Quote Originally Posted by mdhatter3 View Post
Doesn’t it hurt the horse?
Not if you do it right, but that's true of the whole hoof maintenance process. Hot setting actually smoothes the hoof where the shoe meets it and makes it more comfortable for the horse and less likely to injure their foot. Since the hooves are basically fingernails, they don't have any nerves until you start getting close to living tissue, so neither this nor driving nails hurts the horse, as long as you know what you are doing. I had just never seen a shoe so hot or the process spitting out so much flame, but it does smoke (stinky, like hair smoldering) and burn some. Our horses were always on pasture or dirt, so we didn't bother with shoes.