SHOEING

SHOEING. When a foot deviates from the sound form, the shoe must be formed accordingly. If the sole is in any degree flat and thin, the wide hollow shoe is absolutely necessary. If the heels are tender, and have corns, the bar shoe is the best that can be applied ; and the tender heel, including part of the quarter, crust as well as sole, should be so pared down as to be at the distance of a quarter of an inch or more from the corresponding part of the shoe. In preparing the foot for the shoe, the loose parts only of the sole may be removed with the drawing knife; the ragged parts of the frog should be cut away, as they may serve to harbour dirt or gravel. If the toe of the frog is very hard and more prominent than the other parts, it should be pared down moderately. The heel of the shoe should have a perfectly fiat and level bearing upon the junction of the bar and crust, which should be rasped to a flat surface for receiving it. The shoe should never extend beyond this part. The whole bottom of the foot, indeed, should be rasped so as to be perfectly flat and level all around, so that, when the horse stands on a plain surface, every part of the crust should bear on that surface. The shoe should be made level also on both surfaces, by the same criterion, and then it must, of necessity, be fitted to the foot. When this is the case, there will not be that motion in the shoe in travelling, by which so many shining surfaces are often worn in it, and by which the nails are loosened, and if they are made of indifferent iron, or badly made, often broken. Half shoes tacked on the feet of horses turning out to grass, are called tips.

Harewood, Harry. A Dictionary of Sports. London: T. Tegg and son, 1835.

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