An Age old Problem

All the old hands tell me that the two biggest problems with working horses are horseshoes and saddle sores. I’d had experience with saddle sores in India and my biggest worry now was shoes. In late 2004, I came across an exciting new product recommended on the Long Riders Guild’s website called Superfast. This had the exciting premise of being a ’21st century’ replacement for the traditional horseshoe. The Guild naturally wanted to see it trialed.

I’ll be honest here; Superfast really excited me. Superfast is not a substitute for a horse shoe but it has incredible future potential. It’s made by an American company called Vettec Ltd who already have a reputation in the ‘hoof care’ industry..

A 21st Century Solution?

This part is not technical. Superfast is a gel which sets rock hard to the bottom of a horse’s hoof in around 3 minutes. Vettec claim that the gel can remain on the hoof for up to seven weeks until it has healed enough to sustain another nailed shoe. For whatever reason, if a horse is lame, has a hoof disease or other problem, nailing on an iron horseshoe may be next to impossible. Superfast allows the farrier to custom make their own shoe for any horse. It is one of several products from Vettec that give him the maximum possible tools to fix the maximum number of hoof ailments.

In my case, I would be journeying through remote areas where people didn’t keep horses and farriers would be extremely hard to find. Superfast would allow me to make my ‘own’ shoe without having to worry about nailing one on. That was something I dreaded and could cause the mares no end of problems if done badly. However Superfast had never been tested under the conditions that I would be riding through. Vettec agreed to let me trial it but to “only use it as an emergency measure.”

Trialing Superfast

I must say here that I have two mares, one is a pack mare carrying a load around 90kgs and the other is a riding mare; carrying a load of about 80kgs (incl. saddle etc..). As I rode across the Punjab plains I had few problems; saddle sores or otherwise. Pakistan is one of the few countries where equines are still commonly seen in daily use. After 300kms I reached Islamabad , the capital of Pakistan where I had both mares shod. Beyond the capital lay the Himalayas where there would be few horses.

After 360kms I had six shoes replaced in the outlaw town of Besham . There would be no farrier available for a further 200kms. Here my problems began. The shoes were locally made of poor quality reinforcement Iron and they lasted only 120kms, or just four days journey. I was stranded with no farrier nearby and nobody who even kept horses. I decided to use Superfast.

The reasons for use here were simple. The Chinese border was due to close in two weeks. I was short on time and all six shoes were completely worn down. The Superfast user guide seemed easy to understand and the gel would take only 3 minutes to apply to each shoe. I also didn’t want to ‘hole’ my mare’s hooves again after just four days journey!

Suffice it to say that I managed with the tools available to me at the time. My pack mare, ” Kabul ” was first. She was placed on concrete to keep the hooves as clean as possible. ‘Tools’ were laid out and work began – tools meaning a small pair of clippers, a hammer (whose head continually fell off), locally made ‘knife,’ old towel and Superfast gel & applicator kit. It took me seven long hours to remove all four shoes and apply the gel correctly. My main problem was lack of experience. I had never removed shoes before though had seen it done many times. A farrier is only as good as the knowledge he possesses!

Foot prep is key to success.

Kabul is a good mare and doesn’t usually move when being shod. Once the shoes were off, I rasped the bottom of each hoof till each was relatively flat and fitted the applicator gun together. There was no heat gun available so I laid the Superfast gel in the sun to warm up. Each shoe was laid on the towel before application to keep the hoof surface clean.

My first hoof was unduly messy but the rest were better. I found applying the gel easy, although it had to be done very slowly to form a thick layer on the bottom. I applied four layers to add maximum strength to the ’shoe’ and timed 2.5 minutes as instructed after the last layer had been applied. I added an extra layer to the outer wall to provide greater stability as Kabul would be carrying a large load. I used four Superfast packs and one packet of mixer nozzles. The Superfast set very quickly and I had to rasp the material into shape soon after application. The files available in the market were very low quality!

There is only seven hours of sunlight available in the mountains so I couldn’t shoe the riding mare until the next day. “Sparks” proved skittish and wouldn’t allow me to properly remove her shoes. I wasted much of that day trying. As night fell I was forced to make provision for both mares and journey over 80kms in search of a farrier. I was lucky to find one and he fitted shoes the next morning.

We had only journeyed five kilometers when Sparks began limping. One of the horse shoes was coming off. Now I had experience I was able to tie her up, take off the affected shoe and apply Superfast quickly. This only took one hour.

Results

The pack mare completed 40kms before the Superfast needed replacing. It withheld landslide terrain, scree and the hard tarmac road whilst carrying a load of 90kgs. On the riding mare, the product lasted 55kms under a constant sitting trot and 80kg load.

The Superfast performed better on the Riding mare than on the Pack mare. On the riding mare the product bore less weight as the load was distributed through the existing horseshoes. On the pack mare the Superfast bore the whole load from all four legs and didn’t last as long.

After 40 kilometres I applied two fresh layers of Superfast to Kabul ’s hooves without incident. I was unable to ‘balance’ each shoe as instructed due to the lack of equipment. The open road leveled the bottom of each temporary shoe quickly enough. The extra layers managed a further 30kms until the next town where a farrier was available. He was able to easily ‘chip’ off the material, trim the hoof and apply a fresh set of horse shoes. I had no further problems with shoes thereafter.

Recommendations

As an emergency solution, there is little to rival the adaptability of this product. I was able to fit temporary ’shoes’ to many hooves under a variety of circumstances. This may be for a lame horse or where a shoe has worn down. Where load is less, I believe Superfast could withstand more than double the distance covered above. It is a good emergency solution.

Saying that, Superfast was not easy for a lay man to apply without experience and the right tools. Vettec did not supply me with all the instructions on use which would have saved time. This is a product purely for the experts. My route now lies through China, where the distances are greater and the availability of farriers less. Superfast will be even more valuable to this expedition and given my prior experience I will be able to put this product even further to the test.

Read the Long Riders Guild review of this exciting new trial and stay tuned for updates.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2006 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Gear, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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