2,000-year old Roman horse shoes were unearthed during an archeological dig in London. The shoes attached to a horse’s hooves using leather straps, making them “hipposandals” rather than actual shoes.

According to Wikipedia, the hipposandal was the predecessor of the type of nail on shoes we see today.

The hipposandal, which appears in the Celtic-Roman area north of the Alps around the mid-1st century AD,^[1] was the next step in the development of hoof protection, where the sole of the boot was made of metal. It included an oval-shaped cup of thick metal that enclosed and protected the hoof, complete with a fixation system. The device was fastened to the hoof by metallic clips and leather laces. Like the Soleae Sparteae and soleae ferreae, the hipposandal increased ground adherence of draught animals,^[6] thereby giving them better traction,^[4] and protected the hoof on rough ground. To further improve traction, the bottom of each hipposandal was grooved.

Funny how the current trend in horse boots is, in many ways, a new version of an ancient type of hoof protection.

It just goes to show that there are very few new ideas.