Dealing with young horses presents another example of the importance of using your mind, developing your eye.

I'm sure most farriers have read the 8-line poem, "For Want of a Nail," which is printed below in its entirety. But few farriers may have heard the 1923 Chicago gangster quotation, as reported in the Chicago Tribune... "For the presence of a horseshoe, Nails was lost." The bizarre 1932 incident involved Chicago gangster Samuel "Nails" Morton, so named because of his "superior qualities in gang fights." A so-called Chicago florist, Morton had been acquitted in the murder of a pair of Chicago police officers in 1922.

Rest can be great therapy for lameness if you can get owners to agree - and even more so if they'll pitch in.

There's a club foot epidemic among horses — unless, of course, there isn't. Whether there is or isn't may depend on who you ask, where you provide hoof care, or how you define a club foot.