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A farrier holds a horse's hoof and uses a hammer to nail a metal horseshoe onto it. Illustration of a horse's hoof with a side view showing internal skeletal bones aligned inside the hoof and a bottom view displaying the horseshoe and the V-shaped frog structure.
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A farrier holds a horse's hoof and uses a hammer to nail a metal horseshoe onto it.
horseshoe Farrier nailing a horseshoe to a horse's hoof.

horseshoe

equine plate
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ā€¢History
Illustration of a horse's hoof with a side view showing internal skeletal bones aligned inside the hoof and a bottom view displaying the horseshoe and the V-shaped frog structure.
horse hoofHoof of a horse.

horseshoe, U-shaped metal plate by which horsesā€™ hooves are protected from wear on hard or rough surfaces. Horseshoes apparently are a Roman invention; a muleā€™s loss of its shoe is mentioned by the Roman poet Catullus in the 1st century bc.

The density and insensitivity of the hoof makes it feasible to attach shoes securely by nailing. The craft of the smith, or blacksmith, the process of forging and affixing horseshoes, became one of the great staple crafts of medieval and modern times and contributed to the development of metallurgy.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Richard Pallardy.