Editor Trotwood’s:

In reading your very interesting and instructive “History of the Hals” and your learned dissertation on the difference between the trot and the pace, I am reminded of one of the most laughable and richest races I ever saw, and which has never been in print before. Understand that thirty-three years ago, when this true story happened, we did not know as much about the difference between the trot and the pace as we do to-day, and which was so ably illustrated in your preceding chapters. Very well—now, for the place: An Illinois town near the Indiana line.

Abe Stickney and Bob Langdon, living in adjoining towns, were rival dealers in road and track horses in a small way. Some time before my story opens Langdon, by a little shrewd, and, perhaps, not quite fair dealing, “singed” Abe for a couple of hundred, and the latter was “laying for him,” as the saying goes. Abe was “game,” and never had uttered a word of complaint, but had kept up a “deal of thinkin’.” In other words, to use one from “The Bishop of Cottontown,” he “froze.”

He was over in Indiana one day, and at a county fair saw a horse of the Blue Bull family, called Hoosier Boy.

In order that your readers may better understand and appreciate this narrative (for I am sure you know the peculiarities of the Blue Bulls), I will explain that the Blue Bull family of horses originated in Indiana, that little was known of the ancestors of the founder of the family, Blue Bell No. 75, that the name was a combination derived from his peculiar color, and a nickname bestowed on him by his enemies, who called him “Prudens Bull,” but he turned out like the “Ugly Duckling,” and surprised his friends and shamed his enemies by founding a remarkable family, and at one time, since I can well remember, he was the champion sire of 2:30 speed, some sixty in number. They were nearly all natural pacers, but as pacers were not popular those days, they were made to trot by the use of heavy toe-weights.

The horse that Abe saw was taking his morning exercise and was a nice, smooth-gaited pacer. In the afternoon, to his astonishment, he saw the same horse win a trotting race in pretty good time. Abe investigated the matter at once and found that he could buy the horse very reasonably, as he was not quite sound, and he also learned that not a step would he trot without toe-weights, but would pace quite fast, though not nearly as fast as he could trot. The horse was shipped home with a bunch of others he had bought, and Abe immediately began to lay his plans. He hired a fellow that he could trust and sent him out to the fair grounds with his horse and then proceeded to Langdon’s town and communicated to Bob’s friends that he had a horse that could beat anything in the county. That was enough, and Bob was looking for Abe and he did not have any trouble to find him.

“They tell me you have a regular streak o’ greased lightning, Abe?”

“Who in thunder’s been lying to you, Bob. Ain’t got nothing but a cheap one, but I would bet ten on a little race between Hoozier Boy and Gray Dan just for fun, might make it twenty the day of race if my horse is all right.”

The ten was soon posted, and the day set a week later, as Abe was on his way to Chicago to be gone a week.

Soon after, Langdon, knowing that Abe was away, sent a couple of friends over to learn all they could about Hoosier Boy. They found the horse in charge of a very sociable fellow.

Yes, that horse was a pacer, and he “lowed” he could step some. He was going to train him a little and they could see him step if they would stay.

So out came Hoosier Boy, and they saw him work a mile, and there was no mistake.

Abe’s man certainly was busy for his orders were that there might be a buyer there while he was gone, and to show him the very best mile he could.

Bob’s friends timed him very carefully, and went home delighted. Gray Dan could beat that time by eight seconds or more. That man of Abe’s was so obliging, too, and they gave him a nice tip, and asked him as a special favor not to mention their visit, as they wanted to buy the horse as cheap as possible.

The race day came and found Abe gloriously drunk. ’Twas not a common thing, but it seemed to always happen when there was important business on hand.

“I ain’t got much money,” said Abe, “but, by gol, I’ll bet that lower eighty of mine agin a thousand dollars—never did like that farm—lost the best cow I ever owned in that pesky swamp.”

Abe had plenty of friends, and they gathered round trying every way to prevent his losing that farm. They knew him for a man that never whimpered when he lost his money, and Bob Langdon was a “sharper.”

“Skin ye, sure, Abe,” they said. But Abe turned a deaf ear to their entreaties.

“I’m runnin’ my own business. ’G’lang’ away and let me be.” And the money was soon up, and the farm, too, and they repaired to the fair grounds for the race. When they arrived they found that very “accommodating fellow” getting Hoosier Boy ready for the race. A good-sized chunk of lead adorned the toes of his front feet, but as Bob and his friends never noticed it, and even if they had would never have minded it, since the greatest of pacers often wear toe-weights, they only nudged each other and prepared to soak it to poor Abe the harder.

As usual, Abe was drunk—or appeared so—and, much to the disgust of his friends, staggered around trying to get up more bets on Hoosier Boy. Then his friends begged, expostulated. They even threatened to take him home forcefully and declare the race off because one of the parties was too drunk to have justice done him. But Abe dodged them and claimed police protection from the crowd who were backing Gray Dan and preparing to rob him on a dead certainty.

