Rugs
It is common for rugged horses to suffer from overheating. Western Australian winters are not cold enough to warrant rugging horses unless they are clipped, washed or ill.

• Clipping obviously removes their naturally warm coats.
• Washing removes the oil from their coats, making them very much less effective at keeping the horse warm.
• An ailing horse may need all the help available to ensure a speedy return to good health.

Warming Food
Keeping horses warm internally with good, plentiful food is preferable to rugging. A horse in hard work or a ‘bad doer’ may need hard feed. Apart from the usual oats and barley, which can tend to fizz a horse, gristed maize is an excellent internal warmer without fizzing them.
Amount - Start with one handful and increase according to the horse and work, until the individual optimum level is reached. (Always use two parts chaff to one part hard feed to prevent bolting the food.) Dampen the food to prevent inhalation of dust.

Shoes
Horses are happiest without shoes.
It is not always necessary to shoe a horse, even those in hard work. It depends on two things:
the horse’s natural foot (for instance thoroughbreds often have soft feet, while standardbreds’ feet are usually hard and durable)
the surface they are normally worked on (hard surfaces wear the feet down more quickly than soft surfaces)

Even if you do need to shoe your horse, you may be able to just shoe the front feet.