Chapter I: Introduction

This is a plain, unvarnished and practical treatise on the art of balancing and shoeing trotting and pacing horses, unclouded by little known technical and scientific words and phrases, but written by the author, WM. J. MOORE, in his own every day words that can be easily understood by any horseman.

Mr. Moore, who has spent his life in the business of horse shoeing, was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1865, and later had charge of the Horse Shoeing Department of the Allen Farm at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for a period of over twenty years, and he is still so engaged at Allen Farm.

Mr. Moore’s experience as a horse shoer dates from the time when he commenced work in a horse shoeing shop as an apprentice, at the age of 16 years. Since which time horse shoeing has been his sole occupation.

During this period of 35 years Mr. Moore has shod many noted trotting and pacing horses, and his long, varied and successful experience justifies the belief that no one is better qualified to write on this subject, and to offer advice in regard to it, than is he, and it is also the belief of those best qualified to judge, that no work of this sort, heretofore written, is more entitled to the confidence of, and acceptance by, the people who own trotting and pacing horses, for whatever purpose they may be used.

With this short preamble in the way of an introduction, we will let Mr. Moore tell his readers in his own words and in his own way how to shoe a trotter or a pacer, so that it may do its best work in the easiest way, and for the greatest benefit to its owner.

W. R. ALLEN,
Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

June, 1916.

INDEX

Page

I. Foals 1

II. Preparing the Foot 3

III. A Trotter Inclined to Singlefoot and Pace 6

IV. Causes of Rough Gait 7

V. Shin hitting in Front 8

VI. To Prevent Winging in 8

VII. Shin hitting Behind 9

VIII. Knee and Arm Hitting 10

IX. Shoeing a Knee knocker 12

X. A Bad Hitter 13

XI. A Hitting Pacer 14

XII. Elbow Hitting 15

XIII. An Unusual Case 17

XIV. Paddling 17

XV. To Prevent Paddling 19

XVI. Hitching, Hopping and Running Behind 19

XVII. Forging 21

XVIII. Scalping 23

XIX. Remedy for Scalping 23

XX. Sideweights 25

XXI. Wheel Swinging 26

XXII. Knuckling Over 27

XXIII. Stumbling 27

XXIV. Speedy Cutting 28