Pedal osteitis, an inflammation of the coffin bone usually resulting from severe bruising of the sole or consistent pressure on the bone, often reveals itself through an obvious, crescent-shaped bruise on the bottom of the foot.

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.

In the first article in this series (pages 35 to 36 of the September/October, 2002, issue of American Farriers Journal), you learned how an egg bar shoe can be used to increase posterior support and flotation.