The relationship between a horse and a farrier has forever been mutually beneficial. Witnesses to that are archaeological finds; from the Roman hipposandals, the predecessors of modern horseshoes, to the first findings of horseshoes of similar shapes as today. Another witness to that is the research carried out in this diploma work. Horseshoes of different manufacturers, made from different alloys, including an old horseshoe, dated into the 15th century, were all investigated with modern metallurgical methods. Our interest laid in the dimensions and masses of horseshoes, with an emphasis on the chemical compositions of alloys, of which the horseshoes were made and chemical compositions of non-metallic inclusions and intermetallic phases, found in those horseshoes. We found the inclusions with the help of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and measured their chemical compositions with the method of energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The chemical compositions of alloys were measured by following methods: optical emission spectroscopy (OES), method of infrared absorption after combustion and by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). We measured the hardnesses of our sample horseshoes and analyzed their microstructures. The hardnesses were measured by the Vickers and by the Brinell hardness tests, and the microstructures were viewed under the light microscope. We came to a conclusion that most of the manufacturers indeed keep their promises and deliver what a horse and a farrier need, whether it be the most specific need. By comparing the results of modern horseshoes with the old horseshoe, we confirmed our assumption of the progress of horseshoes through time. We found out that the shapes and parts of horseshoes didn't change much from their origins until today, but the materials used to make them developed appropriately.
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