Have cast my net a little further to determine the answer to my query.
I attach herewith an opinion from an old friend who is knowledgeable on matters equine:
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Ref your query about calkins : reversing a horse shoe would be impossible and would lame the horse in short order. I think that we must regard it as poetic license. I have always suspected that Kipling's practical knowledge of horses was somewhat limited, but we must be 'to his virtues ever kind and to his faults a little blind'. I have heard that the Border Reivers invented a two tiered shoe that had a reverse shoe attached to the bottom of the proper shoe. However, I have always regarded this as a Mare's Nest. Such a shoe would not deceive an experienced tracker for a moment and those men were horse experts - their lives depended on it. The pressure points of the hoof marks would be all wrong. Anyway, I think that the hardy ponies used by those hard men were often unshod, like the ponies of the N.American Indians. After all, the incidence of tarmacademed roads on the Anglo Scottish Borders and the N.West Frontier would have been nil. I think that we must accept that our Hero may just have got this one wrong. Never let the truth interfere with a good story.
I accept his opinion and will still delight in RK's superb poem 'The Ballad of East and West'
Thank you again to all who answered my query.
Michael Jefferson
