Horseshoes are an essential part of the New York Police Department. Without them, the department’s elite mounted unit of 50 horses couldn’t patrol the city.
But when one of the horses loses a metal shoe or they just wear out on the city streets, a blacksmith shop on wheels rushes to the rescue. It’s equipped with a nearly 3,000-degree furnace and trained farriers who can make new shoes and change them out on the spot.
The NYPD has two such mobile horseshoe units stocked with all manner of anvils, hammers, nippers and pullers that have been the tools of the equine hoof trade for centuries.
On a recent day in Times Square, two farriers held a crowd spellbound while they made and hammered in new shoes on a 1,200-pound horse.