Karen’s Musings & Endurance Ride Stuff

I ran across this article the other day and found it pretty interesting.  It is a 1988 an interview with Went Tellington, known to be quite a horseman as well as a Tevis BOG.  Went Tellington rode for the U.S. Cavalry, was a successful trainer and coach of horses in international competition and is also co-author of the book ” Endurance and Competitive Trail Riding“.  I’ll copy some excerpts out of this interview and make comments.  Be sure to go read the entire thing though!  I’m sure anybody attempting Tevis will be interested to read through his thoughts on hoof care.

I love this part, where he answers questions about selecting horses.  He had between 6,000 and 8,000 horses at the time.

Then we’d examine their feet. If their feet were satisfactory, they went into a group for collection. If their feet were not satisfactory, we trimmed their feet a little bit and turned them back. If their feet were too bad, we’d have to eliminate them right there; we’d put them down. Once we got past that foot examination, which was the most critical determination, then we put them through a brief test to see how they would get along with men.

I find that interesting.  Personally, any time in the future that I am going to select a horse for endurance riding – that horse will darn well have good feet!  If it doesn’t, there is no point in looking any higher up.  I have had both good footed horses and poor footed horses and let me tell you, it’s enough work and effort to keep a good horse going that you don’t need the extra headaches of dealing with feet that are just so-so or that need a lot of extra TLC.  Better to put the effort into the right horse.

When asked about what Went specifically looked for in the foot of a horse to be used as a pack horse, this was his answer:

I was looking for even wear. A horse that doesn’t travel very well may wear his feet down hard on the heel or on the toes, or harder on one side or the other. Sometimes the horse would get a type of coonfoot, it’s called, that you could correct if you wanted to take the time. But, when you’re handling 1200 horses a week, you don’t take time to correct a coonfoot. We eliminated the horse whose feet tended to crack or break up in any way at all. Every horse, before he went out, was trimmed and evened up. Even though the horses were not shod, the foot care was conducted by farrier craftsmen.

I found this part about the metal used in horseshoes to be very interesting too.  Went was involved in a lot of research – so again, be sure to read the entire article and you’ll learn more about apple cider vinegar as well as horse transport!

It became apparent to me that the property of elasticity in metal was a critical property. If you have a high-speed metal in contact with a horse’s foot, it translates a very high pitch zinging to the horse’s nervous system, which is disturbing to him. We can’t tell you he doesn’t like it, and he has grown so accustomed to it that he probably just lives with it. With a low-speed metal, the zinging isn’t of such high velocity, and the horse doesn’t seem to resent it quite so much. But such a very malleable metal wears out too fast. The kind of horseshoe that I propose for an endurance ride probably wouldn’t go more than 300 miles, because it would wear out. But the normal horseshoe will probably go 1500 miles. The good horseshoe, as far as I’m concerned, will only go 300 miles and they cost more. So, again, you’re up against the cost factor.

Now onto something that many of you Tevis hopefuls will find useful!  I have to say that I totally agree with what he says about using pads on a shod horse.  Especially if your horse isn’t used to them.  I’ve also had long time riders caution me against using silicone – now that I’ve seen first hand how much difference in heat buildup there is with various boots and other hoof protection items, I am definitely going to steer away from anything that’ll add additional heat.  We’ve all heard the term “hot shoe”, right?

My experience over the years among many friends and acquaintances that did NOT complete the Tevis – is that they had a higher chance of that happening because their horse slipped or couldn’t get adequate footing due to having a pad on.

If you have a horse that’s a good horse and you ride him in a specific discipline and you think he needs some protection of the sole for that particular purpose, then go ahead and put pads on — but not as a regular thing. The pad has a tendency to build up some heat in the foot or to occasionally to trap something in there which can cause a bruise that can last quite awhile. But the heat factor through the pads has always been of some concern, especially if it’s packed in silicone.

And more:

A wide-web is good for the Tevis Cup Ride. And I would see that the nails were just a hair forward of conventional nails.

And why would you do that?

Because I want to give that big heel all the opportunity to expand as the horse gets more and more experience in endurance. His feet will work better and they are going to expand more. If you take a horse that hasn’t done this very much, he’s going to have limited movement. If I let that horse run a mile everyday for a year, that heel is really going to give it hell. That’s why I say, “Ride the horse,just ride him, and give him lots of opportunity to do his thing, and he will.”

Here Went is talking about the finer details including polishing a shoe so that the hoof can slide over it in the heel area.  I have definitely noted this myself – you can see inside Chief’s hoof boots for example, that his heel is expanding and has polished up the flat surface of the back of his boots.

We’d get a fine sandpaper and work over the bottom of the foot. Then we’d take a grinder and polish the inside of the shoe so it had a really smooth surface. This is on the heel, not around the toe, so the heel could slide over that iron very easily. From the last nail hole back we’d polish the shoe right down, so those heels never had any trouble sliding back and forth over that iron. I mean, this is the degree of refinement that we go to when we’re trying to really win.

I just love reading and learning all of this stuff from those that have “been there – done that”.  Things that we should never forgot – why learn any of this the hard way when you don’t have to, right?  Now go ride your horse, and have a happy fourth of July holiday if you are a US citizen!

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