Balancing and Shoeing Trotting and Pacing Horses

A vanished craft preserved in print. Written at the height of American harness racing, this manual captures the specialized knowledge that farriers and trainers once used to extract every ounce of speed from trotting and pacing horses. William J. Moore understood that the difference between a winning gait and a crippling lameness often came down to a single nail, a single angle, a single choice of shoe. Drawing on decades of hands-on experience, he walks readers through the biomechanics of horse locomotion, the art of balancing a hoof for optimal gait efficiency, and the precise shoeing techniques that kept these athletes performing at their peak. This is not a romantic treatise on horses. It is a workingman's guide to a highly specialized task, full of practical wisdom that modern equine sports medicine would still recognize. For historians of American racing, collectors of farriery literature, and anyone curious about the craft traditions that powered a vanished era of sport, this book offers an intimate look at how humans and horses worked together at speed.