Hello everyone, I'm a farrier in Australia and I'm looking for opinions on the best shoes to use on horses that work on bitumen and concrete.Anybody shoe any police horses or carriage horses?
By the way this is a great site.

Michael,
Most police horses in this country are shod with a traction increasing device such as Borium or Drill-Tek.

When using such a thing always use clips on the shoes.

Another thing you can try is studs. Either drive in or screw in, both are good but again make sure the shoes are clipped.

This type of shoeing also works well on carriage horses who spend most of their time on hard roads.
George

I also recommend borium or drill tek. It is important to be careful to keep the buttons of borium small and fairly flat.
If you use regular stick borium and Oxy aceteline, the borium should be just 'washed' around with the torch to be fairly flat on the shoe surface at the 4 corners.
The tungsten crystals should be sticking up in a small layer ,not a whole big pile like a calk. I recommend Clips too, and pads , because the force to the joints is increased as the foot is stopped more suddenly as it landsand a pad will help reduce it some.
Rubber or plastic bonded shoes are OK too on police horses instead of steel and borium, but they can be REALLY slippery on grass.
Patty

Here in the US the mostly used traction device for road horses is borium or drill teck. I beleave its required for the police horses. Certainly use clips with any type of traction device. I alwase wondered about the added concusion,a pad seems like it would help disapate the concousion a bit. But here in the north west its wet. maybe a rim pad? I work my mare on the road 3-4 days a week in plain steel and havent yet had a problem with the horse loosing her footing. (but im not going past a trot on the asphalt) I lived in Alaska for a while and the horses I shod in the winter got borium at the heels only and a snow rim pad. Some wanted borium on the toes of the shoes but I think its to hard on their joint and ligaments. I tried the borium tipped nails on some pack horses once and had a problem with the borium breaking off when driving the nails.

an afterthought......you can re-set shoes with borium for a long time....pay attention to the nail holes in the shoes, they are going to wear out first.

Michael,


In the past I have shod alot of driving horses and have found in the last five or six years that I get the best of both worlds traction wise with the use of carbide pins instead of tubed or composite rod. The pins are solid carbide in a tapered configuration, similar to the carbide piece that is found on the middle of most studs. Because of its size it , the largest hole that I drill in a shoe is 11/64 " . two or four pins ,I feel give the horse the safety and stability that it is looking for but not so much traction that it creates a sudden stop to the hoof landing. For horses that require more traction at times I also drill and tap behind the heel pins so that the rider/driver can make adjustments if needed. Again because of the small hole required for the pin I have plenty of room for the stud hole.

Regards

Ray Steele

Michael,

You can get the best of both worlds regarding traction and concussion concerns using Easywalkers with screw in studs!

I have used them successfully for carriage horses. The police horses I've done did well with "Ground Control" shoes.

Pony W'air makes a polymer shoe that already has carbide tips in them and these seem to do very nicely on asphalt and concrete.

I've used drill tek on the drafts and some of the larger carriage horses when I can't find a poly shoe to work.

But the easiest application of traction for steel shoes is drive in studs! I drill the holes, but some folks prefer to heat and punch them - saying that the shoe metal is preserved instead of being drilled away- I never ran into any problems with shoes weakening or bending in the area of a drilled stud.

Hope this helps!
Regards,
Kim

Ray, that sounds like a great solution, where can I get the carbide pins and how hard they to instal?

Phil,

I know Meaders and Farrier Depot have pins.

They are as easy to install as drilling a hole. Because the pin is tapered from bottom to top it is held in by friction. So if you can drill an 1/8" hole in a shoe you can fit a pin to it. The biggest draw back I find is one of the reasons that I like them so much, that drawback is size, i.e. small at least to my mitts.

I keep the loose pins in a screw top plastic prescription jar( for those of you who might want to get humorous, not a ****** jar,might make the pins grow)
with two properly sized bits. That way I always have the correct bit for the pin and a spare bit if needed. I just shake out a few pins into my palm at a time as needed. I use 5 different sizes, and ofton times I can reuse pins because of the hi quality of the carbide.

Regards

Ray Steele

ray steele wrote:
Ray, how can you re- use the pins? Just tring to learn here.

Hi Phil,

I drill the holes all the way thru the shoe, when I want to remove a pin , I turn the shoe over and place the pin I want to remove over the pritchel hole, with a suitable set punch inserted into the appropiate hole i strike (the punch) it with a hammer and remove the pin. Since these things come out like a wayward rocket a suggestion is to rig up an envelope of somekind to catch them or be ready for a new and frustrating game of pick up.

Regards

Ray Steele

ray steele wrote: I put a shallow pot magnet on the underside of the anvil under the pritchel hole.
Tap the pins out and then collect them off the magnet.

Rick,

Must be why you make the big money,i.e the magnet trick. I have found that even with a strong magnet the velocity often times make them bounce and the ceramic content of the pins lessens the magnets ability. the best so far for me has been a 1# coffee can and a piece of cardboard on the bottom to absorb the initial hit. You made me think I 'll try the magnet again with the stainless dish. Thanks

Regards

Ray

Thanks everyone for your help, I will give some of those ideas a go. Cheers Michael.

Thanks Ray and Rick for the advice.