Top Racehorse Bares All with Forward Thinking Trainer Simon Earle!

Simon Earle trains national hunt and flat horses, and 90% of the equines he trains are barefoot. He says the team’s main aim is to maintain horses that are fit, healthy, happy, well educated and sound - Simon says this combination ultimately leads to racing success. “Be it barefoot or with correct shoeing, soundness is of the utmost importance to enable me to train a horse successfully,” Simon says. He has good statistics to back up his beliefs that 'bare is best': "Our yard hasn't had a tendon strain in over seven years..... in fact I can't remember the last one we had," he says of his horses. “My reasons for managing the horses barefoot where possible is that we see too many horses break down [within the racing industry, where they are commonly shod], and when this happens, I have always wanted to know why. All too often, it is down to the foot and there is no truer saying than ‘no foot, no horse’. I feel that prolonged shoeing of the horse can, in some cases, make the hoof migrate forwards, becoming too long in the toe, and with under-run heels,” Simon adds. "Being barefoot enables the horse’s hoof to function naturally..." “All of this puts more strain on the tendons and ligaments. Being barefoot enables the horse’s hoof to function naturally, and it is much easier to keep the horse’s balance right, and have weight bearing heels in the correct place, rather than under-run. We definitely have less joint problems [with the horses that are bare, when compared to the overall racing industry].” However, ten per cent of Simons horses are shod - why is this? “In my experience, some horses do not take to being barefoot, be it physically or due to time required to maintain their feet bare, and I am aware of the responsibilities of the trainer to the owner to see their horse running,” he states. “I assess every horse that comes into the yard with my farrier, and after discussion with the owner, we make a decision on whether to use shoes or keep the horse bare,” Simon says. The UK's most successful barefoot competition horse? Red Not Blue is a ten year old bay gelding by Blueprint, owned by The Plum Merchants, trained by Simon Earle, and ridden by many leading jockeys including Andrew Thornton and AP McCoy. The National Hunt racer has his own twitter handle - ‏@RedNotBlueHorse - and a cheeky attitude - recently tweeting Horse and Hound magazine when they featured a supposed lightweight horse shoe that could potentially help a horse go faster, saying: "Who needs shoes! Why pay silly money on shoes when you can go barefoot! #stillwinningraces." The horse recently ran at Newbury with jockey Dominic Elsworth, coming third and qualifying for the prestigious Pertemps Final, taking place during the Cheltenham Festival in March 2014. Red Not Blue has earned around £70,000 in his career and is a leading example of a successfully managed barefoot horse excelling in his discipline. So who said Thoroughbreds can't go barefoot?