LIFE WITH THE TEOTTEES. 309 



unsatisfactory; it will be sure to spoil the shape of the boots 

 so they won't fit any of the animals. If you do not live in 

 a town where there is a first-class boot or harness maker 

 and want either one of those articles, or in fact anything 

 that ai)pertains to a race-horse in the way of tools, you can 

 write to Fenton & Co., of Chicago, give them your order, 

 and you will be sure of getting the best goods in the market, 

 at a moderate price and with the least possible trouble 



Next we come to the shoeing. So many older, smarter, bet- 

 ter educated men than myself have written, lectured and said 

 so much about shoeing trotting horses that I approach the 

 subject with very little confidence in being able to give it any 

 new light. Theories I find to be all very well in books, 

 new^spapers, lectures, etc., but when those same theories 

 are put into actual practice they develope some unlooked- 

 for w^eakness which lets the wdiole structure fall to the 

 ground. The same I think, can truthfully be said in reg.ird 

 to shoeing a trotter. Any knowledge that I have in the 

 matter I have gained from actual practice, together with hints 

 and pointers from men like Mr. Robert Bonner and a few 

 others I could name wdio have made a lifetime study of the 

 matter. The first thing to be decided upon is how little weight 

 you can j)ossible use in the horse' s shoe to protect the foot 

 and at the same time -balance the horse so he will be able to 

 go at his highest rate of speed on a trot. What makes it 

 more difficult than anything else to give rules to shoe a 

 horse by is the fact that no two horses can be shod alike. 

 All horses are formed differently, gaited differentlj^, and 

 have different dispositions. In all the great number of 

 horses that I have had I can not now remember of any two 

 that I shod exactly alike. I hardly think that anyone out- 

 side of an expert ever realizes how much difference it makes 

 to a fast horse to make his shoes a couple of ounces heavier 

 or lighter, but I know plenty of horses with whom to take off 

 or put on two ounces on each forward foot would be enough to 

 change the result of the race. Now if this is true, and I am 

 sure that it is, the shoeing of the horse is of very great im- 



