XVII. FORGING. 



This is a very annoying fault and the same rules to 

 remedy it do not apply to all horses, for what will stop one 

 may not stop another. Most all forging will be done jog- 

 ging, or going an ordinary road gait. From forging comes 

 the scalping which is very dangerous when the horse begins 

 to brush along, as scalping creates rough and bad gaited 

 horses. There are many horses that will forge or scalp 

 going slow in the same shoes that suit them for speed. It 

 is hard to shoe all horses with a set of shoes that will suit 

 the horse, the driver and a faulty gait at varying rates of 

 speed, all at the same time. Horses that are low gaited in 

 front that forge jogging, need as a rule, a lot more weight 

 in their front shoes. Horses that go high gaited with lots 

 of knee action in front that forge require a light shoe. 

 Forgers usually have excessive action either in front or 

 behind. Locate the faulty end, see if the horse has too 

 much action in front and not enough behind, or if he has 

 too much behind and not enough in front. Get a line on 

 his gait before you make any changes, perhaps you may 

 not have to change but one end of him to either increase 

 or decrease action. Weight in the shoe is the important 

 factor applied to a perfectly balanced foot, whether it is a 

 front foot or a hind foot. You can add weight to the front 

 or hind feet, as may be desired, to increase action, or de- 

 crease the weight to decrease the action at either end. Now 

 right here I will say, a horse jogging hardly feels a change 

 of weight of one, two or three ounces, but will show the 

 effect of five or six ounces from the start. Do not be afraid 

 to apply a heavy shoe to hind feet for if his action re- 

 quires it to prevent forging, the horse will like it better 

 and so will you. 



In adding weight to hind feet you will be increasing 

 the hock action and in some horses it will take considerable 

 weight to do it; horses going an ordinary road gait will 



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