The Art of Horse-Shoeing: A Manual for Farriers

by William Hunting

This form is very widely used. It consists of a narrow flat surface next the outer circumference of the shoe, about equal in width to the border of the wall, and within that, of a bevelled surface, sloped off so as to avoid any pressure on a flat sole. This "seated" surface is not positively injurious but it limits the bearing to the wall, and neglects to utilise the additional bearing surface offered by the border of the sole. If shoes were to be made all alike no shoe is so generally useful and safe as one with a foot-surface of this form, but it is evident that when the sole of the foot is concave there is nothing gained by making half the foot-surface of the shoe also concave.

There are two other forms of foot-surface on shoes. In one the surface slopes gradually from the outer to the inner edge of the shoe, like the side of a saucer. In the other the incline is reversed and runs from the inner edge downwards to the outer. This last form is not often used, and was invented with the object of spreading or widening the foot to which it was attached. The inventor seemed to think that contraction of a foot was an active condition to be overcome by force, and that expansion might be properly effected by a plan of constantly forcing apart the two sides of the foot. The usual result of wearing such a shoe is lameness, and it achieves no good which cannot be as well reached by simply letting the foot alone.

Fig. 34.—Foot-surface sloped outwards.

Fig. 35.—Foot-surface sloped inwards.

The foot-surface which inclines downwards and inwards like a saucer acts in an exactly opposite way to the other. The wall cannot rest on the outer edge of the shoe, and consequently falls within it, the effect being that at every step the horse's foot is compressed by the saucer-shaped bearing. This form of surface ([Fig. 35]) is frequently seen, and is at all times bad and unnecessary. Even when making a shoe for the most convex sole it is possible to leave an outer bearing surface, narrow but level, which will sustain weight without squeezing the foot.