SHOEING YOUNG HORSES. Ill 



expedients must be resorted to in securing the benefits of 

 shoeing. 



Some horses are long, low striders, and others high, short 

 steppers. Some require heavy and some light shoes, and every 

 style of open, bar, flat, concave, rolling, and weighted shoes, 

 with dift'erent lengths of toes and heels, are necessary, amongst 

 the rest, for times and occasions,, to regulate and balance the 

 action of difi'erent horses ; and much of the success that should 

 attend the acquirement of a pure gait, or the correction of a 

 faulty one, depends upon the discretion exercised in the selection 

 of the riffht kind of shoe. 



When the action of a horse is short, high, and quick, or 

 " choppy," in front, it will generally be found that the toe of 

 the foot is too short and the heels too high, or that the pasterns 

 and shoulders are upright. This can be remedied in effect by 

 lowering the heels as much as possible, which will bring the 

 foot more to the ground. In case the front part of the hoof has 

 been rasped or pared too short, the shoe should be extended over 

 and beyond the toe, and thus acquire a proper extent of ground 

 surface. The weight of the shoe must be determined by the 

 driver or owner as to what is best adapted for the horse to 

 carry with ease and safety. 



When the action in front is long and low and stifi:-kneed, 

 put the foot in shape as for the perfect foot (Fig. 23), and use 

 the scoop-toe rolling-motion shoe shown in Figs. 121 and 134, 

 which will shorten the stride by lessening the extent of the 

 ground tread, and at the same time efi'ect an increase of knee 

 action. A still more efficient aid in these respects will be found 

 in the use of the plain rolling-motion shoe (Fig.125), for in pro- 

 portion to the increase of the roll in the shoe, so will be the 

 increase of the action in the knee. The roll heightens and 

 hastens the action, imparting, as it were, a " down-hill " impulse 

 to the ste 



A common cause of bad action in speed horses is tenderness 



