Dear B.B.,

    Not necessarily.  Sometimes it's better for your farrier to reset the same shoes.  The wear a shoe receives at the toe rounds the sharp edge of the shoe and is usually beneficial to a horse's movement and is one advantage to resetting shoes.

    Generally, if the shoe is wearing evenly from side to side, it can be reset until there is no longer a deep enough crease remaining in the ground surface of the shoe to protect the nail heads.  Shoe wear is affected by the type of shoe (size, thickness, material), how much the horse is used, how the horse uses his hooves (e.g. does he drag his toes?), how much the horse self-exercises and in what manner, and what type of footing the horse travels over.  Some horses will wear out a set of steel shoes in five weeks, with very little riding time, because of the way they exercise.  Horses with vices such as weaving, pacing, or pawing have unique and usually accelerated shoe wear patterns.  On the other hand, certain horses' shoes might show so little wear that the same shoes can be reset three or m ore times.

    With every step a horse takes, the weight on the  hoof causes the heels of the hoof to expand.  As the weight is lifted, the heels return to their original shape.  This repeated movement wears grooves in the surface of the shoes.  If the grooves are worn so deeply that there is no longer a flat surface to support the freshly trimmed hoof (photo 5-26) new shoes are required.

    If optimum traction is critical for a performance and the old shoes are worn smooth, new shoes may be requires.

    More often than not, a shoe will have to be reshaped, however slightly, before it is reset onto the trimmed hoof. Most farriers charge the same for a reset as for new shoes because it takes at least as much time to clean and reshape the shoes for resetting as it does to prepare new shoes.  As long as the shoes will support and protect the foot and provide necessary traction, it only makes good sense to reset them.