Toe Grabs: Conclusion

Flashing back to 2000: Since my entry into horse racing the toe grab debate had loomed, more among the academics than those at the track. For those of us racing horses, we had to make a decision, and I'd decided to settle the perplexing question for my horses once and for all by putting the shoe options to the test.

I spent a lot of time just staring at shoes. I picked them up to feel the weight, considered shoe thickness and cushioning, imagined visually on grab length, depth of fullering, layout of the ground surface and so on, the multiple possibilities for performance, and injury causation for each shoe. Many possibilities here when you include putting different styles on the same horse fronts and hinds.

I arrived at my conclusions after several weeks of this sort of pondering combined with observation track side as to questions of traction, stride efficiency, length, and ease, and a quality that I term "stride confidence" meaning how confident did the horse act in moving down the track, were the shoes bothering the horse in any way?

Here is what I came up with:

Different styles fronts and hinds: this is a complex shoeing. It also seems to be getting popular of late to place a non-grab traction shoe on the fronts and grabs on the hinds. I've inquired, but am yet to figure out what type of shoe the top trainers are using on the fronts. I've looked at a lot of photos that seem to show horses racing without front grabs.

I tried several different variations on front and rear. My conclusions observationally were comparative to the same horse galloping in the same style on all fours. I concluded there is a slight but perceptible difference in the galloping when different styles are used front to hind. I observed the horse less comfortable, more uncertain of its stride and there was some negative effect on stride efficiency. Emphasize that the differences were small and hard to see. It makes sense. Different styles are going to give you a different rate of turnover front to hind. To the horse I suspect the difference is noticeable and uncomfortable. I elminated style variation from my options.

Straight Queens Plates: this completely toeless shoe I'd eliminated years earlier as non-competitive. However, for those advocating Queens on front and grabs on hinds, I had two problems: 1. horses tend to slide and paddle on deep surfaces in Queens, and 2. the shoe is thicker and of completely different character in its fullering and ground surface to any grab shoe. Queens were already out for me.

Queens XTs: These shoes were involved in my experiment, and I'd also used them on all four feet for years. XTs offer slightly better traction that Queens. Horses can race in them, but, the XT deficiencies in terms of traction on a deep surface were already apparent to me and the big reason for my experiment. XTs on all four legs were out for me after observing the more confident, sure stride of my horses in grabs.

Thoro'bred Racing Plate Co. Low Toes: this is a very light shoe weight wise (presumably, good) but the lesser weight is accomplished by thinning out the branches of the shoe so that there is virtually zero cushioning. Hard to see on a hard track how use of this shoe would fail to "sting" the horse. Additionally, due to the thinness, the fullering is so shallow as to make traction on this shoe soley dependent on the tiny grab. This is a low effect shoe--other than the grab it might as well not be there. On the track Aylward moved significantly better in Low Toes than XTs. He seemed more comfortable in them than myself who wanted to avoid fracturing a coffin bone with these non shoes. There were better options than the Low Toes.

Level Grips: The size of the grab on Level Grips is identical to Low Toes. It is a small grab. However, compared to Low Toes, level grips are an outer rim shoe--meaning that the outer rim of the shoe is higher than the inner rim along with deep fullering. In combo these qualities provide Level Grips with significant traction advantage compared to Low Toes. This showed on the track but was slight. You'd have to look carefully to notice. By these eyes the horse looked better in Level Grips than Low Toes, barely, but, it was there. Believe you'd see a bigger difference on a deep sand track(we were at the hard Eureka Track). Level Grips were a candidate.

Regular Grabs: Aylward showed improvement in all aspects of his stride in Regular Grabs Compared to Low Toes. Only Groovin' Wind used the Level Grips, though Aylward used them after the experiment was over. I decided against Regular Grabs for two reasons: 1. I was still influenced by the possibility that this size grab on the fronts might contribute to injury, and 2. the difference I was seeing between Groovin'Wind in Level Grips and Aylward in Regular Grabs was slight.

Bottom Line--after several weeks I decided that the difference competitively between Level Grips and Regular Grabs is slight. Given the injury possibility of the long grab there was zero reason to take a chance. Level Grips it is, was the decision, and I've been sticking to it. Please note that I've yet to use Level Grips on a deep surface. Should this shoe provide insufficient traction, I'd got to Regular Grabs without hesitation based on my observations and conclusions. There's a possibility that Regular Grabs contribute to injury causation, but I have my doubts on this for the conditioned horse.