Finally, they sent for Abe’s wife to come and save her husband’s “lower eighty.” But the good lady only told them to attend to their own business, and that Abe never was as drunk as he seemed, and while they were gone Abe managed to borrow a thousand more by giving a bill of sale, if he lost, on Hoosier Boy and twenty head of steers he had! Then, to their disgust, he did more—he put up his homestead against another thousand on the ground that he wanted to lose it, because his mother-in-law always stayed there. As this was all in the world he had—the eighty acres, the steers and the horse, and the homestead—and the Gray Dan crowd could find no one else who would put up at any odds, they called for the race and sat down to enjoy the fun.

The horses came out and scored for the race, and still the Gray Dan crowd suspected nothing. It was dead easy. Hadn’t they seen Hoosier Boy do his best, and paced in 2:24, and couldn’t Gray Dan pace in 2:16 or better?

“Po’r Abe,” said all of Abe’s friends, as they got behind fences and posts to keep from seeing the robbery.

On the second score they got away—at least, Hoosier Boy did—so far away from Gray Dan that he was at the half before the Gray Dan crowd saw that he was not pacing at all, but trotting to beat the band.

He finished the mile in 2:13. They forgot to time Gray Dan, who was so far behind.

Bob and his crowd fell off their perch in disgust and left their money with the stake-holder. Abe still owns the lower eighty, and sundry citizens of that locality have resolved that whenever they bet again how fast a horse can go, they will stipulate whether it be trot or pace.

M. R. HIGBEE.

The Truth About Horseshoeing.

Editor Trotwood’s:

In a foot-note to my article in your February number, you said, “We will gladly publish your ideas on horseshoeing,” thus letting the bars down, knowing, perhaps, that I would be liable to wander in.

If I could turn backward in my career twenty or thirty years, I would undertake the task with more confidence in my ability to furnish something worthy of a place in your columns. I was young in the business then. I had finished my apprenticeship, and felt sure that the few things I did not know relative to the farrier’s art were not worth considering. Since then, I have been a regular attendant in the great free school of experience, taught by that merciless teacher, Necessity, and while I have been fairly successful in trying to furnish unnatural protection to that part of the horse which comes in contact with the earth, I am still in need of the necessary amount of conceit that would enable me to pose as a teacher.

I trust you will allow me to ramble around back and forth between the horseshoer and the horse-owner (one as much to blame as the other when the “family pet” goes lame), and I feel confident of being able to benefit some one, or his poor old overfed horse.

To the uninitiated who read the average writer’s suggestions on horseshoeing, it would appear that there is no other mechanical operation so difficult as that of attaching a shield of metal to the hoof of a horse. That is an erroneous opinion.

I was once told by an old English shoer that “the man who picked up a horse’s foot that had never worn a shoe, gave it a brush or two with a rasp and then nailed on a light piece of iron (an old, half-worn shoe, perhaps) would do a better job of shoeing than nine-tenths of the so-called fancy jobs.” I often think of my old English friend, who spent five, perhaps seven years, as an apprentice trying to master the trade. How different here in free America, and in these catch-as-catch-can times. It is not a rare thing to find men who are proprietors of shoeing shops, whose apprenticeship consisted of six months or a year’s service as a helper, and the vast army of horses to be shod is owned and controlled by people who are very much in a hurry, and who give little or no attention to the care of horses’ feet.

So the “family pet,” as Trotwood has called him, goes lame. He is taken to the shoeing shop in the belief that the shoer can relieve him. Now, this shoer is a human being, flesh and blood like other men, and it is extremely difficult for horseshoers to be strictly honest. (I speak from experience.) The fact is, he wants to tell the owner that his horse is too highly fed for the amount of exercise he is getting. He would like to tell him that high calks and dry stalls are slowly, but surely, drawing his hoofs together, causing a lateral pressure of the wall on the more sensitive internal parts, and he thinks of many other things that point to the duty of the care-taker. But I have found that, usually, that kind of talk don’t suit my customers. It puts too much of the responsibility on them, so the shoer begins at once to look wise. The horseshoer who knows how to look wise is an artist, born to succeed. Placing his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, he begins a tirade of abuse on the man who last shod the horse, after this fashion: “Well, I should think he would be lame. Any man that don’t know better than to put a pair of cook stoves like those on a horse’s foot,” etc., etc. After he has removed the “cook stoves” he proceeds to shoe the horse in his own unapproachable way polishes the shoes, rasps the hoofs carefully and, perhaps, saturates the bottoms with oil of tar. He pays the price demanded, takes the horse home and, when his lameness grows worse instead of better, he comes to the conclusion that he has been “buncoed.”

A few days ago a grocer’s horse with thick-walled hoofs was brought to us, shod with heavy shoes and high calks, hoofs badly contracted, and dead lame. I promised that if given my own way, I would cure him. We shortened the hoofs, put on a pair of “tips”—just a little patch of iron on each toe, letting the frog, or what remained of it, down on the ground. In less than ten days the lameness ceased though he had been lame for many months. In winter when it is necessary to shoe him with calks again, he occasionally shows a little lameness, but when spring comes we go back to the “tips” and the trouble vanishes. The owner of this horse thinks we performed a miracle, but we did nothing of the kind, we omitted the fancy rasping, the oil of tar, and the wise look in this case, and just kept close to nature.

