The heart-bar shoe is arguably one of the most used and recognized therapeutic shoes in modern farriery. The late Burney Chapman popularized the use of the heart bar. The Lubbock, Texas, farrier reintroduced the shoe to the farrier industry, most notably at the 1984 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention with fellow legend Dr. George Platt.

In recent history, shoeing has had two primary requirements: protect the hoof capsule and alter the horse’s performance (Adams and Stashak, 2002). When it comes to enhancing performance and altering kinematics, toe-surface modifications are of key importance in the veterinary and farrier professions (Hüppler et al., 2016).