The year — like the last several — has screamed by and it is once again time to start thinking about the Calgary Mail-In Shoe Exercise. This year we have a shoe that is close to a repeat of a previous Mail-In, so I decided to make the shoe using a different method.

For those that did not see the Calgary Mail-In Shoe for 2006, it was a capped toe, open heel shoe that was made from 1/4-by1-inch stock. I made that shoe by shouldering and forging, so I decided to make this one by cutting.

A Useful Shoe

The shoe for this year is a capped-toe bar shoe. This shoe can be quite useful for stabilizing a hoof capsule. For severe cracks, pedal osteitis, coffin bone fractures or similar problems, the capped toe can be a big part of helping the horse get better. You can place the cap anywhere you want on the shoe, but this one happens to be on the toe.

When this shoe was used at Calgary, I believe that it was to be made from 3/8-by-3/4-inch bar stock. To use this section, simply place a bump in the toe and flatten the entire piece out to 1/4-inch thickness. From there, you make the shoe as we did for the last capped-toe Calgary Mail-In shoe. Since there are no rules about the stock section that you start out with for this contest, I decided to make the shoe out of 1/4-by-1 1/4-inch bar stock. Instead…