Real, Authentic, Bona Fide, Fer Sure, Actual Lucky Horseshoe

A card is attached to each Black lucky horseshoe by a cord that you can use later to hang your shoe heels up or heels down.

The Authentic Lucky Horseshoe card unfolds to describe how horseshoes are made, how they are sized and provides nuggets of history and folklore surrounding horseshoes.

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Wholesale and media contact:
Richard Klimesh
970-221-2948

Certificate of Authenticity comes with every
Raw Authentic Lucky Horseshoe.

Great gift for any occasion !!

• wedding favor
• product promotion
• retirement
• anniversary
• new job
• lost job
• get well
• graduation
• birthday
• bat mitzvah
• bar mitzvah
• new foal
• baby shower
• party favor
• door prize
• welcome
• farewell

HORSESHOE HISTORY

(Just some of the info on the Authentic Lucky Horseshoe card)

Equine footwear has seen many adaptations and variations over the years. Long ago, plaited STRAW was used to protect horse's feet in Japan and China even though the ''sandals'' often lasted only one day.

Scandinavian work horses sometimes wore wide WOODEN shoes to keep them from sinking into bogs or deep snow.

The Greeks laced wet RAWHIDE boots onto the hooves and allowed them to tighten in place as they dried.

The Romans added a steel plate to the bottom of the rawhide boot for increased wear. The Romans also developed a STEEL shoe that had a raised rim, which was bent against the hoof wall to clamp the shoe on.

In 1519, when the Conquistadors came to Mexico, they tried shoeing their horses with SILVER. But because this metal wore out quickly the Spaniards returned to the ancient tried and true method of rawhide boots. The Aztecs and Incas are thought to have picked up on the idea of rawhide boots from the Conquistadors, and horse hoof boots soon spread to many other Indian tribes in the Americas.

In Honduras, the early Spanish colonists experimented with making horseshoes from GOLD, their most plentiful metal. But, like the silver shoes in Mexico, horseshoes of gold wore out too quickly to be practical.

During the wild days in the American West, outlaws would tie BURLAP on their horse's shod feet to cover their tracks and quietly escape the pursuing posse.

It is unclear exactly when man discovered he could nail through the insensitive outer part of the horse's hoof to hold a shoe on without injuring the horse, but nailed horseshoes were common in Europe around 900 A.D. Steel horseshoes today are very similar to the ones used by the Knights of the Round Table.

One of the first companies in the USA to mass-produce steel horseshoes was the Schoenberger Horseshoe Company, founded in 1824 near Pittsburg. By the turn of the century, most American horses were shod with ready-made shoes, which were shipped in short barrels or kegs. Today there are more than 30 brands of keg shoes available to the farrier.

HOW TO READ YOUR HORSESHOE

You can tell a good deal about the past life of your horseshoe by close inspection. First, look at the ground surface of the shoe for the swedges. These grooves protect the nail heads from wearing off. If the swedge on one branch (side) of the shoe is worn down so it's shallower than the other, it means that the horse's hoof was likely imbalanced and carried more weight on that side. The manner in which the toe is worn tells how the hoof pivots or breaks over as the horse moves. An off center wear pattern could indicate the horse was splay footed (toed-out) or pigeon-toed (toed-in).

A smooth, polished appearance on the ground surface of the shoe indicates wear on turf, sand or soft ground. Deep scratches are from rocks or gravel.

Turn your shoe over and inspect the hoof surface. At the toe, you might find the stamp of the manufacturer. Some of the most common brands are Diamond (Minnesota), Nordic (Iowa), Anvil Brand (Illinois), St. Croix (Minnesota), Izumi (Japan), and Kerckhaert (Netherlands).

The size is usually stamped at one heel. The drawing on this card is a size #0 Nordic Brand horseshoe as it came from the factory in Guttenburg, Iowa. Manufacturers use more than six different sizing systems, but they all can be compared by the inches of steel bar it takes to make the horseshoe. The Nordic #0 shoe drawn on this card, for example, is made from a 13 ¼-inch bar of steel. One size smaller, a Nordic #00 (double ought), would be made from a 12 ¼ -inch bar; one size larger, a Nordic #1, would be made from a 14" steel bar. Nordic sizes in this type of flat horseshoe, or plate, range from #000 (used on young or small horses around 800 lbs.) up to #4 (for very large hunters or medium draft horses around 1500 lbs.). A size #0 in one brand may be called #6 or #3 in other brands, but they could all fit the same hoof.

You might find that the size stamp on your horseshoe nearly worn away by movement from the hoof. This is because every time the horse puts weight on its leg, the hoof expands at the heels a bit, and when the leg is lifted, the hoof contracts a bit. This repetitive movement of the hoof can make shallow polished areas or deep grooves in the steel. If a groove runs off the edge of your shoe, it means either the shoe was too narrow to begin with or the horse outgrew the shoe long before the shoe was removed. Enlarged nail holes in your shoe, particularly at the heel holes, could indicate that the shoe was loose on the hoof and flopping about for a while before it was removed.

It is rare that a keg shoe exactly matches the shape of a horse's hoof. That's where the farrier's skill comes into play: achieving a perfect fit by reshaping the keg shoe. Average-sized shoes are usually held by one hand and shaped cold using a hammer and anvil. Larger thicker sizes, however, must be heated in a gas or coal forge until they glow bright red or yellow and are held with long-handled tongs while they are being shaped.

The front hooves of a horse are usually rounder than the more pointed hind hooves. Sometimes, to affect a horse's movement, the toe of a shoe is made straight across, or "squared". Compare your horseshoe with the drawing of the keg shoe on this card to see how it was changed to fit the hoof of the horse that wore it.