To shoe or not to shoe ...

To shoe or not to shoe, that is the question.

Whether 'tis better to let the horse

Suffer the hammers and nails of traditional shoeing,

Or to take arms against a sea of convention

And by opposing, end it.

To shoe, to harm – no doubt.

And by that harm to say we reduce the full and natural life the horse is heir to.

‘Tis an consummation devoutly to be avoided.

To shoe - to harm.

To harm, perchance to kill.

Aye there’s the rub.  For in that shod state what ills will come when they have hammered on that metal coil must give us pause.

There’s the understanding that gives form to a trimmer's life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of the press,

The client’s incomprehension,

The law’s delay,

The insolence of experts,

And the spurns of our patient work the vets may make

When she herself might be popular by doing a paddock trim?

Who would choose to grunt and sweat under a fretful horse

 But that the threat of what the shoe does,

That metalled state in which no horse is whole,

Makes us rather bear those aches and pains than leave the horse to others' care. 

Convention does make cowards of us all and the trimmers' hue of resolution may be diluted by the pale cast of doubt

And this enterprise of great pitch and moment, with this regard, its currents turn awry and loses the name of progress.