My horse has a club foot...?

I'm calling the vet out tomorrow to look at it. I've had the horse for 3 years and we've had shoes on and off of her twice. The leg and hoof have been xrayed by the vet. I'm so confused about this horse right now it's almost ridiculous. One farrier tells me the horse is doing fine, and another farrier tells me she is going to be crippled within months if we don't put corrective shoes on her. But hey, even if we do put the corrective shoes on her, will I be able to ride her? How light or how hard? Will she ever be balanced enough? Am I balanced enough to help her? I use to work with one trainer, very smart, yet blunt woman, who I ran into the other day and she asked how my horse was... I said fine, I haven't ridden her twice in about a year due to no time, and she told me "Face it, your horse has a defect, you should just retire her." When I use to ride her though, she seemed fine, I just couldn't really canter her cause she was so unbalanced. But now, I'm wondering if I haven't really ridden her in over a year, what could happen now if I just hopped on her? Could she go lame? I need a lot of opinions here on what exactly I should do. Obviously, I'll do whatever the vet says, money isn't the issue. The issue is- I want to barrel race, more than anything in the world. I'm almost sure my horse can't do this and if she did she'd probably end up hurt...right? So do I push my chances by shoeing her and training her to barrel only to be defeated and have her hurt in the end? Or do I just shoe her, and let her be a yard ornament for the rest of her life? Mind you...she's only 8 years old...and I refuse to sell her because I know anyone else would just sell her for dog food and that IS NOT happening to my beloved horse. HELP!