My first time using a forge-welded shoe on a wet track in Oregon ended with the horse slipping anyway

I figured the fancy welding would give better grip, but that morning rain made the surface so slick the shoe just slid sideways after two strides, and now I'm wondering if anyone else has found a reliable way to handle wet footing without switching to full borium.

3 comments

3 Comments

theamason2mo ago

Did your horse slip on the turn or just flat out too? I had the same thing happen with a client's horse on the wet track at Portland Meadows, ended up using a simple rim shoe with a few nail heads for grip and it worked way better.

charlie_stone722mo ago

Oh you mean the nail heads as little studs right? I gotta say I think you might be mixing up nail heads with actual track studs or maybe just grabbing the wrong term there. Rim shoes with nail heads are just standard farriery where you're using the nail head itself for a tiny bit of extra grab but it's nowhere near the grip you get from a proper stud or even a borium tipped shoe. I've tried both and the nail heads help a little on a light slip but they won't save you on a wet turn like Portland Meadows gets.

the_gray14d ago

Nah, I gotta push back a little on that. Nail heads in a rim shoe might give a tiny bit of grip on a light slip, but on a wet track like Portland Meadows gets, they just don't dig in enough to stop a horse from sliding out. Proper studs or some borium will actually bite into the surface and give you real traction when it matters most.