Now in its third year, the Summit Mail-In Forging Exercise has a new challenge for this go around. The inaugural contest was a hammer-finished heart bar shoe, followed the next year by an aluminum shoe with a riveted bar made out of a rasp. The bar shoe exercise allowed for power tool application. Although using power tools is a fine way to make and modify shoes on an everyday basis, I want contestants to hammer-finish this year’s shoe again. After all, this exercise is about learning and practicing the necessary skills to be a well-balanced farrier. This year’s Mail-In shoe is a fullered mule shoe, double heel calks and a brazed-on toe bar for the left front foot.

Mules tend to get a bit of a bad rap from farriers. I admit there was a time that I didn’t care much for shoeing them. Their personalities tend to be only part of the problem for farriers. Their feet often present the bigger challenge. Although there likely isn’t enough of these equids to fill your books, learning how to shoe them is a good skill to have. I will be doing a presentation at this year’s International Hoof-Care Summit on footcare for mules…