RW’s job was done and his shoes were pulled. After years of racing around barrels in cloverleaf patterns, it was time for the sorrel Quarter Horse with a white blaze to take it easy and enjoy the good life in Southwest Tennessee.

Hoof balance is one of those topics that many footcare professionals want to learn more about, but don’t necessarily want to lead the discussion. “Hoof balance are two words that we learn not to use as much as possible,” equine veterinarian and farrier Mark Silverman told attendees at the 2016 International Hoof-Care Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio. “It’s almost impossible to come up with a consensus on how to go about addressing this issue.”

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.

Attention is often paid to forging temperatures, hammer blows and anvils, and rightly so. There are other aspects of forging that are equally important, yet don’t get as much consideration. “A lot of people have problems because they’re just all over the place,” Sacramento, Calif., farrier John Williams told attendees at a late summer forging clinic at The Horseshoe Barn. “They’re just spread out all over their anvil. They throw their stock up there, any old place, and then they just take their hammer to the stock.”

They’re everywhere. Every time you turn around, someone’s nose is in a smartphone. In fact, you probably have a holder or two who do little but text, check social media or surf the Internet the entire time you’re under the horse.

Is the practice of grooving beneficial when managing a quarter crack? Conventional wisdom seems to indicate that it does. However, Bed­minster, N.J., farrier Bob Pethick had doubts. So when a client, who happened to be a veterinarian, bought a Quarter Horse with a bleeding quarter crack and a displaced heel quarter on the front foot, the Hall Of Fame farrier was presented with an opportunity to experiment.

When Burney Chapman reintroduced the heart bar, it revolutionized equine hoof-care. Countless horses have survived the scourge of laminitis and founder as a result of the work put forth by the late Lubbock, Texas, shoer.