14 
1' H E P i: R C H E R C) N R E \^ I E \V 
wet. Riding a stallion through meadows or pastures when 
heavj- dew is on is excellent for the hoofs. 
Always keep the foot as nearly level as possible. This 
rule applies to horses of all ages, and particularly to the 
young, growing colt. Sidebones are frequently caused by 
allowing one side of the hoof to wear off short. Then the 
weight is shifted to the short side, which almost invariably 
sets up inflammation, causing a sidebone sooner or later. 
Use a rasp and pinchers to trim a horse's feet, but not a 
chisel. One cannot use the latter and be certain that he is 
trimming the foot lc\'el. 
Growing a Hoof Prior to Shoeing 
Use the rasp sparingly on the hoof walls of a show horse, 
for if one wears away the glossy appearance, the hoof texture 
soon becomes dry and brittle and the feet go to pieces. There 
is no danger, however, from rasping the feet of the ordinary 
farm horse, if it is done only when he is shod, for usually he 
is not shod more than twice a year. Better keep very light 
plates on the show horse all the time to protect the hoof 
wall and allow it to grow. I always take a very light plate 
shoe and hammer it out until it is extremely thin at the heel. 
Then when one gets ready to shoe for show, he has a foot 
to work on. Too many people think that if they get a good 
horse shoer a few dajs before starting out to the fairs that 
he can fix up the feet. That oftentimes proves a sad mis- 
take. In many cases it takes months of careful work to get 
feet in the proper shape, and sometimes a year. Nobody can 
shoe a draft horse perfectly unless there is plenty of toe, and 
if not, it takes time to grow it. A heel that is too high can- 
not be cut down as it should be all at once. The work must 
be gradual or else soreness will result. It usually takes two 
or three trimmings to correct a high heel. If the quarter is 
lacking, keep the toe short, and that will throw more wear 
on the toe, less on the heel, and consequently the quarters 
will have a better chance to grow. Of course, if a foot is 
naturally well shaped and properly set, it doesn't take much 
of an effort to keep it that way. Always allow the frog to 
grow as long as it will. A great many people think that a 
horse isn't neatly shod unless the frog, bar and sole are pared 
away closely. No worse mistake was ever made, and any 
horse shoer who will do that to please his customer is doing 
nothing short of cruelty to animals. Never under any cir- 
cumstances cut away the bar or sole unless it is diseased. 
Six Half-Sisters on an Illinois Farm 
Then it is necessary in order to treat the affected tissue with 
medicine and cure it. Nature has provided the frog, bar and 
sole to protect the inner and very tender parts of the foot. 
The Colt's Feet 
The colt should have his feet carefully watched, always 
keeping them trimmed level. There is very little that can 
be done to readjust the set of feet and pasterns on a mature 
horse, but the young colt is easily susceptible to such changes. 
The set of feet and pasterns can be thrown one way or the 
other if it is done while the bones and joints are still yoiing 
and flexible. If the colt stands too close behind or in front, 
keep the inside toe of the hoof a bit shorter than the outside, 
and have the inside quarter a trifle higher. To throw the 
feet closer together, lengthen the inside of the toe and keep 
the outside quarter slightly higher than the inside. The 
mature horse that toes out badly in front, nigger heel fashion, 
is hard to help with shoes, for his legs do not set straight 
under him. The growing colt can be helped considerably 
by proper shoeing because his joints are still capable of being 
twisted slightly. Beware of the stallion with this fault, for 
there is no characteristic which draft horses transmit to their 
offspring with as much certainty as nigger heels. 
How to Shoe Show Horses 
Horseshoers and showmen disagree many times on the 
kind of shoes to use to show a big horse to the best advantage. 
My 30 years' experience as a fitter and shoer of all breeds 
of draft horses, besides several years spent in Scotland in the 
same work, have thoroughly convinced me that more horses 
have their action ruined by heavy shoes than are ever helped 
hv them. One should varv the weight of the shoe with the 
size of the liorse. A two-pound shoe is heavy enough for a 
yearling stallion, whereas I sometimes use as much as three 
pounds in a shoe for an aged horse. If a horse is a bad 
goer, a heavy shoe will frequently make him worse. More 
can be done to perfect a horse's action by correcting as nearly 
as possible the shape and set of his feet than by loading him 
with heavy shoes. I always use medium weight shoes, par- 
ticularly on young horses. One is much surer of getting 
true action with light shoes on a well formed foot than he 
is to try to balance up an ill shaped foot by weight in the 
shoe. In most cases the well shaped foot can be grown in 
time, and ordinarily a horse will go pretty nearly right if 
his feet have been properly taken care of since a foal. It is 
useless to expect that a horseshoer can put weight into a shoe 
so that it will serve the place of the properly turned foot. 
If the hoof isn't there on which to nail the shoe, it is im- 
possible to balance the foot perfectly, because the weight 
will not come in the right place. That is why one sees so 
little uniformity in action as he looks at a string of draft 
horses at a show. Each horse has been equipped with a pair 
of shoes which it was thought would perfect his action. 
Nobody ever saw a good going horse barefooted that didn't 
have tlie right kind of action when shod imless it wasn't 
