Читать книгу Balancing and Shoeing Trotting and Pacing Horses онлайн

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The first thing to do is to change the angle of his front feet to a longer one by rasping the quarters and heels down several degrees, do not take anything off the toes. The hind feet should be in length and angle nearly the same as the front feet, perhaps an eighth of an inch shorter at the toe, and within 3 degrees of the same angle. The second thing is to add about 3 or 4 ounces more weight to the front shoes, and a little more if needed, after you have tried the former. If the horse carries a toe weight put it on also. The third thing to do is to put calks on the hind shoes, toe and heel, using as light a shoe as possible. The fourth thing to do is to allow the animal to go as low headed as possible, this is very important. The changes in the footing of different tracks will sometimes cause a horse to become all unbalanced. Slipping is very bad for a horse when at speed; it unbalances the action and creates muscle soreness, and the poor animal is made to suffer torture by some of the drivers or trainers, because the animal does not perform as well on a track that don’t suit the shoeing as he did on a previous occasion that did suit, the same way shod. I must say in reference to trotters that are inclined to singlefoot and pace that in fixing the hind feet I would prefer to get the angle of the hind feet as near to the angle of the front feet as possible, because it helps to confine them to the pure trot. The shorter the toe and angle of the hind feet as compared with the front, the quicker they will go into a singlefoot and pace. The causes of the roughness in the gait of the trotter are that the feet are at too short an angle, not carrying weight enough in front, and checked too high, or slipping too much.