Shoeing a dressage horse: A farrier nails it (sorry)

I read an interesting article in the American Farrier's Journal: Remember these pointers when under dressage horses written by Ron Perszewski interviewing Dave Farley. The author makes some interesting points about shoeing dressage horses, and I'll share the highlights of the interview with Dave and his advice to farriers....

• Any farrier  interested in dressage shoeing of any type should go watch the horses work.
• Dressage horses are often started at age 3 (late for some disciplines), and they are often started barefoot. This is good for the farrier since it's easier to tell where the horse is breaking over and where he's compensating for his conformation faults.
• Dressage horses get good nutrition and their feet grow fast. 
• Experienced dressage riders can detect changes in their horses' gaits. When they get to that fourth or fifth week, they'll call you to to reshoe.
•  Ninety percent of what you're doing is in the trim, and you'll need to get good at balancing the foot -- you can't do it all with just muscle. 
• Farriers that shoe dressage horses as a specialty will get fewer horses done in a day; they'll be more tired, and more sore.
• When shoeing a dressage horse spend more time evaluating the conformation and gaits.
• Pay extra attention to the hind feet. Problems show up on the front end, but about 80 percent of the problems  are secondary to the hind end."
• Check to see if each hind foot is centered. If it's too far one way or the other, it's going to affect the diagonal front first, and that starts a chain reaction. Look at these horses laterally. Get down on your knees, ten feet behind the horse, to see if the heels are level. 
• Once you get down to a clean sole, leave it there. Some dressage horses weigh 1,500 or 1,600 pounds. If you take a horse like that down to only 1/4 inch of sole, you're in trouble.

The whole section called "Keep it simple" is worth reading, and it's too hard to summarize -- so read it!