Intermediate Shoeing

The farrier is the person who shoes your horse (as opposed to a blacksmith who works with metal in general -- and in older times often shoed horses as well). He'll use several tools in this process:



1. Rasp - used for, well, rasping. Think of it as a horse-sized nail-file.

2. Clinch cutter - I'd say the use is fairly self-explanitory. At least if you know that the clinches are the part of the nail that pokes out (and is folded over) at the top of the hoof.

3. Pritchel - This is a scary looking metal spike that the farrier uses to hold the hot shoe. Also used in forging to create the nail holes in the shoes.

4. Toe Knife - once-upon-a-time used for trimming the hoof; now rarely seen as preference seems to be for the specialized tools of the drawing knife and the hoof trimmer.

5. Drawing Knife - used to trim the frog or pare away excess sole. This knife is easily recognizable because it has a hook on it.

6. awww comeon, you don't really need me to tell you what this is do you? What's it look like? Yes, it's a Hammer.

7. Shoe Puller -- used for... yup, pulling shoes. Also sometimes called Pincers

8. Hoof Trimmer -- yet another inventive name. Also sometimes called Nippers

9. Clincher -- for closing the part of the nail that sticks out, thereby making the clinches.

Now that you know what tools your farrier will be using, how about what he's going to do?

1. Remove the old shoe. This has a few steps in itself:

• Open the clinches
  
• Either extract nails or use shoe-pullers to pull shoe (always pull toward the frog; both heels, then toe, repeat till off)
  
• Remove any remaining nails

2. Evaluate the hoof (the farrier will check wear patterns, balance, shape and symmetry).

3. Trim the hoof.

4. Select a shoe and reshape it to fit the hoof (it's important that the shoe be fit to the hoof not the hoof to the shoe!)

5. Nail on shoe. Amazing how the simplest instructions arguably requires the most skill.

6. Set and file clinches.

7. Farrier may choose to apply hoof sealer or fill in old nail holes.

And then once that's done, how do you know if your farrier has done a good job?

• the shoe should fit the hoof (shoe reaches heels - or possibly past if necessary)
  
• the shoe is held on by six to eight nails
  
• the toe and heel of each pair of feet should match (ie one front foot should look like the other)
  
• the bulbs of the heels should be even
  clenches should be even; they will usually be about cm from the bottom of the foot
  
• when moving the feet should land evenly
  
• angle of the hoof matches the angle of the pastern
  
• **the frog should touch the ground - this one gets a couple stars because depending which paper you read or which farrier and/or vet you talk to, you'll get a different answer. All agree it should touch the ground when the horse is moving, but there's debate over whether it should be in contact when standing still. Reasonable in-between seems to be yes if on soft ground but not necessarily if on hard ground.