No hind shoes?

[joeydb]

Anybody see this?

The other day at Keeneland for that $250k+ pick 6, in the 7th, the race without any past performance info, #6 La Gran Bailadora was noted to not be racing with rear shoes on. I've never seen that before, I threw the 6 out because of it but I don't want to make blanket assumptions about equipment changes like that, so I'm asking -- under what circumstances is this done and is it always worth throwing out the horse?

I assumed the horse had an injury that prevented shoeing the rear, and on that basis thought we were in for a sub par performance.

By the way, I only saw this on Keeneland's website, as they had the earliest notes on scratches, conditions and equipment changes. I bet through Philly Phonebet and they didn't post anything till later...not sure if they noted it or not.

Steve, this might make a good bullet to cover next time we talk about equipment changes on ATR. This is different than "one lb. over" or "blinkers on" in that it seems like a more rare change.

[herkhorse]

I've seen this a couple of times at Keeneland, was wondering about it as well.

[lndbtwtrks]

It's some new fad that trainers are doing. They say it helps on synthetic tracks.......i've been watching it pretty closely and to my knowledge I haven't seen a horse win yet without hind shoes at keeneland. Started at some farm in Florida or something like that.

[VOL JACK]

Originally Posted by lndbtwtrks

It's some new fad that trainers are doing. They say it helps on synthetic tracks.......i've been watching it pretty closely and to my knowledge I haven't seen a horse win yet without hind shoes at keeneland. Started at some farm in Florida or something like that.

I saw one win without them...right after Schrup and Bray on TVG said the horse was a toss because of the lack of hind shoes.
I guess that is why Simon Bray is in the booth, instead the winners circle.

[DerbyCat]

Trainer Steve Miyadi here in northern California has many of his horse race without the hind shoes and I have been told as well that he does it because it's supposed to help horses on the Tepeta - I don't know that it helps much and he's the ONLY trainer here doing that.

Before asking for reasons why ir was being done, I thought he was doing it to save money by not paying to have shoes put on his horses

[doll0608]

The reason a lot of horses are running without hind shoes is because they do not allow any bends or toe grabs. They check the shoes in the holding barn before the race and if they are shod incorrectly they just pull them off; some tracks would just assume late scratch the horse and fine the trainer.