My name's Sam Dracott. I'm a farrier,
and I'm going to show you the cleaning process
and the shoeing process of a horse.
The main thing I'll do is riding in schools.
There's a lot more science behind it
than meets the eye.
So what you would need is an anatomical
sort of understanding of the horse's foot,
with tendons, ligaments, arteries, veins,
bones, columns, how they grow.
Also, we need to have some blacksmithing skills
in order to construct the shoe.
Anything that needs to be done
to help maintain the horse's life span, really.
So, the actual condition of this foot is pretty good.
It's just been six weeks, and it's just grown.
So, that triangle bit in the middle
is known as the frog.
This is known for helping grip
and aiding blood supply around the foot.
So, I've got my straight blade,
and I'm actually cleaning out the sole.
As you can see, it's sort of going to crumble out,
and then this will help me, aiding in
how much foot this horse has actually grown.
And I'll just trim it all back.
As the hoof grows,
it's almost like a giant fingernail.
So it's always, constantly growing.
So you need to trim that back,
reset the shoe back,
so the bone column of the structure of the leg
is actually set in the correct place,
rather than, if it's too long,
it will be under a lot of pressure for the tendons.
So, imagine always wearing
a huge pair of shoes for yourself.
It makes it very difficult for you to walk.
So to have the horses regularly trimmed
will help to actually maintain the life span
of the horse and the function of it
doing whatever discipline it's in.
As you take the sole out,
it will start to become slightly waxy.
It won't crumble out quite so easy,
and that's a good indication
you're getting as far as you should go.
And then you should be able to just trim
that bit off of the excess hoof, and that's it.
So you want to trim from there, really.
So I'd use these giant pair of toenail cutters, really,
and you'd just start trimming the foot off,
nice and level, as flat as you can.
The bit I'm actually trimming
is exactly what a toenail is made out of.
So it's millions and millions
of strands of hair, actually, bonded together.
So it's exactly the same keratin protein
as a fingernail would have.
There is actually no nerve endings
on the bits that I touch.
The horse feels the sensation.
So imagine having a shoe on
and somebody taps the bottom of your shoe.
You would feel the sensation of it,
but it doesn't actually hurt you.
It's pretty much exactly the same.
The giant nail file is actually
what we call a rasp.
And then you would use the rasp
to get it nice and flat,
because these horses actually walk
on their fingernails, unlike us.
So this has to be flat to help them
walk evenly on their joints.
'Cause if you did one side higher than the other,
then they'd be walking unevenly,
and it would put excessive strain
on their joints and the tendons.
So the idea is to get it as flat as you can.
So almost perfect.
So, say if it wasn't quite 100% perfectly flat,
the shoe would actually finish that job for you.
So, every foot that I do is completely unique.
There's no feet that two are the same.
I buy these sort of factory made,
and to a standard size,
and then we put them in the forge to heat them up
to make them flexible, malleable enough
to make them custom for the horse.
So the process would start
with getting the right size of the horse,
sort of by memory and a lot of practice.
As you are trimming the feet,
you sort of see the shape
that the horse's feet have.
So you might see it's slightly straight on one side,
quite flare on one side.
You would clock that in your brain,
automatically get a rough size
and shape that you would need,
and nine times out of 10,
I would get it pretty much bang on straight away.
I'm now sort of looking to make sure
that the shoe fits the foot.
This doesn't hurt the horse's foot at all.
If you hold it on there for a long time,
then the sensation of the heat
will travel up the foot.
They will eventually feel it, but I'd say
five, six seconds is probably all you need.
And then this will make a mirror image
from the shoe to the foot surface.
So as you burn it on,
it makes it perfectly flat.
So it's a perfect snug fit.
Once they're fitted
and they're the right shape for the horse needs,
you would need to cool them down.
So a bucket of water is a good old-fashioned way
of getting it down to handling temperature,
so you can pick it up
and use it with your own hands.
The nails probably only go about
2 or 3 mil into the hoof wall,
and then they'll go up the hoof wall
and then come out the side.
So as you nail it in, it curves out.
So then you can flick it over
and clamp it onto the foot.
And I'm using my clenching tongs.
These actually flick over the end of the nail
and push it back into the foot,
so it grips and stays on
to create what is known as clenches.
And then I would use a rasp,
and that would buff the foot up,
make it all nice and smooth,
'cause you don't want any sharp edges
for the horse to catch itself.
So this is the finishing process
to make it all basically nice and pretty,
and what people would consider as part
of getting their nails done, really.
As you file the hoof wall off,
you're actually taking off a very, very
fine layer off the outside,
which maintains the moisture in the feet,
and it's like a protective layer.
So you would replenish this with a grease
or any oil or anything shiny, really.
If you're malnourished or anything like that,
fingernails and hair are the first thing
that would show that.
Same as any animals, you know,
with dogs, cats, or anything like that.
Hygiene is a big factor.
If you've got poor hygiene of a horse,
you know, in a stable that's not cleaned out,
poor maintenance of its feet,
not being trimmed or looked after,
will eventually affect a horse or any animal.
In the wild, horses are not actually
meant to live as long as we allow them to live.
Normally, as they get to an age of,
you know, it could be 10 to 15,
depending on type, breed, environment,
and the predators that they would naturally have,
they would slow down,
and then the predators would get them.
So we have them in such good pasture
and maintain them so well,
they live actually a lot longer.