Breakover occurs as the heels of a horse’s foot start to leave the ground. Farriers can alter the timing in which breakover occurs by changing the location and the manner in which a horse breaks over the toe area of the hoof capsule.

There is no shortage of horseshoes, in size, style or material. It will take no more than a few minutes inside a well-stocked supply store to convince anyone of that. Jeff Ridley, a farrier from Leighton, Iowa, recently was struck by that fact during a clinic at Anvil Brand’s headquarters in Lexington, Ill. The clinician was Shayne Carter of West Mountain, Utah.

Performance horses, by the very nature of the work they are asked to do, are more prone to injuries than horses that are being used primarily for recreational riding. There are a number of studies that offer evidence that certain injuries are more likely to occur with certain disciplines, but an informal survey of several experienced farriers indicates that across disciplines, more common injuries such as sore feet and abscesses are the culprits that farriers most often have to deal with.

There’s nothing routine about hoof avulsion. There is a wide range of types and severities of hoof avulsions that a farrier might be presented with. They might be a result of trauma or because a farrier had to resect hoof wall to rid it of white line disease. They might come as an acute injury or be chronic in nature.

It's not surprising that the 2015 International Hoof-Care Summit (IHCS) continued to set record numbers in attendance. It offers the most diverse lectures about farriery, plus the largest trade show in the world. The IHCS is the only place where the farrier industry can get the whole package in one place.