Draft cross pulling a carriage. Is Traction required?

[Dances with Hooves]

Generally most of my customers who pull a carriage on a road go with traction. I generraly use drill tek. I have no experience with a barefoot horse pulling a carriage. Although most carriages seem to have on board brakes it seems that should the brake fail the horse will need to stop the carraige and in that instance the added traction would be welcome.

I find myself pondering this as I plan to start training my newest horse "Joanie" a 2yr old Percheron/TB cross to drive next spring. I shoe my own horses as an absolute last resort as its challanging to find time to even trim them, the darn customers horses seem to always come first :) , and was contemplating some light driving in a 2 person easy entry cart with her barefoot. But I of course don't want to do anything unsafe and will outfit her with whatever footware is most appropriate.

What does everyone do for light carriage driving horses? At most we will take her driving on the road a couple of times a month as marie is also going to use her as a saddle horse for trail riding and lower level dressage.

George

[Phil Armitage]

I would do the same thing that I would do for a customer.

[Rick Burten]

For me, the problem is that a two year old has not "settled" its feet and bones yes. And, the addition of non-removeable traction, such as borium or drill tec can really take a toll on immature hooves and legs. That said, I don't know that I would put a young one in traces without some form of traction added(ie: I don't think I'd take one out on the roads barefoot, especially if the roads are oil and chip or blacktop, since that stuff is really, slippery when its cold, and really greasy after a rain and all the road oil floats to the surface). An alternative might be shoes which have been drilled and tapped for studs. Then, you could add some really small studs to the package during the times you are going to be out on the roads, and then just take them out the rest of the time.

Rick

[caballus]

Hi George ... you might an interesting read about this on this page:

http://www.hoofrehab.com

--caballus

[Phil Armitage]

Man oh Man oh Man??? The title of Pete Ramey's Book and Website should not be "Makeing Natural Hoofcare work for you" it should be "Marketing Natural Hoofcare" How does a person become so knowledgealbe and so experienced in such a short perieod of time, he started shoeing by rideing with a farrier in 1994, learns a new method and builds a clientle so huge not even Super Farrier with Super Apprentices could handle takeing care of 700 to 800 horses around the world (Yea Right). Has time to do all that studying, write a book and and and I say and, be with his loveing wife and family. I smell B.S all over this one. Cheesh, give me a break. He is one heck of a Marketer, I only wish I thought of it, actually I really don't. Good for him, he sells a book, give clinics, I quess he won't have to bend over anymore. He could have just sat at his computer at night like the rest of us after a hard days work and asked questions and shared his ideas, I quess that wouldnt bring in any extra cash though.

[Mike Ferrara]

I read a bunch of the articles on that site. What I found most disagreeable is that he continually insists that what farriers do wrong is to try to streighten the legs of adult horses and balance feet to make the horse stand square on concrete rather than balancing them for movement.

Do any of you do that?
Have any of you been taught to do that?
Are any of you aware of a farrier text that recommends doing that?

Yet talks about the uneducated ways of his teacher and how well it worked and how few problems his clients horses had. It seems that his very first look at farriery was that of a very successful one which he now seems to run with sans the shoes.

He also mentions how so many "barefoot practitioners" cut too much heel.

It seems that if he had paid more attention to his teacher he would have saved himself a lot of trouble and wouldn't have had to go off and "invent" it all over. LOL

[John Barney]

I know from my own expirence that riding too much on the road will wear a hoof down fast. When we lived in Colorado my wife decided to ride a somewhat hot horse that I hadn't shod yet. I'm glad she stopped when she did, worn almost to the point of damage. Nice even natural trim though, hey maybe we can just ride 'em hard on pavement instesd of getting under them. Just remember one of the reasons for shoeing is when wear exceeds growth.

JB