Farriery

I don't have a manicurist, I have a farrier. I am very thankful to have a farrier. My farrier comes out to rotate and balance "the tires" on the horses every six weeks- in theory. In practice, the poor man has been here every couple weeks since May, when I got the big black monster horse. He is a big, heavy horse and his feet were not in terrific shape when I purchased him. They were short. And they are huge. He weighs a lot and it puts great friction on those feet. I have been giving him gelatin every day for 6 months to help him grow more hoof, and we have kept his shoes on to help him not wear it down. But, he wears the nail heads down on the ground surface of the shoes so quickly, that sometimes they need to be replaced every other week. And, my farrier doesn't complain. He just promptly comes over, unloads his stuff and carries it up to the barn. Today he arrived with newly acquired shoeing nails with extra large heads...hopefully it will take longer to wear the heads of the nails!



Shoeing nail

 The process of putting on a horse shoe has a wonderful rhythm. You pull off the old one, you pare down the hoof where it is too long, shape it and inspect it in all it's amazing usefulness. You select a shoe to make a custom fit, heating it in a forge, pounding it on the anvil, cooling it, testing it for fit, tweaking it until it is just right and will do exactly what you want it to do; protect the foot, change the way the foot breaks over, slower, faster, change the forces that go through the leg and into the foot to give the horse comfort, or fix problems. Then, nail it on. Tricky! You're putting a sharp metal nail into a living structure that will bear 1000 lbs or more of weight.  If you think about the force in the foot has to be a lot! If force= mass X acceleration,  and Oslo weighs about 1500 lbs, or 682kg and if he is cantering at his pace, about 300 meters/minute then the force through the foot, (since a canter is a three beat gait, during each stride one hind foot and then one forefoot bear all the weight, while the diagonal feet share in between) should mean Oslo's foot bears the force of 204,600 kgm/min. Okay, well that's probably not quite right, as acceleration and speed are different. Hmmm. Okay, well, if acceleration is m/s2 then, he canters at about 5m/s2. So....how about 3410kgms2, or 3410N.
Doesn't mean anything to me either, but when he steps on your toes, you know it.
Today, I am thankful for my farrier.

This is CJ (Crazy Jane) cantering through my pasture. See her far hind is the only one down? Next to hit will be the far front and near hind, together. Then, the last part of the stride will be the near fore bearing all her weight. Pretty neat, huh?