainer and he never uses them from as far as one remembers him in the races. Or is he using some other type that looks like iron ? We don’t know.My postion on the subject is that this should be part of the race card just like colours and blinkers.
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I haven’t been to that many UK yards but in Australia every horse has its shoes changed to aluminium racing plates the morning of the race. In fact I’m not sure it’s entirely legal to race in the steel shoes. Some horses do race barefoot. I have a feeling ex Aussie trainer Jeremy Gask might be an advocate. I’ll check that with a friend.
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I’ve been immediately redirected to –
http://www.poyntonfarrieryclinic.co.uk/innovation_and_education_andrew_poynton_fwcf.html
Jeremy Gask’s farrier has developed plastic "Imprint" shoes. It involves a simple and interesting application technique that I’m yet to witness. From the link –
There are other plastic shoes on the market, some designed to be nailed on, others attached with glue, but it’s no surprise that Andrew maintains his option is better. In a nutshell, he trims the foot, dunks a shoe in boiling water to make it pliable, then moulds it directly to the hoof, achieving a perfect fit. It sticks with the help of special adhesive and Andrew claims that Imprint shoes are no more likely to come off than conventional metal ones.
And because the plastic can be moulded, Andrew can essentially build a prosthetic hoof, which is why the product is so useful for laminitics.
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Are the stickies as good as aluminum for the foot ?
And what do they look like to the eye ?
Aluminum is shiny.
Is it possible to mistake them for irons ?- Total Posts 17716
Yes in Australia shoes made of all steel cannot be raced in,aluminium plates used to be fitted to a horse either the day before or on race day,however for many years now trainers have used almost exclusively an aluminium plate with a steel insert on the toe,that way they can be left on to work and race in for around 4 weeks or whenever the hoof grows or nails lift and a new set applied.Tender footed horses can have rubber backed plates fitted to absorb the shock.A lot of old trainers estimated that over 5 furlongs the difference between shoes and plates was about 6 lengths.The steel insert in toe allows for a horse to paw and not wear the toe out,on the old aluminium plate i have seen a horse paw so much that they are worn out by days end.The most popular is a brand called Victory Plates,but been out of them for the past few years so maybe another Plate is popular now.
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A horse that has white above the hair of the hoof sometimes all the way up the pastern will have a light coloured hoof(a dark ivory colour),these horses are always more susceptible to have shelly problem feet.If a horse has no white on the the pastern area they will normally have darker coloured hooves.There is and old rhyme that goes ‘One white foot buy them,two white feet try them,three white feet think about them,four white feet go home without them’ . Basically the moral of the poem is that the more white hooves means more shelly problem feet.And it has been known that an unscrupulous trainer would get steel shoes ‘NICKLED’ to give the appearance of them being an aluminium racing plate.Meaning the steel shoes are dipped in Nickel to look like racing plates when they didnt want the horse to win.Here a farrier lifts the front hoof to check the plates are in decent order and also aluminium when the horse enters the parade ring/saddling paddock.
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Actually with the rhyme/poem some say 1 white foot buy and 2 white feet try,and i have heard it the other way around as well,as in 1 white foot try him 2 white feet buy him,shoulkd be somewhere on the net to look up,maybe it is a bit too old,not sure.Have known a couple of good horses with4 white feet,but i will guarantee the percentage is so small,for a start 4 white hooves are not common and usually they are going to give you a lot of grief with shelly feet.
Are the stickies as good as aluminum for the foot ?
And what do they look like to the eye ?
Aluminum is shiny.
Is it possible to mistake them for irons ?Stickies mean no nails, so they tend to be better, some feet don’t take well to nailing shoes in and crumble.
I’ve grown up around horses, and at first glance can’t tell the difference between steel (they don’t make them out of iron) and aluminim. You’d need to pick up the foot and look, cause steel shoes go shiney when worn down.Horses tend to be shod morning of or night before a race, so putting it in racecards would be a reyt pain.
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Are the stickies as good as aluminum for the foot ?
And what do they look like to the eye ?
Aluminum is shiny.
Is it possible to mistake them for irons ?Stickies mean no nails, so they tend to be better, some feet don’t take well to nailing shoes in and crumble.
I’ve grown up around horses, and at first glance can’t tell the difference between steel (they don’t make them out of iron) and aluminim. You’d need to pick up the foot and look, cause steel shoes go shiney when worn down.Horses tend to be shod morning of or night before a race, so putting it in racecards would be a reyt pain.
Surely you can tell the difference between steel and aluminum – unless they are painted !
Even I can do it and I count for nothing in this context.
My question was if the stickies look more like aluminums or irons.
The guys who run the show can provide the information. All it takes is a scrolling marquee on the tv screen.If you can see the shoe, it’s easy, but all feet on the ground, it’s hard to tell from the clips.
And stickies tend to look like a normal shoe.
I’ve been using glue on shoes on one of my horses for 3 years now. From the USA, made by a company called Sound Horse Technology. They are an aluminum compound, very, very light, with some polyurethane between the shoe and hoof. They come with a canvas cuff that glues to the hoof wall. If I was rich I’d use them on all mine, but at about £180 per PAIR the cost is quite prohibitive! Okay my horse only show jumps, hacks etc mainly, but he’s never pulled one off even when hunter trialling in heavy going. My farrier has done a few demos for these and I understand that they have been used by some trainers.
I’m quite suprised that horse shoe technology hasn’t really progressed very quickly – thinking about it, it seems crazy that we’re still nailing shoes to horses feet these days.
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