Before shoeing the equine athlete, a farrier must weigh a number of variables.

When given the opportunity to write about shoeing a normal foot, my first move was to discuss the topic with a well-respected colleague, who quickly asked me “Jeffrey, what is a normal foot?” Naturally, I began to reflect on my daily work, thinking that most of my feet were fairly “normal.” But then I thought about the question more and came to the realization that almost all of my so-called “normal” horses present me with some type of a conformational or structural challenge that I am constantly striving to improve.

The modern horse is the result of millions of years of evolution. These large herbivores evolved on the plains of Asia and eastern Europe as a gregarious, migratory prey animal. Our only modern parallel to how this species may have existed in the natural world is the zebra of the African savanna with its similar physiology and anatomy.