FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 309 



I am not criticising the work of the several contestants, but simply 

 stating the facts that I, as judge of the contest, passed on, and I am 

 willing to go on record as saying that if all of the horses in the United 

 States, or the world, for that matter, were as well shod as this bunch of 

 colts were, with the one exception mentioned above, it would be a Godsend 

 and a blessing to many a poor, old, sore-footed, faithful friend of man. 

 And it would be the direct means of saving of millions of dollars to the 

 horse owners, and also the direct means of saving the lives of thousands 

 of horses yearly. 



IMPRESSIONS ON THE PUBLIC. 



Now, to take a glimpse at the contest from the public's standpoint. 

 After the shoeing was finished and each job passed on, the public was 

 permitted to view the work at close range, and I'll wager that many a 

 farmer, his wife and children, will head right for the horseshoeing tent 

 at the next Iowa State Fair. It was really interesting to notice the interest 

 taken in this work, the questions asked, and, pardon the remark, the 

 ignorance displayed, in regard to the knowledge, or, rather, lack of 

 knowledge, pertaining to the hoof of the horse. Actually, I met farmers 

 there, owners of any numbers of horses, who would lead you to believe 

 that they did not know that the hoof of the horse grew, that it was a 

 sensitive structure, endowed with the most delicate and sensitive 

 mechanism and organism imaginable, and that the least deviation from 

 right, in working on it, not only injures the foot alone, but that as the 

 foundation of the whole body, it renders the animal absolutely useless 

 for the time being, until the harm done is remedied, if possible. In 

 innumerable cases this is at times impossible, and the animal must either 

 be destroyed, or, far worse yet, travel through its miserable existence a 

 life-long cripple. 



One rancher asked me to show him just where it was safe to drive a 

 nail. He said he did his own shoeing, and that the only way he could 

 tell that the nail was not going into the right place was by the animal 

 letting him know that it was being hurt, or by drawing blood. On ask- 

 ing him what he usually did after he drove a nail into the sensitive 

 laminae, he laughed and said: "Oh, I simply turn them loose and let 

 them rustle around until the next season, stating that he had "jimmed" 

 (as he called it) as high as ten to fifteen good cow-ponies in one season 

 by driving nails into their feet. Now, to hear a man, apparently intelli- 

 gent, tell one a tale like the above makes one shudder and wonder if we 

 really are living in the Year of Our Lord 1914. 



The state of Iowa, in promoting this contest, does so with the object 

 in view not to make speed contests alone, but educational contests, to 

 educate the public, and to rightly impress them with the operation of 

 protecting the main organ of the horse, the organ that we must keep in 

 working order at all times, the organ that without which the whole 

 animal is rendered useless as a working tool for a man. "No foot, no 

 horse." How true, but how abused, is this very foundation of the noble 

 animal; it is cut, rasped, burned and mutilated until he is rendered use- 

 less, and is sent to a premature death. 



