How Important Are Shoes for a Race Horse? They Can Make the Difference Between Winning and Losing

Thoroughbred horse racing is a sport that is all about speed. How fast they can get out of the gate. How quickly they can get into good position. How fast the first ⅛, the first ¼, the first half mile, the first mile. A fraction of a second in a horse race can be, literally, the difference between winning and losing. Between the winner’s share and the second and third place share. It wasn’t always this way, but nowadays in major stakes races a horse can get a share of the purse by finishing fifth or better, so the bottom line is this: in horse racing, speed is everything. And since speed is everything, then it naturally follows that the shoes of a race horse, and how light or heavy they are, are critically important.rnLike a human sprinter (Usain Bolt) would be a good example) that uses shoes that are so light they literally feel like feathers in order to simulate the feeling of running barefoot, the idea for a race horse is for their feet to feel as light as possible, as if they were running in the wild, while still being protected.rnOutside of horse racing, sturdy steel shoes are used, and they provide horses with tremendous comfort and, most importantly, support. This is all accomplished at the expense of speed, because a plow horse certainly isn’t being timed. On the other hand, race horses have that lighter, but nearly just as sturdy stuff called aluminum. The front and hind legs on a race horse are handled differently. An aluminum shoe called a racing plate is attached to the front legs. The hind legs need more support since they bare more weight, so a shoe, mostly aluminum, known in the racing industry as a cauk, or a caulk, is embedded with steel to help in terms of wear resistance and improve the abrasion rate on the shoe. The greatest stress that a thoroughbred horse will encounter while running a race, from the standpoint of the legs and the shoe, is on the turns. Centrifugal force on an 1100 pound animal with such a massive body on such spindly legs while running all out and turning at the same time explains why the shoes on the hind legs need a little steel in them. So the next time you’re waxing nostalgic and watching that 1973 Kentucky Derby with Secretariat, the sloppy 1977 Belmont when Seattle Slew clinched his Triple Crown, or the more recent 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic in which the amazing mare Zenyatta beat the boys, you will know that their shoes had a little something to do with their historic victories.