There are only two creatures on Earth that wear shoes: horses and people. People began shoeing horses about the same time they began shoeing themselves.
“How old are we?” says a veteran horseshoer. “Probably right after the world’s oldest profession appeared and before lawyers were invented, we were already at work.” Horseshoers were around in ancient Egypt and Rome. Illinois, with its racetracks and horse farms, boasts a good number of them. Here is some of the language they use:
Daisycutter: A horse that doesn’t lift its hooves high off the ground when moving but low across the ground as if skimming off the tops of daisies.
Nickel horse: One that isn’t worth much.
Road hard, put up wet: A horse that is tired and not well-cared for.
Sinker: A horse that has an advanced case of founder, a disease of the foot in which the bones grow out of the sole of the foot.
Turn down: When the shoer takes a shoe and turns down the ends away from the hoof so the horse has greater spring when it runs.
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Platter foot: A horse with big, round, flat-footed hooves.
The frog: The soft, U-shaped tissue in the sole of the foot inside the horse’s hoof.
Crossfire: When a horse’s hind leg collides with the back of the opposite front leg when walking. It can be corrected by raising the heel of the horse’s rear shoe.
Eggbar: An oval horseshoe generally used for therapeutic reasons.
Clinch: To bend a horseshoe nail over a shoe and against the side of a hoof. The rough parts are then filed down so they are smooth with the hoof.
Scarf: To pound down and thin a section of a shoe.
Memphis bar: A horseshoe with a bar across the center, used to correct lameness.
Cold shoer: One who shapes cold steel into a shoe.
Hot shoer: One who shapes a shoe over a forge while it’s red hot.