The shoes worn while the trotter or pacer is in training are somewhat heavier than those worn while racing. Training shoes will average 40 ounces to the set, while trotting and pacing plates weigh from 16 to 28 ounces to the set. Of the six fastest trotters during the last year (1912) the average weight of the front shoes was 6⅚ ounces, of the hind shoes 4 ounces. Of the seven swiftest pacers of the same year the front shoes averaged 5½ ounces, and the hind shoes 3⅝ ounces. In short, extreme speed at running, pacing or trotting demands as light a shoe as can be made, which will at the same time furnish a bearing for wall, white line and a narrow rim of the sole.
In style of shoes there is no marked difference between trotters and pacers—except in the hind shoes of pacers that cross-fire ([see “cross-firing,” p. 140]). Open shoes predominate. Bar-shoes are used, not to give frog pressure, but to stiffen and prevent spreading of the shoe, when after a few days’ wear it becomes thin at the toe. The average trotting and pacing plate is so thin that it would be weakened by fullering, so most of them are stamped (punched). Six nails are sufficient. Clips are seldom needed.
Pacers usually require a low circular grab or “rim” at the toe. This is set flush with the outer border, is about one-eighth of an inch high and is brazed on. Trotting plates are usually without toe-calks, though many are fullered across the toe (corrugated) to furnish a grip upon the ground.
On both trotting and pacing shoes the heel-calks should be low and sharp and should run straight forward so as not to retard the forward glide of the foot as it is set to earth heel first. The heel-calk serves chiefly to prevent the lateral twist of the foot as the horse takes the sharp turns of the track.
Freak shoes, toe-weights, side-weights, excessive length of hoof or toe, and other unscientific appliances and methods of shoeing speed horses are being gradually eliminated, and today the fastest are dressed and shod in accordance with the principles enunciated in this book.
Fitting Shoes to Heavy Draft-Horses.
What has been previously said concerning shoeing holds good here; however, the conditions of shoeing are somewhat different in heavy horses, and particularly with respect to hoofs which, without being clearly diseased, have been injured by shoeing. The entire operation requires more circumspection, because it is more difficult. In many cases one will find that the width that has been advised for the outer branch of the shoe at the quarter is not sufficient. Indeed, if a horse has wry feet, and there is unequal distribution of weight within the hoof, and we attempt in shoeing it to follow to the letter the directions given on preceding pages, we would be apt to favor the perpetuation of the defect. In such cases the slant of the wall at the quarters is of the greatest practical value to us in estimating the proper width for the shoe at this point.
Fig. 129.
Left hind shoe with a broad, base-wide
outer branch for draft-horses that stand
markedly base-narrow (close behind).