Along with Edison's 1893 film "Blacksmith Scene", which is credited as being the earliest staged narrative film, "Horse Shoeing" was apparently one of the earliest known examples of commercially exhibited motion pictures in America. Edison had originally begun the quest to create moving pictures as early as 1890 (or 1889), but it had taken three full years before he could build the Black Maria studio and begin his film company. While it's true the studio was built the same year as this short, I don't believe "Horse Shoeing" was shot in the Black Maria considering it had to have been filmed before May 9, the new scheduled date for the showing at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; building a studio in four months seems unlikely. However, it would not be until 1894 until the first Kinetoscope Parlor opened on Broadway, April 14th.
While many not remember this film as much as "Blacksmith Scene", I feel it has just as much right to the title of the earliest narrative film as the other one does (I do not have any filming dates to evidence this, unfortunately). Like the latter, "Horse Shoeing" also included a staged scene, supposedly of (and we can only guess) a horse's hooves having horseshoes nailed to them. Sadly, we won't be able to know much more as it no longer exists apart from three frames. Because of this, it is no wonder "Blacksmith Scene" is remembered better. The three frames, while giving us a slight idea of what it originally looked like, do not exhibit any true movement apart from a slight motion from the man in the middle.
Additionally, the short also includes the admittedly boring black background commonly used in most of the company's earliest shorts. For this particular subject, I find it difficult to understand why the movie was not shot in a natural setting, such as a barn, where they wouldn't have had to drag the horse into the laboratory for filming. I guess the reason this was so was mostly due to bad light exposures not allowing proper filming lighting.
