I’ve never known any other animal apart from horses to need to be fitted with shoes. Why is this? And is this phenomenon strictly exclusive to domesticated horses? What about wild horses, then? If wild horses cope without them, why can’t domesticated horses?
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Domesticated horses often do a lot of specialised work which may put extra strain on their hooves. They may be used for farming, or be ridden very long distances, and they were often ridden on hard packed roads or cobble streets or paved roads which are unusually hard compared to the environments horses typically inhabited.
That doesn’t mean though that the hooves of horses in the wild don’t get injured. If that happens, they’re pretty much dead. In fact back when there were wild horse populations, probably most of them died due to injury at some point rather than old age.
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