It is a most pitiable thing to see the poor beasts struggling in their high courage and good temper to do their best, for what I can only call cruel or thoughtless masters, to say nothing of the liability of the animals’ breaking their knees and bringing their riders or drivers to serious trouble, smashing harness and vehicles, &c.
I have always found servants most ingenious in making objections to having their horses prepared for frost, the grand secret being their anxiety to keep them in the stable the whole time the frost lasts, that they may be saved from the trouble of cleaning either them or their caparison, carriages, &c. They will alarm you with the stereotyped objections, “tearing the horses’ feet to pieces,” “driving fresh nail-holes,” “ripping off shoes,” “his feet won’t bear a shoe after,” &c. I never knew an ordinary sound foot to be reduced to such a condition, by simply changing shoes, that a good smith could not fasten a shoe on.
The only tangible objection to calkins to which attention need be drawn is, that during their use, unless the horse is moved about in his stable with great caution in cleaning or otherwise, he is apt to tread with them on the coronet of the opposite foot, which is a very serious affair, inflicting a nasty jagged wound on one of the most sensitive vascular parts of the animal.[26]
The Bar Shoe going all round the foot is intended to protect weak or thrushy heels.
Wide-webbed or Surface Shoes are used with flat-footed, weak-soled horses: leather being often introduced above them to save the soles from being damaged by extraneous substances on the road. Put on with the ordinary shoe, it is said to lessen the jar of the tread.
High-heeled Shoes, when a horse is laid up, properly managed, prove a most effectual palliation and aid in the cure of “clap of the back sinew” ([page 143]).
These shoes are made with calkins (joined by a light iron bar), which should not be heavy, not more than an inch deep, and gradually reduced by the smith as the disease abates.
Steeling the Toes is necessary with quick wearers on the road; but particular cautions should be given to the smith to work the steel well into the iron, for any protrusion of this hard metal above the iron will occasion tripping, and possibly an irrecoverable fall.
Calking the hind shoes moderately on the outside quarter only, is most essential to the hunter to prevent slipping, and to give him confidence in going at his fences, and on landing. Its advantages can be well understood by any sportsman who has experienced the difference between walking himself a day’s simple shooting over soft slippery ground, or taking a ten-mile walk on a half-wet road, in each case in boots with headed nails, to enable him to have a hold in the ground, and undertaking the same exercises in boots without nails, where one wearies himself with efforts to keep his feet.