On The Hoof

On The Hoof

 

The Perfect Shoeing Job - Is There Such A Thing?

 

I met Lee Green, farrier of renown from Yucaipa, CA, back in 1983 when he helped me survive my first horseshoeing contest. It was the World Championship Blacksmithing competition at the Calgary Stampede–holding with my apparent belief that when you step in something you should go in all the way up to your neck! Lee recognized how overwhelmed I was and graciously gave me a bunch of his time, helping me get through the contest unscathed and un-humiliated.

 

I have been a big fan of this former world champion shoer ever since.

 

I ran into Lee most recently about 5 years ago in Las Cruces, NM, where he was giving a clinic for the New Mexico Professional Horseshoers Association.  After showing us some of his tips and tricks developed over 50 some years of shoeing horses, Mr. Green asked, “How many of you have ever done a perfect shoeing job?”

 

Well, not too many hands went up. Most of us probably believed we had come mighty close a time or two, but perfection? That’s a lot to ask. Then he asked us to give a definition of the perfect shoeing job, and just like everything else in the horse world that brought out about as many different answers as there were people in the room. Once we all finished expressing our personal opinions of perfection, Lee said there are four parts to the perfect shoeing job.

 

Yeah, it drew a good laugh, but when you break it down there’s a lot of truth right there. Number 4 is there for punch line value, but it does serve as a reminder to have your check book with you when you go out to the barn. If the shoer is going have to wait for payment or a held check, then please tell him before the work gets done. It’s much easier on the stomach lining that way.

 

Number 3 might raise a chuckle too, but horseshoeing is one of the most dangerous professions that there is. A shoer can literally be “kicked out of business” as fast as you can sneeze. Please be sure to have a nice clear safe area for the farrier to work: free of debris, barbed wire, and dogs and such. Make sure to have some fly spray on hand.

 

Now for the top 2 on the list. They kind of go together, don’t they? After all, if you accomplish Number 1 then 2 is sure to follow. If Old Paint is sound and able to do his job- which in our case is to carry us around full bore while we blast away at balloons- then his personal human is going to be tickled plumb to pieces. This may seem over simplified, but I don’t know how many folks have told me that their horse is sore after the farrier comes out and they have been told that’s normal.

 

To that I say: HORSE HOCKEY!

 

The reason for putting on shoes to begin with is to protect the foot when wear exceeds length. Unless we are dealing with some sort of lameness problem that is going to require veterinary and farrier consultation over some length of time (such as an acute laminitis case or the like), the horse must be sound and comfortable when the shoer sets down the fourth foot. That’s an absolute, and there aren’t many in the equine world.

 

So he’s sound; now is he able to do his job? Well, let’s have a look.

 

To travel at speed through a mounted shooting course packing an adrenalin charged human with a smoking .45 requires a horse to be pretty athletic.  Human athletes wear appropriate footwear so that they can perform up to their potential. A basketball player could play in cowboy boots, but not very well.  In the same way, the equine athlete needs the right kind of shoe.

 

That’s why I like a light rim shoe on my mounted shooing horses (like the one in the photo).  The rims give good traction and at the same time allow a quick break over so that the horse can move its feet with ease. This particular shoe is made by Kerchart and has a finished heel like an Eventer shoe. This keeps the horses heels up on top of the footing a bit better than a regular rim shoe, and it is lighter than the Eventer or Euro shoe so that the horse is traveling as naturally as possible.  This makes for less stress on the tendons and joints of the lower leg, which is always a good thing for these hard running horses.

 

Note that the shoe is fit to the foot, not the other way around.  

 

Nailing on a keg shoe right out of the box and then rasping the hoof until it fits is unacceptable.  You wouldn’t jam your foot into a boot that’s a size too small because that’s the only size the store has! The horseshoe needs to be sized so that it fits exactly to the points of the heel. I know there is a school of thought that would have us hanging shoes back to the bulbs of the heel for support, and they may be right for a pleasure horse that barely travels as fast at a lope as I walk to the refrigerator at halftime.  But extra shoe won’t do on a mounted shooting horse. I’d say that 99.9% of the wrecks I’ve seen in the CMS arena have been the result of the horse stepping on the heel of a front shoe with a hind foot- usually in the barrel turn. Give them protection, but fit ‘em close.

 

A look from the side shows this foot to have a slightly “rocked” toe. I like this on the front feet of all my performance horses for ease of breakover and for natural movement. Note that the hoof wall makes one smooth angle from hairline to the shoe.  There’s no excessive flare to the foot, no toe dubbing (rasping straight up and down), no excessive rasping on the hoof wall to the point of weakening the wall.

 

The shoe is set with “a nickel’s worth” of expansion. That is to say that the shoe sticks out to the side at the heels about the width of a nickel. The shoe is wider here to allow for the natural expansion of the foot when it bears weight. Too little expansion restricts circulation, too much is another place to step and cause a fall. One and one-sixteenths of an inch, or “a nickels worth” is about right. This horse is also shod with quarter clips, which reduce shear forces on the nails and simply help keep the shoe from twisting and getting loose as time goes on.

 

Finally, let’s look at the finish of the foot, particularly the clinches. In horseshoeing competition I’ve seen judges drag a nylon stocking across the foot to see if it hangs up anywhere, but in everyday shoeing work we don’t get quite that picky. I do want to see clinches that are about a third of the way up the wall from the shoe, and they should be square- about as long as they are wide. If the clinch is too long there’s a very good chance it could catch on something and straighten out. Not only do you then have a chance of a loose shoe, but you also have a little ¼ inch knife blade sticking out of the side of the hoof–and those can make for some very nasty cuts. I am going to run my hand over it to make sure that there are no sharp places on the shoe, the hoof or the clinches. Anything that MIGHT cut me WILL cut my horse.

 

And there, Lee Green, we have a perfect shoeing job. The horse is sound and ready to go chase balloons, the shooter is happy, nobody got hurt, we hope, and … well you know the rest!
 

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