Humane Cattle Pens, Custom Designs and Behavior Consulting
A return to Common Sense Part 2a
Look at the shoeing on this x-ray. The Golden Rule of Horseshoeing is to “Shape the shoe to fit the foot and not the foot to fit the shoe.” The shoe set back from the toe in this image exemplifies what not to do. The toe is filed back to meet the shoe. Don’t let this happen to your horse. Shoeing a horse this way can cause a change in the horse’s natural gait, shorten its stride, and cause your horse to trip with you on its back.
Sometimes called “backing up the toe” or a “Mustang Roll,” horseshoers say that trimming them as nature would trim them if the horse were out on the range traveling several miles daily. Dr. Jack Roth, an Oklahoma veterinarian-farrier, calls practice bad and ugly horseshoeing. Dr. Roth was my teacher. I attended his horseshoeing school in the early 1980s. Setting the shoe back was considered a mistake, and the horse had to be done over before to receive a passing grade. I have a theory of how setting the shoe back came to be considered an accepted practice.
When I started shoeing professionally, after trimming the foot and shaping the shoe, I got ready to nail the shoe on the foot by placing the toe of the shoe in line with the toe of the foot. The golden rule of horseshoeing is, “Shape the shoe to fit the foot and not the foot to fit the shoe.” But, when I set the first nail and drove it in, it invariably pulled the shoe back from the toe. I would have to pull it off and start again. After a few attempts, I finally got it right, but it took time, effort, and more time on every foot that wore me out. Finally, I figured it out. I set the shoe FORWARD of the toe before I drove the first nail. When I did that, the shoe ended up in the proper position flush with the toe when it slid back. I shared this trick with shoers over the years and most appreciated it. But, seeing how many shoers continue to make this simple mistake and never figure out how to prevent it shows they’re incapable of learning from their mistakes as I did. Nowadays, it’s so common that they’ve come up with many excuses that make no sense to justify it.
Remember the golden rule: “Shape the shoe to fit the foot and not the foot to fit the shoe.” If your shoer can’t do it, find another shoer. A shoe set back from the toe and the toe filed off can cause your horse to trip with you on its back.
Attached is an article by Dr. Alexandra Carlson titled: Balanced Hooves for Balanced Horses: Conformation and Trimming
