TOM BASS VS. TOMFOOLERY

he effects of weighted shoes were well known in the 19th century. Knowledgeable people objected to them. John Dimon mentored industry mogul and harness fancier Robert Bonner in the principles and practice of horseshoeing (see “The First American ‘Sport Horse’ Breed,” EQUUS 502) and said in 1892: “My experience and observation has been that [any] horse that carries a high rate of speed … seldom, if ever, was known to make a successful campaigner shod with short toes and high heels, or the reverse, or both, and encumbered by hobbles, side-weights, toe weights, heel weights, calks of all kinds of lengths, shapes, and sizes, set on at as many var ious angles, or any artificial