A Percheron with loose shoes made me rethink my steel width

Last month, a regular client's draft horse was popping front shoes almost every other week. I checked the old shoes and saw the web was too slim for his wide hoof, so I forged a pair with a broader base. They've stayed put for over a month now, which has me curious. What changes do you make for heavy breeds with shoe retention issues?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_gray27d ago

Wait a minute, are we sure wider steel is the fix? I bet the real issue is how the shoe fits the whole hoof. For big horses, if the nails go in at a bad angle, they'll pop no matter how wide the web is. Think about the ground they work on, soft dirt can suck shoes right off. Maybe it's the horse's stride that needs looking at, not just the shoe width.

mia_stone27d ago

But have you actually tried wider web shoes on a heavy horse that's pulling? When the steel is narrow, all the pressure sits on a tiny edge that can't handle the weight. Good nails won't fix a shoe that's bending from the start because it's too skinny for the job. Soft ground is a problem for any shoe, so that point doesn't really change anything. And checking the stride is fine, but that takes time you often don't have when a horse is losing shoes every week. Sometimes the simple, brute force answer is just more metal under the foot.

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amy_adams1326d ago

Yeah, that part about the ground they work on is so true. I see this everywhere, people trying to fix one thing when the real problem is the whole setup. Mia_stone has a point about the simple fix, but sometimes the simple fix just treats the symptom.

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