Michele's Barefoot Story
by Michele Spencer, North Carolina
December 2005

I have a really good friend who I knew was doing the barefoot option on her horses. I talked to her a lot about it, and what her opinion was -- and she was so positive about it, I thought I would give it a try. I decided to go with the Easyboots, and go barefoot as much as possible. I have a Paint with all four feet that are white. I was concerned that they would break very easily. I talked to my farrier, and he said that he didn't think I would have any problems. He said I had good hooves to work with.

Well, this is my second year, and we have done great with no shoes! I do carry my Easyboots in my saddlebag pockets, in case I go somewhere that turns out to be very rocky for a long period of time. This past trip we went to the mountains, and we rode for three good days, and never needed to put his boots on his hooves! Yippee!

My horse is very alert to his surroundings, and when he wore shoes, he didn't always pay attention to where his feet were going. Since he doesn't wear shoes, he knows that it is important to pay attention to his steps. He has gone from looking all around, to being a wonderful trail horse who looks at where his feet go! He pays attention to rough terrain, holes in the trail and he does this without me having to steer him around all of this. He picks his way through trails just like the great trail horse I dreamed I would have one day!

I am living proof to how well this works to my friends, and several are now going barefoot, too! My fiancé, who I thought would never even think about taking the shoes off his horse, is now getting ready to start going barefoot, too. If you only knew how much he was determined he would never do this, but he has seen how great my horse has done, so that he has changed his opinion on it, too.
I would tell anyone to try it!

We rode in this kind of rocky terrain -- I did it with no shoes!