Benefits and risks of barefoot harness racing in Standardbred trotters

Background

The quality of a horse's hooves is of central importance to how well they perform as sport horses. Today, it is also popular to train and compete barefoot in several equestrian disciplines. However, knowledge about the characteristics that define “good” (durable, tough) and “bad” hooves is very limited, and there are no validated biological or physical measures to describe hoof quality.

About this project

In this study, we wanted to investigate the characteristics of hooves that can withstand barefoot riding and whether it is possible to develop simple methods to determine whether a horse's hooves can compete barefoot without risk of soreness.

We also wanted to investigate how performance is affected, whether there are seasons and tracks that are unsuitable, whether there are genes that can explain the difference between “good” and ‘bad’ hooves, and whether horses that compete barefoot “injure themselves” more or less than those with shoes.

Results

In the first study, we investigated how the performance of trotting horses is affected by competing barefoot. We analyzed over 75,000 starts made by more than 5,000 horses that competed both with and without shoes. The horses ran an average of 0.7 seconds faster per kilometer when they ran completely barefoot compared to when they had shoes on all hooves. If they competed without shoes on only their hind or front hooves, they also ran faster than if they had shoes on all hooves (0.3-0.4 seconds/km). The analysis always took into account a number of other factors that also affected how fast the horses were (e.g., age, gender, season, track condition, starting lane, and starting method). However, competing barefoot was associated with an increased risk of galloping and being disqualified in almost all cases. The increased risk was 15-35% depending on the season. However, one situation that did not entail an increased risk was if the horses competed barefoot only on their front hooves. Competing barefoot thus improves performance without increasing the risk of galloping and disqualification.

Link to the article

The entire scientific article can be found here: Benefits and risks of barefoot harness racing in Standardbred trotters (2020)