I nailed on my first set of horseshoes 60 years ago when I was 15 in 1964. It was on a kind gelding named Maverick at the summer horse camp that I attended. I started helping with the shoeing work there during the previous summer by learning how to pull shoes and clinch. I pushed my mentor Chris about allowing me to trim, shape and nail, so finally I got my chance. Halfway through, I thought I might die, but I persevered. Little did I know the path that this would send me.

These horses were camp horses used for riding instruction and trail riding on the hard, unpaved roads in the rocky hills of rural northeast Pennsylvania. What was available for this job in 1964? Nothing like today. To start, for trimming, we had an old, steel handle Heller hoof knife, a used, rusty Heller nipper and an old double-ended 18-inch Nicholson rasp. We found out later how sharp they could be after we bought a new one.

Shoeing in the 1960s

The shoes were the older version of Diamond Bronco shoes. “Hot Dropped Forged” was stamped on them. That sounded good, but we had no idea what it meant. They were a generic pattern and all we had was a railroad track anvil.

How did we shape them you might ask? First, with one of us holding the toe of the shoe with heels upright, we took the outer edge of the jaws of the old, heavy Heller pulloffs and spread the heels as wide as possible. With the toe now opened, we would use a very heavy ball-peen hammer to bring the branches and heels around on the railroad track anvil.

When the shape was correct, we would flip the rail over and use the wider bottom to flatten the shoe. Oh, the railroad track anvil was sitting on the ground.

Now the nails. Capewell nails came in 5-pound boxes at that time. The shoes were punched for size 5 Regular Head. Size 6 Regular Head for sizes 2 and 3. We had an old Heller driving hammer for the task. I managed to nail up Maverick without sticking a nail in me or a bad one in him.

We wrung off our nails with the Heller hammer but eventually bought an end cutter to do a cleaner job. Our old Heller clinchers worked to turn the stubs down and we used the same rasp to finish the feet. We were shoeing about 30 horses, all around, this way.

Not all the horses were as good as Maverick to work on. A large black and white gelding named Hoagie seemed impossible to shoe. We tried several times and could not even get to first base. We tried twitching him only to have him rear up and stomp the twitch off. He dragged us around the paddock, but he was well broke for riding, so we needed to get shoes on him for trail riding. We had heard about tying a leg up with a “side-line hobble,” so we decided to try that.

We didn’t know how to go about this and the more we yanked on the rope, the more Hoagie ran over the top of us. At some point we had enough rope tangled up in his legs while he gave another flying leap, he landed on his side hard. We seized the moment and Chris jumped on his head while I found a way to stretch his legs sideways and tie them to a pole. With him down, we each took a front or a hind, trimmed, shaped, nailed and finished the size 3 shoes. We then flipped him over to do the same to the other side. It certainly was not a pretty job, but we survived.

We untied Hoagie and began to worry if he was hurt with our rough handling of him. He easily got up and walked off as if nothing ever happened. Chris and I were covered with dirt, sweat and manure, bleeding from multiple places while Hoagie couldn’t care less while he munched on grass.

The following year, I was offered a job on the riding staff to help manage the horses. We spent the next few summers struggling with the Bronco shoes and a few other difficult horses. We finally found a decent anvil that made our work easier. I found a better cow nipper that had replaceable blades. We called in a local older farrier to help us with some problem feet and my enthusiasm grew. Seeing some better tools and shoe modifications was exciting. We found an old book called, The Practical Stock Doctor that had some chapters on shoeing and hoof care. I was a sponge for knowledge.

At some point, we needed more nails. I went to Binghamton, where there was a hardware supplier. I asked for some Capewell nails, size 5. The clerk asked if I wanted city heads, I replied that I did not know what that was, so, I said we must need country heads.

I noticed some horses had nice symmetrical feet, while others were distorted. Being that I rode all these horses, I began to see that hoof shape and leg conformation had a direct influence on how comfortable the horses were to ride and how athletic they were. That started a lifelong interest in conformation.

I attended Cornell University in 1968, thinking that after shoeing for the last 4 summers that I could shoe some local horses to make some money. Two important things happened — I met Harold Mowers, the resident farrier at Cornell’s Veterinary College, and Doug Butler, who happened to be visiting his family nearby and planning to come to Cornell Veterinary College for his PhD.

Coal Forges

I observed Mowers adapting the Diamond Bronco shoes and hand forging other shoes needed to deal with problems. He also shod many Standardbred racehorses and gaited horses. He made all his own half-round and flat shoes from bar stock. However, for the swedge shoes he would only use unpunched, unfinished heels by McGraw or Schnarre. He also had a swedge block, where he forged the swedge sections.

After checking the fit, he marked the exact length required and cut the extra length off with a custom half-round hardy hit with a brass hammer. He worked in a coal forge with old tools that were shiny from constant use. He made his tongs and punches. 

I wanted to make shoes, but where can I get a good pritchel or proper tongs? Mowers made me a pair of tongs and told me what to look for to make a pritchel. Then there was building a forge and finding coal.

Doug Butler’s first book, How to Make Horseshoeing Tools, included a section on putting together coal forage, so I built my own for my truck. I also found a mint condition Hay-Budden 125-pound anvil and a nice shop-style coal forge. That was fortunate because good anvils suitable for farriers were expensive and hard to find.

