In all my experience with horsemen and horses I believe William Russell Allen’s judgment about gait and prospective or ultimate speed is superior to that of any one I have ever come in contact with. He seems to have the faculty of knowing at a glance the frictionless gait from a fairly good gaited one. To prove this I will cite a few instances. On one occasion he was away on a visit and on his return he said to me that he saw Uhlan 1:58 as a two-year-old or a three-year-old, I do not remember exactly, but it was before he came into prominence, and Mr. Allen told me he was the best gaited colt he ever saw. This colt must have been just as he said, for it could not have been over a year, or two at the outside, when this same colt trotted to a world’s record, and it did not surprise me much after remembering what Mr. Allen told me about his gait. The same thing happened again when he saw Peter Volo 2:02, early in his two-year-old form. Also the full sister to Peter Volo, Volga, Mr. Allen told me she was gaited to win all her engagements.
Here at Allen Farm he picked a yearling out of about thirty early in the season, that was out of a non-producing dam, to beat all the yearlings an eighth of a mile at the trot that season at the farm on a small bet. It was big odds and was taken very quickly by one of the employees, who was wishing he could get more of that kind of bets. When the brush work of the season was over the field ticket was never presented to the pool seller to be cashed. Mr. Allen’s first choice out of a large field won by a quarter of a second and we had a lot of fast ones, but any how he had the laugh on me at the finish.
If you have a horse with toe cracks, quarter cracks or one that is sore or lame from corns, a bar shoe is the best kind of a shoe. If you have a horse with a dropped sole, or founder footed horse the bar shoe is the best kind for such feet. It is also a good shoe to be used on feet where expanders are used as the bar in the shoe will protect the expander at times when an open shoe will not, and frog pressure on the bar will also help to get expansion. The most important thing to guard against is, do not drive any nails back of the quarters because that will prevent expansion. Draft horses with wide low heels or thin soles require bar shoes for the hard roads, as they stay sound longer wearing bar shoes than in open shoes. For racing purposes the bar shoe is very important for the front feet, and occasionally for the hind feet, for both trotter and pacer. Any horse racing or in training that carries a light, or very light front shoe should by all means wear a bar shoe, it is a great support to the foot when hitting the ground hard and fast, as the natural expansion and contraction is at its limit while going at a fast rate of speed.