INJURIES FROM SHOEING. 99 



more serious is the lameness resulting from a nail wliich 

 I^ierces the sensitive foot and is not recognized at once 

 Ijj the farrier. As a rule, lameness is immediate, and 

 should the horse perform a journey before the nail is 

 removed, serious damage is certain to follow. 



Want of skill in driving a nail is not always the 

 chief cause of " binding " or " pricking " a horse. More 

 often than not the form and position of the nail-holes is 

 the primary cause, for if the nail-holes in the shoe are 

 too "coarse" or badly pitched, it is quite impossible to 

 safely drive nails through them. Sometimes the nails 

 are defective, and this was much more common when, 

 nails were all hand- made. Bad iron or bad workman- 

 ship led to nails sj^litting within the hoof, and whilst 

 one half came out through the wall, the other portion 

 turned in and penetrated the sensitive foot, causing a 

 most dangerous injury. The best brands of machine- 

 made nails, now generally used, are remarkably free 

 from this defect. 



No lameness resulting from injury by a nail should 

 be neglected. If detected and attended to at once, few 

 cases are serious. If neglected, the very simplest may 

 end in permanent damage to the horse. By treating 

 these accidents as unpardonable, horse-owners rather 

 encourage farriers to disguise them or to not acknowledge 

 them. If the workman would always be careful to 

 search for injury, and when he found it acknowledge the 

 accident, many simple cases would cease to develop into 

 serious ones. Frank acknowledgment is always best, 

 but is less likely to take place when it is followed by 

 unqualified blame than when treated as an accident wliich 

 may have been accompanied by unavoidable difficulties. 



From Clips lameness may arise. A badly drawn 

 clip is not easily laid level and flat on the wall. When, 

 liammered down excessively, it causes pressure on the 

 sensitive foot, and lameness. When side clips are used — 

 one each side of the foot — it is not difficult to cause lame- 

 ness by driving them too tightly against the wall. They 

 then hold the hoof as if in a vise. When shoes get loose 



