He has some basic precepts from which he tries never to deviate – dressage is about the exterior of the horse, the way that animal moves and the right choices of material and shoes to keep the feet supported, balanced and well-shod. A good farrier will create a good looking foot but, if the natural shape of the feet is changed, this is often to the detriment of the internal structures, such as the tendons. A horse needs sufficient toe, heel, bars and frog to cope with the stresses of movement; it’s very important to consider the shape of the leg and the external foot, but also particularly the pedal bone, to ensure that the angles are not altered.

For this, Rob prefers to see an x-ray of the foot and also to see the horse moving in all paces – ’’you can hear how a horse lands on his feet’’, Rob says. It is important not to change the natural function of the foot or the direction of the way in which the joints are by nature.

Horses need their toes to absorb shock and to help create energy to take the next step. Likewise, the horse needs as large a frog as possible, so that it can do its job of shock absorption, traction and pumping blood, helped by the bars and heels. It isn’t always necessary or desirable to straighten the foot, the balance is more important, and cutting back the foot too much brings in pressure on the sole; “protect rather than over-correct”.

The coronary band usually makes the shape of the foot and thus the shoe. For front shoes, he prefers a slightly rolling toe which covers one third of the hoof wall. He doesn’t use concave steel on dressage horses, preferring to use quite light flat steel (but not aluminium as it’s very slippery) front and back so that the shoe stays on top of the surface and allows the horse to turn easily. He thins the toe until it’s wider by about 3mm and then he lifts it a little bit, with no clips where possible, and small nails. He files as little as possible of the wall, wanting it to stay nice and straight and strong. For hind shoes, again he hammers the toe of the shoe to create a rounded toe that so it rolls easily; he doesn’t take the toe too far back and leaves only 4.5mm over the shoe at the back.

Remedial shoeing, to cope with cracks, is best done by shoeing wider on the sides thus taking the pressure off the crack. Some horses have one foot smaller than the other; the smaller foot always makes the leg higher, the bigger foot makes the leg lower. It’s important to change the smaller foot rather than the larger one, in order to protect the structure of the leg and the joint, and this needs to be done gradually over a period of time. Egg-bar shoes interfere with a horse’s movement and the function of the frog and he sees no place for them in horses in work; the horse will have to compensate somewhere in his body for these shoes. However, they can be most useful for a horse on box rest with tendon problems.

He aims to encourage horses to extend their stride and land on the entire ground surface of each foot. “You can’t make a Ferrari out of a Fiat” but you can use common sense, knowledge and experience to set high standards and make the horse as comfortable as possible, fit to do his job.