When you say “hoof boots” to someone in the horse industry, you’ll get varying reactions depending upon who you’re talking to.

Every farrier has “lost shoe” stories. You get a call from a client whose horse reported back to its stall with one missing. Now the client knows it had all four shoes when she turned it out in the paddock. What’s more, she’s searched the paddock on her hands and knees, mucked out the stall and gone over the area between paddock and stall with a fine-tooth comb and no shoe.

DECISIONS. DECISIONS. When it’s time to weld a horseshoe, farriers have more than one option for getting the job done. And for most shoes, oxyacetylene torch welding and the various types of electric arc welding will all produce a strong weld.