Czantis appears to be like any other equine athlete. Make no mistake, though, this 11-year-old gray gelding is rare. While Czantis has found modest success competing as an amateur hunter-jumper, the warmblood’s greatest achievement is that he’s in the ring at all.

If you’re interested in shoeing draft horses, you’re in the minority. A lot of farriers, though, have a token team that they work on. They’re usually a nice pair of horses that stands pretty well.

To truly help a horse with contracted heels, a farrier must understand that such heels are most often a symptom of an underlying problem, and correcting the heels does not necessarily lead to a sounder horse.

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.

The December 2016 issue of American Farrier’s Journal featured the article, “A Prelude To Understanding Duckett’s Dot.” Based on a presentation delivered at the 2016 Northeast Association of Equine Practitioners Annual Symposium in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Duckett touched on the history and principles of his work on the Dot.

There are noteworthy figures in farriery who are closely associated with significant developments. Whether it is a tool, forging technique or creative application, these people left a mark on the industry. But among these, only one name is universally recognized by farriers in association with external reference points of the foot.