When providing hoof care for hunters and jumpers, a farrier is focused on the fundamentals of improving performance — but how does our work positively or negatively affect our clients’ chances in the show ring? I have been shoeing horses for more than 30 years, but I’ve also spent some time as a show judge. In that role, I’ve learned how the decisions we make as farriers can influence scores, what judges are looking for and what we can do to help our clients experience show ring success.

Understand Your Discipline

Whether you shoe dressage, draft or hunters and jumpers, it is critical to have a clear understanding of the discipline you are working on, specifically what they do and how they move.

The deeper our understanding of the discipline and its nuances, the better equipped we are to create a shoeing plan for those horses. There are similarities between hunters and jumpers, but identifying their differences is critical to providing the most appropriate shoeing solution and setting them up for competition success.

Hunters. …