There is no doubt that farriers who hand-make shoes enjoy a fantastic advantage.

When you take the time to learn how to forge a horseshoe, it improves your accuracy on the anvil, your ability to see the horse’s foot and the proficiency to manipulate a shoe to fit that foot. As you develop those skills, you’ll get to the point when you’re working at a horse and you’ll recognize that the shoe is going to fit — and it’s on.

On the other hand, you don’t go through the process of making a keg shoe. A keg shoe covers a lot. You can plunk a great big, wide keg shoe on a foot and it covers everything. It’s not right, but it covers everything.

The concave shoe is the sports car — the Maserati, the Lamborghini — of horseshoes. It’s made for performance. Do you know where the word “steeplechase” originates? It came from two Irish fellows who had two horses that were basically equal in the standards — they were always the same.