A series of original experiments on the foot of the living horse, exhibiting the changes produced by shoeing, and the causes of the apparent mystery of this art / By Bracy Clark.

  • Clark, Bracy, 1771-1860.
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A series of original experiments on the foot of the living horse, exhibiting the changes produced by shoeing, and the causes of the apparent mystery of this art / By Bracy Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    heeled shoe, provided with an internal clip to rest against the bar of the foot, for which he has obtained a patent. We believe we shall be able to clear up this difficulty respecting the thin-heeled shoe, and to show the cause of its failure; and also why horses in general (as daily practice confirms) go so much better in shoes with thick heels. Much is often said among the amateurs about this and that prin- ciple of shoeing. It does not appear, however, that any alteration of the mode of making and forming the shoe deserves that title; the discretion in applying and fitting it admits of infinite variety of gra- dations, and these have been often mistakenly termed principles also ; and, as though there were two kinds of shoeing, we hear of good and bad shoeing, without these terms having met with any settled meaning or definition. It is the principle of all the shoeing at present known, to attach the iron for the defence of the foot to it by means of nails driven somewhat diagonally through the lower portions of the hoof:—the manner of figuring the iron, of disposing the nails, of driving them at different distances from the coffin bone, or the manner and de- gree of paring away the foot, which will influence their distance or ap- proach to the coffin bone, and are all discretional circumstances only, though they materially affect the feet and manner of going of the horse ; yet are not properly difference of principle, but are acted upon in endless variety, according to the fancy of the workman, and often with more mischievous consequences than the principle necessarily entails ; and to separate what is owing to the one, and what to the other, is truly difficult, where both are injurious. I had thoughts of separately considering each of these conditions, and laying down more precise rules for them, that the workmen might have some more regular guide for their labours ; but discovering a flagrant and unexpected defect in the nature of the principle itself, I have