Horses stumble for many reasons; reasons as as simple as being overdue for a trimming and as serious as having suffered a brain injury.

Be sure to look at the shoes every time you pull them off,” says Blake Brown, a Penryn Calif., farrier who worked at a veterinarian clinic for 20 years.

It's nothing fancy. It’s not going to win you any awards or get your face on the cover of a magazine, but shoeing and trimming a horse with proper physiologic principles will make you a better farrier and, more importantly, keep your horses’ feet healthy, according to Dr. Stephen O’Grady.