The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

126 The Management and Treatment of the Horse,
its drawbacks ; it is a shoe that cannot be adapted to
every class of foot, and above all other class of shoe
requires great skill, care, and patience to fit and put on
with success. No smith, however skilful he may be at
the foro^e, can succeed with the " Charlier " shoe unless
he has a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the
structure of the horse's foot. The foot itself requires
much time before it becomes again naturalised after it
has been under a course of barbarous shoeing with the
cutting, paring, and rasping so often practised in the
shoeing-shop ; and before the horse can be safely shod
with the " Charlier " the feet must be allowed time
to grow, and the sole and frog must on no account
be touched with the knife, the principle of the "Charlier"
shoe being to insert a narrow rim of iron round the wall
of the foot to prevent its breaking away, and leave all
the remainder of the foot as God formed it. If the
unshod colt is shod in this way from the first it can
do any kind of work over the roughest roads with
ease and safety, and the writer is of opinion that that
is the right time to begin with the " Charlier " shoe.
As it is with the faults of shoes and shoeing I am
dealing, I may here state that the two objections I
have found to the " Charlier " shoes is the difficulty
of getting them shod properly, and the fact that they
require a long time before the horse's feet become
naturalised. Another fault I have found in hunting
with them is that the horse cannot grip a bank. The
Toe Tip in many respects is like the " Charlier " shoe,
and is a plate of iron about five inches long and
three-quarters of an inch wide, and has generally a