In the days of the old horse cars in the cities I have stood on the boulder-covered streets of Chicago and watched the car horses, to see how they were shod. Imagine my surprise when I found hundreds of them shod in front, with shoes similar to those we used on the grocer’s horse.

When we mortals, who flatter ourselves that we are fashioned after God’s own image, drift too far from nature’s prescribed course, we soon discover the folly of our actions. If we don’t, the undertaker, for a cash consideration backs up to the front door of our house with a profusely tasseled hearse and starts us on our journey toward the head waters of Salt river. Meanwhile, the horse goes on, pounding away on the stony pikes, which, long ago, were substituted for the old bridle paths and the turf-covered highways, so we resort to metal protection for the hoof.

I have always looked upon horseshoeing, as practiced in many shops, as a necessary evil, on a par with the taking into the human system of vile physics and rank lotions, and when both owner and shoer are equally ignorant or careless, what must the consequences be?

A number of years ago, a man came to me for advice as to how his family horse should be shod. I ventured a suggestion and he brought the horse in. This was early in September. We shod him all round, doing what we called a first-class job. I advised that the shoes should be reset in about six weeks. He went away seemingly much pleased, and his joy lasted all winter.

On the 28th of March he came back with the shoes all on just as we left them. A few things went through my mind which I thought best not to make known to my customer. We reset the shoes and I never saw him afterwards. That was about sixteen years ago, and I presume that when the shoes need resetting again he will bring the horse to have us look after him.

Just one more: I once shod a banker’s horse all round, early in May. As he took the horse from the shop he said his reason for having him shod was on account of turning him out to pasture. Shades of Pegasus, think of that! During the summer he sold the horse and in November he was brought to us to be “sharpened up” for the winter. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not a shoe had been removed since we put them on early in May.

I relate these two instances to show that there are difficulties in the handling of horses’ feet over which the shoer has no control, and which frequently put him in a frame of mind so that he concludes to abandon the idea of painstaking, and resolves to be less particular about his work.

While roaming around in this broad, busy country of ours, I have drifted into many shoeing shops, and have worked in not a few of them. The greatest fault I find with my fellow craftsmen is their universal tendency toward overdoing. In their zeal to excel the other fellow they resort to “fads” and adopt unnecessary methods, many of which are decidedly injurious to the horse, and you who have horses to be shod should insist that you prefer a plain, careful job, minus the whittling, polishing, rasping, etc., and the shoer, in these days of close competition, will be only too glad to obey orders.

But how shall the owner know what is best for his horse? He is a butcher, a baker or perhaps he is the time-honored “candlestick maker,” and is as busy as any of us in this mad rush of to-day, from which there seems to be no escape. So, really, I don’t believe he ever will give much attention to his faithful horse’s feet, and between unscrupulous horseshoers and third-grade veterinary surgeons, “poor old Dobbin” will continue to be, as he has been in the past, the victim of his master’s misplaced confidence. What does the average man know about the needs and requirements of his own body? He has been called “a bundle of habits,” and from what I can observe, he is about ready to draw a good salary as the star performer in “a comedy of errors.” But in spite of stumbling blocks, and millstones around our necks, out of the rank and file of common men there comes occasionally, an Edison, a Horace Greeley, a Mark Twain or one like your own Major Thomas, whose portrait adorns the frontispiece of your March number. From the same source comes an occasional good, honest, painstaking horseshoer, whose sole ambition is not for the dollars he may lay up. He is one whom “goodness and mercy will follow, all the days of his life”—one who knows the importance of his calling and who realizes that a reputation for sobriety and honesty, coupled with natural ability and acquired skill, will bring to him the reward he is seeking.

I have written enough for this time, and what have I said in the above preamble that will enlighten the reader who really is trying to post himself on the care of the horse’s foot and the proper method of shoeing it? He does not desire to become a student of anatomy, and I know from experience that the advice of an humble knight of the anvil would not be taken seriously by the majority of horse owners.

But I have in my library two small volumes on shoeing, and the care of the hoof, which to me are worth their weight in gold. The first is “Practical Horseshoeing,” by T. Fleming, President of the Central Veterinary Surgeons’ Medical Society, Edinburgh, Scotland, published by D. Appleton Co., New York. No honest man, who knows whereof he speaks, can even criticise this work.

The other is “Pathological Horseshoeing,” by Joseph B. Coleman, V. S., which goes a little farther into diseases of the foot and their treatment.

Get these two little books, brother horse owner, and when the good horse goes lame, bump your head against the side of his stall and think. They will help you to see how far you are keeping from nature’s ways. Consider that your horse is made of tissue and nerves, almost as delicate as your own; that he is entirely at your mercy and unlike the “Devil Wagon,” he cannot be patched up with files, monkey-wrenches and cement.

LA FORGE.

Pecatonica, Ill.

TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY Devoted to Farm, Horse and Home.

TROTWOOD PUBLISHING CO., Nashville, Tenn. Office 150 Fourth Ave., North.

JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE,
Editor-in-Chief.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: One Year, $1.00; Single Copy, 10 cents.
Advertising Rates on application.

NASHVILLE, TENN., May, 1906.