1996 Article Overview Phil Fisher of Hastings, Neb., approached this article with a straightforward purpose: inform readers about how to shoe reining horses. At the time Fisher wrote this article, he was shoeing a few successful top reiners. This motivated him to share his own methods to farriers who might not be as familiar with reiners.

Shoeing performance horses don’t require bells and whistles. Quite the contrary, says Lexington, Ky., farrier Bobby Menker. “Just keep it simple,” he told attendees at the Wisconsin Equine Clinic & Hospital in Ocon­omowoc, Wis. “We start at the coronary band and then try to build a base all the way down. This is what I like to build for.”

Assessing a horse’s conformation is a staple for farriers, and for good reason. Certain conformations offer an understanding of movement, wear and potential lamenesses. “We’re all familiar with different types of conformation in the front limbs,” English farrier Sam Head told attendees at the mid-November Thoro’Bred Extravanza in Anaheim, Calif. “But how many of us truly consider the same in the horse’s hind?”

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.