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History of Iron Shoes
Copied with permission from Sarah Bell (ND. DO. MRN. MBNOA.) of Successful Natural Horsecare
Horses have been used for work and pleasure for thousands of years. Worth noting here that Xenophon, a fourth century BC Greek cavalry officer goes into detailed instructions as to how to care for horses hooves and I quote, he says, “naturally sound hooves get spoiled in most stalls,” and goes onto say, “their hooves should be toughened by putting a cobblestone area in their paddocks.”
There seems to be some confusion among historians as to when the first horse iron shoes came into use. There are dates as far back as 3500 BC which have been suggested by some, but there is no physical evidence or written records to support these theories.
Several historians place the date in the 5th or 6th century BC, but metallurgy was still in its infancy and iron was relatively scarce and difficult to work, therefore it seems unlikely that the use of horseshoes was widespread at that time.
This therefore means that many civilizations would have had to rely completely upon the barefoot horse for transportation and war purposes. These horses would have had to contend with a wide variety of terrains and conditions and a lot of miles.
It isn’t until about 900 AD when horse shoeing was introduced to Western and Central Europe with shoes being used on cavalry horses. With feudalism and the Crusades this would make sense as horses would have had to be kept inside castle walls in damp urine stalls and confined spaces, instead of being kept in loose herds or large paddocks.
This was the Age of Iron and man was using iron on just about everything. So with hooves breaking down due to inappropriate living conditions and inappropriate feeding, horseshoes would have become of value where horses were needed for long distance conquest. Since humans have a tendency to try to make nature ‘better’, the shoe became the fix for ailing hooves. Instead of addressing the cause of the problem, a piece of iron was nailed through living tissue and the hoof was artificially held together and so covering up all the underlying hoof problems which would have been occuring.
A Quick Fix
The horses would have moved better, but iron shoes as we know, causes long term pathology and damage to the hooves and so eventually to the horse.
Thus the horseshoe was developed as the answer to solve the problems that were occuring due to their living environment.
A few more interesting facts:-
1. No Roman work of art shows a single shod hoof,
2.All of the exploits of Alexander The Great were accomplished on barefoot horses. Alexander’s horse Bucephalus was mortally wounded in battle at age 30.
3. Markus Junkelmann, in his 3 volume work “The Riders of Rome,” examined Greek and Roman texts and found no mention of horseshoes. Nor did he see a need for the Romans to shoe their horses. He and his team recreated a Roman Calvary Unit and rode similar distances and terrains, finding that 280 miles proved no difficulty for their barefoot horses.
4. F.Von Schwarz says that “At the time when the Turkmenen’s raids were still in full bloom, participants in such raids covered on their horses, with loot and prisoners, in the waterless desert not seldom distances of 621 miles in 5 days.”
Conclusion
Over the centuries shoeing horses has lead to the belief that horses need iron shoes in order to stay healthy and to be ridden. So man recognized that their horses were having problems with their hooves, but as so often is the case, he starts by treating the symptoms rather than identifying and addressing the underlying causes.
This is a very clear example of how we can all follow suite and in this case, with the use of iron shoes for centuries, without ever questioning whether what we are doing is still necessary.
It also became associated with wealth, as the wealthy could afford iron shoes and the sound of a shod horse therefore became associated with wealth and something for the poor to strive for……..
