Read this blog and found it so interesting...........who ever thought draught horses, feet and interesting could be used in the same sentence........she has done well

Is extreme shoeing for draught horses fair? | Horse & Country TV website | H&C TV

I read it and there are some valid points, although alot of info has been skipped/skimmed over.
But having been able to work with show Drafts and many other breeds.
I don't find in real life or the article that it is an extreme.
Race horses are long-low-to gain the most reach out of their stride and live in stalls 23 hours per day.
Show Hunters- are typically found in Aluminum bar shoes- travel 3-4 days a week and live in stalls on weekends-very limited turnout and wear boots when out.
The most outrageous are the Saddleseat/Park/Driving horses in certain breeds who wear high platforms and have no turnout.
If you look hard enough you can find the bad in every sport.

Several of us probably wish that they knew all that shoeing and plates and so on and so forth isn't completely neccessary. Though it looks pretty and sounds oh so helpful for the hoof.
First Drafts in general have naturally fairly correct hooves. They're not hard to maintain (except size takes longer!), and can be conditioned to rock-hard in surprisingly little time. I didn't like what the author said about their usage of plates; wearing them to " grow out their toes for a few months." Icky.

The hooves in the photo needed trimming, and were not ready for plates or shoes. You can see the old nail holes way up on the hoof, making it easy to see how much too long the toe is, and those flares. Condition that horse on hard ground w/ a few rocks and the long toes/flares definitely wouldn't be there.

Of course there is always worse.

I think that is kind of the point of the article Breeder. The silliness of the necessity of doing things that arn't necessary to our show horses just to be competative in the show pen.

Oops I meant "they" as in show-draft breeders/show-ers. But hey the article did sound so serious lol... She kept writing "we" as in herself included, oh well, now everyone knows my opinion! At least the author and I agree -unnesessitation.