XLV. BAR SHOES.
If you have a horse with toe cracks, quarter cracks or one that is sore or lame from corns, a bar shoe is the best kind of a shoe. If you have a horse with a dropped sole, or founder footed horse the bar shoe is the best kind for such feet. It is also a good shoe to be used on feet where expanders are used as the bar in the shoe will protect the expander at times when an open shoe will not, and frog pressure on the bar will also help to get expansion. The most important thing to guard against is, do not drive any nails back of the quarters because that will prevent expansion. Draft horses with wide low heels or thin soles require bar shoes for the hard roads, as they stay sound longer wearing bar shoes than in open shoes. For racing purposes the bar shoe is very important for the front feet, and occasionally for the hind feet, for both trotter and pacer. Any horse racing or in training that carries a light, or very light front shoe should by all means wear a bar shoe, it is a great support to the foot when hitting the ground hard and fast, as the natural expansion and contraction is at its limit while going at a fast rate of speed.
For a heel weight shoe you can get more weight in the heels of a bar shoe than in an open shoe, which heel weight the action of some horses requires more so than they do toe weight. A trotter or pacer that spreads his hind shoes or front shoes, should by all means wear bar shoes. The last time I shod John R. Gentry for Mr. James Ramey, I shod him with bar shoes all around with heel and toe calks for that memorable race at Detroit in the 2:13 or 2:14 class, he won his race easily breaking the track record, under strong restraint. He could have paced a very fast mile or two that day if he had been asked to do it, he was sold after this performance.
I have never seen many yearlings or two-year-olds that needed a bar shoe while in training. It is a very bad shoe for either yearling or two-year-old unless a hoof expander is kept in the foot to prevent contraction and help expansion, for the feet will surely get contracted without something to prevent it, after the heels grow high enough to lose their frog pressure. I used a pair of heavy heel weight bar shoes, about ten or eleven ounce, on one yearling’s hind feet to stop forging and scalping while he was being jogged every day. The shoes he was brushed or speeded in for about ten days did not suit him for jogging. This yearling trotted eighths in 17¼ seconds, a 2:18 gait. I tried more weight in front but it did no good.