It’s all about the trim.

It’s a common refrain among farriers, but is the practice receiving its due diligence or is it merely lip service?

In Fabio Gnoatto’s Wellington, Fla., practice, trimming is the mainstay.

“The shoe protects and complements the trim,” he told attendees at the annual Centaur Forge spring clinic in early April in Burlington, Wis. “If we want to change anything, we must do it through the trim. Without a good trim, the shoe isn’t going to work.”

The trim is unforgiving and it will render its verdict on your performance in short order.

“You’ll see it after a month,” Gno­atto says. “If you leave one heel higher than the other, the opposite side is going to flare. If you don’t change it, you’ll keep chasing your flare. You can dress it, but you’re not fixing it.

“Our job is not to make the foot look normal. Our job is to make the foot work normally. When you even up those heels, the flare won’t be there when you return in a month…