No hind shoes?
 

Anybody see this?

The other day at Keeneland for that $250k+ pick 6, in the 7th, the race without any past performance info, #6 La Gran Bailadora was noted to not be racing with rear shoes on. I've never seen that before, I threw the 6 out because of it but I don't want to make blanket assumptions about equipment changes like that, so I'm asking -- under what circumstances is this done and is it always worth throwing out the horse?

I assumed the horse had an injury that prevented shoeing the rear, and on that basis thought we were in for a sub par performance.

By the way, I only saw this on Keeneland's website, as they had the earliest notes on scratches, conditions and equipment changes. I bet through Philly Phonebet and they didn't post anything till later...not sure if they noted it or not.

Steve, this might make a good bullet to cover next time we talk about equipment changes on ATR. This is different than "one lb. over" or "blinkers on" in that it seems like a more rare change.

I've seen this a couple of times at Keeneland, was wondering about it as well.

It's some new fad that trainers are doing. They say it helps on synthetic tracks.......i've been watching it pretty closely and to my knowledge I haven't seen a horse win yet without hind shoes at keeneland. Started at some farm in Florida or something like that.

I saw one win without them...right after Schrup and Bray on TVG said the horse was a toss because of the lack of hind shoes.
I guess that is why Simon Bray is in the booth, instead the winners circle.

Trainer Steve Miyadi here in northern California has many of his horse race without the hind shoes and I have been told as well that he does it because it's supposed to help horses on the Tepeta - I don't know that it helps much and he's the ONLY trainer here doing that.

Before asking for reasons why ir was being done, I thought he was doing it to save money by not paying to have shoes put on his horses ;)

The reason a lot of horses are running without hind shoes is because they do not allow any bends or toe grabs. They check the shoes in the holding barn before the race and if they are shod incorrectly they just pull them off; some tracks would just assume late scratch the horse and fine the trainer.

I know there has been one no hind shoes winner at Kee this past week, I think two.

If the horses are young (2-year-olds) some trainers have said publically discussing synthetics that on the artificial surfaces, they don't want to put hind shoes on youngsters, for hoof health, until the horse really needs it. That depends upon the quality of the individual horses hoof, obviously.

Want to add that "barefoot" has been a thing with some horse people for about 20 years now, in all disciplines - but it's really hard to hold a hoof together if the horse is in any kind of serious work in any sport. Even pasture horses that are unshod need hoof trims every 6 weeks or so.

There was a pretty good horse in Florida that used to run barefoot about 15 years ago. Happy Alter may have trained him but not 100% sure

Chuck, you ever run young horses barefoot? I would think it's hard to get them through breaking in Florida with intact hoofs (the sandy soil)?

Once at GP when we had the wrong shoes on for a turf race. Pulled them in the holding barn. Ran 2nd at like 40-1. Tried it again next start and he ran bad so they who knows if it has any real impact.

I break a 100 or so Yearlings every year here in Florida and I never put hind shoes on any thing. I will put front shoes on most of them when we start breaking. We also Breeze our young Horses all the time with no Hind Shoes.


Cannon is the Horse your thinking About of Happy Alter Jolie's Halo????????

No it was a sprinter that wasnt nearly as good as Jolies halo

Maybe Ponche? Who trained him?

Good to know. Is your track sandy?

I do recall with the hunters we'd try not to get hinds on the young horses until they started popping little fences. Saved alot of dings and bangs on the front legs, helped keep them clean.

Old timers like Frank Whitely never put hind shoes on a horse till the day of their first race. Of course he really didnt know what he was doing as he was just hopping horses with cocaine according to Jim Squires.

OK, so if I had to form a consensus from the comments here, I'd guess that "no hind shoes" is not something I should throw a horse out for, that it is not that uncommon of a practice, and that there are no regulations that require a horse to run with all four shoes on?

Thanks to all who tried to clear this up...

From what I've read, most tracks (syn or "dirt") are between 70 and 85% sand.
But, we get some pretty "sharp" sand from the middle of the state.