To Shoe or Not to Shoe

I got bad news from the vet today. Deli is having a recurrence of EPM. WE can treat her with medicine that won't hurt her foal, but she's likely to never be a good riding horse for what we want to do again. I'm hoping to send her to my friend Eric's in MO to be a broodmare, get light "company" riding and live the life of leisure. Of course, these are my plans, neither endorsed nor declined at this time by my friend Eric. I have my fingers crossed that he'll take her.

I have to find my kid a horse she can ride. I can't bear for her to finally be 10 years old and not be able to compete. We have waited for this so long. I have a lead on another horse...just have to wait and see how this whole thing pans out. ON one hand I feel like a major heel plotting out my next horse, but OTOH, I know that I can't board a horse forever that can't be ridden...or can't ever be ridden in my sport. I knew that some day I would have to face this, but I didn't expect it to be now, and I didn't expect it to be Deli.

Which brings me to Freeley...I showed him to the vet too. He's lame b/c of his gash and it's infected despite my best attempts to keep it clean. This vet said no wrapping, so I unwrapped it. He watched Freeley move and I figured we'd do some chiropractic work on him. WRONG! He's lame in both of his front feet...which is why he looks reasonably sound most of the time and why speeding him up actually fixes him temporarily. They xrayed his feet and he has rotation from a past founder in his front. It's very slight, only 2 degrees, so he thinks that he's fixable. However, he wants me to shoe the horse with corrective shoes to fix it. All my barefooting instincts tell me this is the wrong answer. I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm not convinced that shoes is the right answer. OTOH, I know the vet says it's a good idea. I know that no one will agree on this...both sides will say they are right and as a consumer, I honestly don't know what the right answer is.