New Shoe Trial

We work with clever experts at the Equine Science Training Stable and always try new ideas. Ben Batemen, one of our farriers, has started to import and use Easycare Versa Grip shoes, an alternative composite style of shoe.

“Barefoot is ideal for a hoof, but to do the unnatural things we want with horses, we often need to shoe them. There has been a huge shift through social media in the past decade to help us recognise the consequences of using a normal open-heeled shoe and start trying to incorporate loading the frog and sole. Frog support pads have become commonplace, and they have been proven to be extremely useful in managing caudal failure in lameness situations. I have a few clients who use them on their sound horses pre-emptively, which I think is a great idea. We have progressed from barefoot to shoes, bar shoes, and frog support pads and are about to see the next shift to composite shoes. After seeing the success overseas, we have started to try this style of show on some of our jumping horses and are seeing great results.”

“The combination of flexibility behind the coffin bone and a shoe made from urethane instead of steel means there is significantly more blood perfusion throughout the foot, and the hemodynamic mechanism of the foot functions correctly, which offsets the risk of caudal failure. There’s also less concussion and less sink in a deformable surface, and there’s more capacity to add leverage reduction than a normal steel shoe because of the thicker profile.”

We will continue to trial these shoes and move more of our and clients’ horses into them. As time goes by we will be able to collect more data on the effectiveness for show jumpers. For more information, please contact us below.