Aluminum Shoes
COMPARED TO STEEL
Compared to steel, aluminum is soft to a horse's foot and so does not transmit as much sting to a horse's feet and legs - a very important consideration for a show horse. It is sort of like having a job where you have to stand on a concrete floor all day and then you change to a wooden floor. Both floors are hard, but the wood floor is so much easier on the legs. Since aluminum is one-third the weight of steel, it allows for good hoof protection without loading the horse with a lot of weight. Being able to add flotation to a shoe is another advantage that the pleasure horse trainers are starting to recognize. There are many other important reasons for using aluminum, but for now we will concentrate on just a few. If you were a horse, would you rather wear shoes made of spring steel, which transmits a lot of sting, or a shoe made of aluminum, which is very sting- absorbing? Hold a bar of aluminum in your hand and strike it on an anvil or hard surface and then do the same thing with a piece of steel. Aluminum dissipates sting much better than steel, and the horse will respond by moving smoother. An added benefit is that by reducing sting, we will reduce hoof damage caused by the horseshoes. Every time a shoe vibrates, it damages a little hoof wall.
By using a lighter material for our shoes we can use a shoe that has more flotation. Flotation is the amount of weight a shoe can support on the ground. A barefooted horse has a great amount of flotation. The whole foot is on the ground supporting the weight, but adding shoes reduces flotation unless a shoe with a wide web is used. A wide-web shoe made of steel gets pretty heavy, but with an aluminum wide-web shoe we can have the width and plenty of flotation without the extra weight.
http://www.anvilmag.com/farrier/usalsonq.htm
Compared to steel, aluminum is soft to a horse's foot and so does not transmit as much sting to a horse's feet and legs - a very important consideration for a show horse. It is sort of like having a job where you have to stand on a concrete floor all day and then you change to a wooden floor. Both floors are hard, but the wood floor is so much easier on the legs. Since aluminum is one-third the weight of steel, it allows for good hoof protection without loading the horse with a lot of weight. Being able to add flotation to a shoe is another advantage that the pleasure horse trainers are starting to recognize. There are many other important reasons for using aluminum, but for now we will concentrate on just a few. If you were a horse, would you rather wear shoes made of spring steel, which transmits a lot of sting, or a shoe made of aluminum, which is very sting- absorbing? Hold a bar of aluminum in your hand and strike it on an anvil or hard surface and then do the same thing with a piece of steel. Aluminum dissipates sting much better than steel, and the horse will respond by moving smoother. An added benefit is that by reducing sting, we will reduce hoof damage caused by the horseshoes. Every time a shoe vibrates, it damages a little hoof wall.
By using a lighter material for our shoes we can use a shoe that has more flotation. Flotation is the amount of weight a shoe can support on the ground. A barefooted horse has a great amount of flotation. The whole foot is on the ground supporting the weight, but adding shoes reduces flotation unless a shoe with a wide web is used. A wide-web shoe made of steel gets pretty heavy, but with an aluminum wide-web shoe we can have the width and plenty of flotation without the extra weight.
http://www.anvilmag.com/farrier/usalsonq.htm
