You need a heart-bar shoe, but you don’t have time to forge one. No problem, says International Horseshoeing Hall Of Famer Myron McLane. A heart bar doesn’t need to be hand forged to be effective. All you need is a keg shoe, a short piece of bar stock and a little elbow grease.

Before going to the fire, the Somerset, Mass., farrier begins with the trim.

“I watched this horse walk from the trailer,” McLane told attendees at the annual fall clinic at Centaur Forge in Burlington, Wis. “He was landing flat, so that’s the way I’m going to trim him. I’m not going to change anything. This horse has been turned out, and been barefoot a while, but he’s got a nice foot.”

When trimming the foot, he avoids touching the frog if at all possible.

“I don’t dress the top of the frog unless there’s something hanging off of it,” McLane…