One of my boys had shoes when we got him, the other didn't. His hooves were pretty tough, but the ground he was used to was softer than our paddock so he cracked one of his hooves pretty quickly. We put shoes on him at that point to allow the crack to grow out as it was quite long and then after that, left the shoes off him. We got the farrier in to file his hooves down as they started to get small cracks or flare out at the bottom.

The other horse didn't have strong hooves. He'd always worn shoes and we continued with it. We'd had him for about two years and he fought with another horse through a fence and sliced the lower part of his leg open. He required stitches for a while and daily injections for a week and once the stitches came out we had his shoes removed. We had to keep him in the small holding pen of a cattle yard for six weeks while the injury healed. After that, it was a few months before I could ride him again, so his hooves toughened up and we never put shoes on him again. He was 13 when the injury occurred...he's now 30!

Neither horse did any showing or pony club while with us though, never been floated again. All riding was in the paddock or on dirt tracks on the side of the road, so they weren't on super hard surfaces. So having no shoes worked well for us.