My decision to switch from handmade to machine-forged shoes cost me a client

After 12 years of using only handmade shoes from a local smith in Kentucky, I tried a set of machine-forged ones from a catalog to save time on a busy October. The fit was off on two hooves and the owner noticed the horse moving different at the next ride. Has anyone else made the swap and gone back to handmade?

3 comments

3 Comments

foster.tessa1mo ago

Oh man, I used to be all about machine-forged being just as good! I figured a factory could stamp out a perfectly uniform shoe every time and that had to be better than someone banging on an anvil. But then I tried a set on my gelding and he started stumbling on the back right hoof for no reason I could find. Swapped back to my local guy and the problem vanished, the handmade just contours better to each individual hoof shape. It really changed my mind on the whole thing.

diana_kim661mo ago

Hold on there, I gotta gently nudge you on something. Machine forged shoes aren't really "stamped out" like you're thinking, they're actually pressed or rolled from a blank piece of steel, not punched out like a cookie cutter. The real difference is the smith shapes it hot on the anvil and can adjust the fit in real time based on how the hoof's laid out. A factory shoe is cold shaped and you're stuck with what you get, so the fit just ain't as precise. I've seen horses go lame from a tiny spot of pressure you can't even see with your eyes. That stumble your gelding had? That was probably a spot of bruising from the shoe sitting wrong on the sole.

jamie_adams1mo ago

Does that mean I should apologize to my farrier for all the times I blamed him for my horse tripping when it was really me not picking out his feet good enough? Because I've definitely stood there staring at a perfectly clean hoof wondering how a tiny pebble could make him stumble, only to find out later it was just my own bad trimming job. Guess the real lesson here is that the shoe's only as good as the hand that shapes it, and my hands are better suited for holding a coffee cup than a rasp.