Lost horseshoes are a nightmare for horse owners as well as horseshoers. For the horse owner it never fails to happen at the most inopportune time. He heads out at 4 a.m. to load his horse for a rodeo and finds him missing a shoe. Or she’s scheduled at 10:27 a.m. to test for 3rd level dressage and as she’s cleaning her horse’s feet out, she discovers one shoe is missing.

They start calling their farriers names we can’t reprint here. When the farrier shows up to reset or replace the shoe, he’s asked why did the shoe “fall off?”

“Didn’t you trim enough foot off last time?” “Have you changed your brand of nails?”

And the farrier? Maybe you’ve just loaded the camping gear in the pickup truck. You haven’t taken 4 days off all summer. The kids are excited. Then the telephone rings. Your wife threatens you with death if you answer, but “it might be important.”

It is, of course. “I’ll only be an hour and we’ll be on our way,” you promise. You’ve got questions of your own as you look at a horseshoe twisted into a perfect “S” shape. You know it wasn’t that shape when you nailed it on. It’s pretty darned obvious this shoe didn’t simply “fall off.”

As farriers, we’ve all been through this. But if it’s happening to you more than usual, you might be surprised to find that there are definite patterns in losing shoes. Here’s some information that should…