So, why do horses need shoes anyway? And if they need them, where did they do their shoe shopping before people came along and took responsibility for it?
Horses need shoes for the same reason that people do; their feet wear out if they do a great deal of walking. Before horses were worked and ridden and made war animals, they did not do much walking/running. When they became domesticated, shoes helped them to exert themselves without wearing down their feet.
A link covering horse shoes, their installation and usefullness:
There are lots of different reasons to shoe a horse. A lot depends on the individual horse, some horses have poor hooves and would quickly go lame if left unshod. In the wild a lame horse would be left behind the herd and become another animal’s dinner. Horses with tougher hooves would survive and breed and produce more stronger-hooved babies.
Horses ridden hard over rocky and hard terrain are usually shod, but again some animals have tougher hooves and can handle the wear and tear without getting cracked and chipped feet.
I personally have not had my horse shod for a few years now because I only ride on soft ground, but I still have the farrier out every 6-7 weeks to trim her hooves.
What about modern wild horses? Have we unleashed an improved species?
It is not simply the quanity of walking but the hardness and abrasiveness of the surface upon which they walk. Roads wear hooves fast.
A horses’s hooves (correct me if I’m wrong) are like his/her feet. Get rocks in those, or if they start to rot or get infections, and you’ve got serious problems. Thus the shoes.
To get to the other side? No, wait. Dang. I know there’s a joke in here somewhere. I just can’t find it…
About the modern wild horses–The Mustangs I have personally seen have had very hard hooves. The softer-hooved animals were bred out the natural way…only the strongest survive.
Part of the problems associated with today’s domestic horses have come about because man has meddled in the affairs of nature. To get horses to do certain things–like breeding Thoroughbreds for speed, Clydesdales for pulling, Quarter Horses for ranch work and Saddlebreds for their high stepping gaits, man has bred for these qualities and along with the good comes the bad.
There is a saying “No hoof, no horse”. It is true. Horses can’t live with only three feet. Lameness is a serious thing for horses. Non-wild horses are babied, kept in cozy barns and have great medical and farrier care and so poor hooves can be corrected (and kept in check) to a certain degree. I am not saying ALL non-wild horses are babied, but when you spend lots of money on a horse you darn well better take good care of it.
Modern wild horses (such as America’s mustangs) do not, as a rule need shoes even when worked on hard ground. natural selection has done its work! In the words of a woman I recall being profiled in Practical Horseman, on her business of working with adopted mustangs:
“I love 'em. You can buy them for $600, they eat anything, and they never need shoes.”
But the ground on America’s plains is generally firm & dry. I would imagine that even wild horses who are raised on moist or boggy ground (maybe exmoor ponies?) would need shoes if suddenly switched to hard, dry ground.
The shoe does interfere with the natural cushioning structure of the horse’s feet (called “the frog”) but it protects the hoof from cracks, so its a trade-off. Many people pull their horses’s shoes in the winter when they are under light work. This allows the hoof to spread and grow more naturally. Believe me, at $70-$90 every 6-8 weeks for shoes, everyone who can get along without them, does.
I was not aware horses needed new shoes so often. They are worse than children!
At any rate, horse in the wild would live on soft ground (prairie) whereas a cop’s horse is walking on the asphalt of sity streets all day. That would make a difference I suppose.