Garth Bodkin
40 years ago this month I got my first horse, a Connemara hunter retired by "early Navicular disease" and kindly donated to the 4-H. With the horse came her farrier, Garth Bodkin, one of the early "corrective farriers" and inventor of the Garth Rack many use to store shoes. I learned horse feet fascinated me. Garth had endless patience with my questions about what he was doing and why.
Every spring, at least once, Mayflower would jump out of her paddock and lose a silicone-filled shoe package in the mud, and Garth would have to come out ASAP to put it all back together. I was 10 or 11 years old at the time. Eventually, Garth gave me an old rasp and taught me how to pull off a shoe and clean up the foot so he would have something left to nail to.
Many years and states later, a horse in our barn who was difficult to trim and shoe suffered a broken hock and torn proximal suspensory ligament. I started trimming with the encouragement and guidance of our then vet and farrier (seeing as I had the time to deal with a cantankerous three-and-a-half-legged layup and they did not), eventually learned to nail and finally came full circle.
Garth is a great asset to the community and I have never forgotten his kindness, nor his instruction!
—CJ Stumpf
