Took me 3 years to try aluminum shoes on wet horses

Old timer in Kentucky swore by them for soggy pasture work. I figured they'd wear out in two weeks but I'm still on the same set after a month and the horse is moving better. Anyone else switch materials for a specific footing type?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron_mitchell1mo ago

Actually, aluminum shoes aren't really about the material itself for wet footing, they're more about how they're shaped. I've used them on and off for about 15 years now and the key is the wider web (the flat part that touches the ground). Standard steel shoes have a narrower web that can sink into soft ground, making the horse work harder to pull his feet out. The aluminum ones are usually forged with a wider, flatter surface that spreads the horse's weight over more area, like a snowshoe effect. My farrier out in Oregon pointed this out when I was complaining about my mare bogging down in spring mud, and switching to a wide-web aluminum shoe made a night and day difference for her.

river9521mo ago

Push back on that a little. I've seen plenty of aluminum shoes with a narrow web that still sink in mud just as bad. @aaron_mitchell, I think the material matters more than you're giving it credit for because aluminum is lighter so the horse doesn't get as tired fighting through soft ground. A heavy steel shoe with a wide web would probably work the same on paper, but in practice the added weight makes a difference when they're slogging through wet footing.

rowan_wells301mo ago

Honestly I'm gonna push back hard on that whole snowshoe effect idea. If you really think about it, a wider web on an aluminum shoe means less ground pressure sure, but that also means more surface area dragging through mud with every step. That's more resistance, not less. I've seen horses in deep muck with those wide aluminum jobs and they're still sinking, just slower, but they're also fighting that bigger plate trying to pull it out of the goo. Tbh the real trick for wet footing isn't the shoe at all, it's drainage and keeping the pasture from turning into a swamp in the first place. Everyone's looking for a magic shoe but sometimes the answer is just better management of where the horse stands.