Travel with Haflinger Shoes.
Lets start with the conclusion. Haflinger shoes, especially the rubber ones we have, are great but not with this weight and 15 mile a day. That’s it. Every time we go in trod the shoes are twirling around the hoofs. Then the clip make wounds, when that happens we can't drive anymore because the hoofs get to short. Al together it's not the way we have hoped for.
Optimistic We start of really optimistic. Trained the horses in advance. Twice a week we made trips with a little car and both horses on shoes. On the flat rural surroundings of the Netherlands everything was all right. In the mountains of Germany the shoes aren’t quit good enough. Both horses put their legs into the road with a sudden strength which the shoes can't handle. We have to make a decision we don't like to make: iron horseshoes. That’s why we have to search for a Blacksmith in a country we don’t know. The language is different from ours, the habits too.
First thing different was the way they treated the hoofs. They make the radiating part very small in our opinion. The German blacksmith put little metal pins into the irons to have more grip at the road. Works fantastic. The pin material is Widea. (we diamond)
The blacksmith, traveling with a big bus with equipment, needs electricity to make little holes into the irons. We don't have electricity! Just a small solarpanel, that's it! No problem, they take everything with them to make the holes at home and come back later. Within three hours the job is done. We pay twice at much the price we now in Holland. The difference: In Holland the use cold steel, the Germans heating up the irons to fir best. Custom made!
We still not happy with the choice of iron shoes. We like the more natural way. But for the moment its o k. Later on, when we stop travelling this much, we can choose again for barefoot driving.
John
More about Haflinger footwear and shoes
End of Haflinger Shoes, back to travel with a horse |
