ELEMENTS OF HIPPOLOGY. I47 



The front nail on each side should be in the anterior portion 

 of the quarter, and the other nails should equally divide the 

 distance to the heels. This rule is a flexible one. 



When a nail has been driven, the point should immediately 

 be twisted off, to prevent possible blemishes to the other feet in 

 case the horse should struggle. After the nails are all driven, 

 the clenches are turned slightly and evened with the rasp, to 

 make them the same length. A slight groove is then made on 

 the under side of the clenches in the horn and the clenches bent 

 into the groove. 



Clenches should not be rasped after being turned 

 down. 



They should be carefully flattened with the hammer. Any 

 filing, in addition to injuring the enamel, lessens the power 

 of holding. 



Except to make this groove for the clenches, the rasp should 

 not be used on the outside wall of the foot. Roughness in the 

 clenches can be smoothed by light taps, of the hammer. Rasping 

 the outside of the hoof removes the enamel that is there to keep 

 the foot from losing its moisture by evaporation; in the subse- 

 quent drying and shrinking the hoof is often cracked. 



The shoe should be neither too large nor too small, but 

 should fit the outside of the hoof perfectly in front of the rear- 

 most nails. In rear of these nails the shoe should gradually 

 broaden, to keep the ends from bearing on the seat of corn as 

 the shoe is brought forward, and to leave room for cleaning the 

 hoof between the frog and wall. 



If, the shoe is too small — the most common fault — the black- 

 smith will trim the .foot down to fit the shoe, a process called 

 dumping and thereby greatly weaken the wall. The nails, 

 too, are driven too near the sensitive tissues, and there is danger 

 of pricking. Even if the nails do not actually reach the sen- 

 sitive laminffi, if driven too near it, they will, by their pressure, 



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