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Quarter Horse Congress: Shoeing

Note: this article was originally published in Hoofcare & Lameness in 1994.

In October 1994, Hoofcare & Lameness had a front-row-center seat in the shoeing barn at the All-American Quarter Horse Congress, held in Columbus, Ohio. The world's largest single-breed horse show has a unique sideshow: a barn full of busy farriers, who shared their ideas and expertise with each other and the camera.

Horses to be shod ranged from barrel racers to reiners to hunters to halter horses, with a large bulge of western pleasure horses in between. They also included the very lame, with problems ranging from stress deterioration to "white line disease" to club feet.

The most prevalent techniques used were aluminum egg bar shoes with or without wedge pads plus all manner of hoof repair compounds, used for every reason in the book.

The general observation of the shoeing at the Congress is that is has become more sophisticated and increasingly specialized. Quarter horses are no longer the "vanilla" of the shoeing business. Although their feet are still small, the farriers were nailing on a lot of precise ground cover and hoof angle support.

H&L thanks all the farriers at the Congress for their role in preparing this assemblage of shoeings.

Trends in Quarter Horse Shoeing
By Dwight Sanders, with Fran Jurga

ENGLISH PLEASURE
Front: Aluminum egg bar for low heels; wedge pads or aluminum wedge shoes; wide-web aluminum most common
Hind: 1/4 x 3/4" steel or Ultralite St. Croix (3/16 x 5/8"); a few aluminum.

WESTERN PLEASURE
Front: Same as English Pleasure; some creased shoes
Hind: Same as English Pleasure

HALTER
"The judge wants to see a little foot, up straight. Judges may or may not penalize a horse if its wearing a wedge pad or a bar shoe. Most of them are shod with steel training plates. Some of the horses want a thicker shoe to get the front end up where it belongs. The hind shoes are just something light."

HUNTER
"These horses tend to have a longer pastern, and are shod longer overall. Boxing the heel is common; draw the inside out and move the outside heel under the foot."
Front: Aluminum wide web; some rim shoes if the horse is going over fences.
Hind: Rim shoes, fullered concave for traction.

BARREL RACERS
Front: A few race plates with toe grabs; mostly rim or polo shoes; 98% are St. Croix or Diamond rims, size 0.
Hind: Same as front.

REINING
Front: At least 50 % wide-web aluminums; rest light steel
Hind: Sliding plates, 3/4" (young horses) to 1 or 1 1/4" tapered (higher level)

CUTTING
Front: Polo or rim, many just plain flat shoes or steel training plates
Hind: Same as front, mostly Diamond keg shoes, a few calks or jar calks.

This article originally appeared in Hoofcare & Lameness: The Journal of Equine Foot Science and is available for your personal use only. Re-publication is prohibited without the express written permission of Hoofcare & Lameness.

Detailed information on this and many other hoofcare topics can be found in Hoofcare & Lameness publisher Fran Jurga's award-winning guide to hoofcare, "Understanding the Equine Foot".  

For more information, or to order, click here

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