History
Horses have evolved from
their earliest known ancestors over the last 50-60 million years. The
modern horse as we know it today, Equus
Caballus, has survived in a great variety of environments, without need
of horseshoes, for nearly two million years. In contrast, “the oldest
fossil evidence for anatomically modern humans is about 130,000 years
old.”(1)
Archaeologists and
historians suggest that horses were first domesticated at least five, but
perhaps seven thousand or more years ago. It is uncertain when people
first began to ride them, but researchers have suggested that this most likely
would
have
occurred not long after domestication. The first known use of the
horseshoe did not occur until approximately 1100 years ago. Today,
cultures such as the nomadic tribal peoples of Mongolia continue to ride their
horses barefoot, giving us a tradition based on a minimum
of 4000 years of riding domestic horses without shoes.
While modern Western belief holds that the horseshoe is a
benevolent technological innovation and provides needed protection and
enhancement over the capabilities of the horse's bare hoof, this idea is falling
under considerable scrutiny.
The origins of
the first horseshoes are unclear, but theories as to why they were first created
match very closely with much of the reasoning of today's mainstream status
quo. The factors most often sited as inspiring the invention of the
horseshoe include:
- confinement or
otherwise unhealthy living conditions
- dietary
changes
- use under
military or working circumstances which were destructive to
hooves
Although the ways
we use horses have changed significantly over time, many of our horsekeeping
traditions, dating back to the late Roman Empire and Dark Age of Western Europe,
remain. These traditions have resulted in an alarming frequency of hoof
and health problems in today’s domestically kept horses.
“Of the 122 million equines found around the world, no
more than 10% are clinically sound. Some 10% are clinically, completely and
unusably lame. The remaining 80% of these equines are somewhat lame... and could
not pass a soundness evaluation or test.” -Walt Taylor, founder of the World Farriers Association,
co-founder and 15 year president of AFA .
In our modern horsekeeping
traditions, truly unhealthy conditions are so common, widespread, and accepted
that they, rather than a thriving state of health and soundness, have become the
baseline by which we have come to define what is normal for domestic
horses. A growing number of people are working to change this. One
facet of this movement is the advocacy by practitioners of natural hoof care to
keep horses barefoot.
