shoeing horses.

As the owner of All Round Shoeing, Ms Mello said she took great care to look after the welfare of the horses she attended.

"The physically demanding and stressful career required highly developed skills to ensure that no harm was caused to her clients or herself,'' she noted.

Twice last year, the 26-year-old was knocked unconscious during a fitting.

"No two horses are ever the same and they do not talk to you, so you have to be always watching and observing their body language,'' said Ms Mello.

She said it sometimes took five or six years for a horse's problem to show and her job was to keep their feet balanced and underneath the base of the limbs.

"The nail placement was one of the most critical parts to shoeing a horse and the shape of the foot must be determined by the shape of the coronary band.'' She noted that when nailing shoes to the horse's foot, a farrier had to ensure that the nail holes lined up with the border line between the sensitive part of the foot and the outer capsule of the hoof wall.

And she warned that if a horse was off-balanced for a period of time, "its growth plates could be affected and the horse could be permanently off-balanced.'' "By learning to read and understand the horse, I could tell if something had happened to the horse,'' added Ms Mello.

Ms Mello said any problem which affected a horse would show through its feet.

She said she often sorted out problems that were caused by neglect of horses who were not fed for some time or who were dehydrated.

"A horse which was beaten or starved would show the effects of this treatment in its foot and anything which caused the horse's body temperature to change would also show up in the foot,'' Ms Mello remarked.

"Various types of growth rings could appear on the outer hoof wall which indicated malnourishment, pregnancy, high stress levels and abuse,'' said Ms Mello.

Ms Mello said her clients came to her for a refit normally every five or six weeks.

Assisting Ms Mello is her 14-year-old step-sister Hailey Doyles who works on weekends and school holidays.

And Miss Doyles has returned to Canada for the second time to work with Ms Mello's old trainer Tracy Ferguson.

Tough job: Heidi Mello seen shoeing a horse.