I was not successful at finding suitable steel for a pritchel until I called Crucible Steel. They knew exactly what I needed. They sent me 6 feet of 5/8-inch round H-13. Mowers helped me forge them, and I still have some of those pritchels today.

Now, I was able to make better shoes than the Bronco shoes and work on some local Standardbred racehorses. Hand forged toe-weighted shoes for Arabians and Morgans came next and eventually some “Scotch Bottom” draft shoes. 

None of these shoes were available unless you made them yourself. There were a few early pioneers producing these formerly only hand-forged shoes for gaited and show draft horses. Scott Colson and Curtis Hamilton were early producers of toe-weighted gaited horseshoes and wedge pads.

John Claudon founded Anvil Brand to produce toe-weighted horseshoes by shearing the taper on wider bar stock, then mechanically turning the shoes. He used different widths and thicknesses of bar stock to produce different shoe weights and sizes. Eventually, he decided to satisfy the demand for “Scotch Bottom” draft shoes by the same method. 

Through Mowers, I was shown Gene Layton’s “Scotch style” show draft shoes, so I had the right examples to copy. Claudon asked me to supply some of the original patterns from the ones that I was hand forging.

The problem with the existing Diamond shoes was that the Bronco style was thick for wear, punched deep, and a bit clunky for lighter boned Thoroughbred/Quarter Horse show horses. Diamond’s answer was the “Saddle Lite” shoe. It was light, but narrow and punched fine. Mowers suggested making shoes out of ¼-inch x 3/4-inch or 7/8-inch, punched better for the finer boned show hunters. The only aluminum shoes available at this time were Thoroughbred racing plates.

Mowers demonstrated how to forge some wide web aluminum shoes in the coal forge. Before that, I was told this was impossible. We made some shoes out of 3/8-inch x 1-inch aluminum. That covered the foot well, were light and nailed up nice.

Walt Kopisch saw the need for wide web aluminum shoes for hunter show horses. He founded Dutchtown Forge and produced the original wide web aluminum shoes. Thoro’Bred soon made its Grand Champion wide web aluminum shoe and Victory Racing Plate came out with its Elite model. I watched George Fitzgerald put the side clips on a Grand Champion for a high-level jumper. Before that, I never saw side clips on a front shoe. Now, it’s common place.

Then we discovered the Nordic Forge Plain shoe. It was a generic pattern, wider and thinner than the Bronco, center punched with smaller nail holes. Perfect for show hunters and jumpers. There were no pre-clipped shoes or front/hind patterns available at that time. Watching Seamus Brady clip, shape and finish a pair of Nordic plains quickly into some nice fitting shoes for a high-level hunter was transformative. According to him, these shoes were a nice blank to start with. When Seamus was finished, you would not recognize it as the same shoe. Eventually Diamond’s answer to these shoes was the Diamond Special.

During this time, it was obvious that to shoe show or performance horses of almost any use or breed required some forged modifications on the shoes. There was a dividing line between those who could do forge work and those who couldn’t. The problem was obtaining a coal forge to put in a truck and finding decent coal to use. Many farriers built their own to pursue this work. Most farrier schools were teaching forge work beyond cold fitting. Local farriers and I built our own mobile forges. I found a 12-volt blower and wired mine to the truck battery. My friend and fellow farrier, Doug Pokorney found a source of good soft coal that even Mowers approved of. 

Gas Replaces Coal

Imagine driving around with a smoldering coal fire in the back of your truck. Maybe there was a better way. A few enterprising farriers like Ken Mankel and Dave Willis began experimenting with mobile gas forges.

I saw that to be the future and purchased an early Mankel double burner that had a blower on it. Butler used mine while we were doing a shoeing demo for the equine science class at Cornell. Dave Willis was developing his “Hot Box” atmospheric model at the same time. Donald Jones founded NC Tool Co. shortly after and developed the Whisper forge line.

If smart farriers continue to innovate, I predict that electromagnetic induction eventually will replace the gas forge. The technology is available now and is used for heat-treating tools.

Horse Nails

During this time, Capewell was the only horse nail producer in the United States. There were some imported nails and shoes from Japan, like Izumi, that were popular on the West Coast, along with Multi Products horseshoes.

While Butler was finishing his PhD at Cornell University and publishing his first hardcover book, he was contacted by Mustad USA. Their U.S. distribution headquarters for their fishhooks was just north of Cornell in Auburn, N.Y. They held the top position in the fishing industry and dominated the European horse nail market but had no idea how to penetrate the U.S. farrier market. They needed a farrier consultant. Butler asked me to attend the meeting held at the Cornell Farrier Shop along with Mowers. We met with the marketing people from Mustad Sweden and discussed the U.S. farrier market. Next, they invited me to another meeting in Auburn and subsequently hired me as their first farrier consultant in 1976. Butler was too busy to take this task on.

Like Diamond, Capewell became indifferent to the needs of farriers. Their quality became poor and inconsistent. Both companies knew that they would sell all the merchandise they could produce no matter what the quality was, because there were no competitors. Here was an opportunity for Mustad to penetrate the U.S. market.

My first task was to check out their U.S. line of nails, which were bad copies of Capewell’s City, Race and Regular Head styles. I had been competing in farrier competitions and attending the yearly Michigan Farriers Association Clinic, so I recommended that we reach out to the farrier industry this way. I attended the 1977 American Farrier’s Association (AFA) Convention in Colorado with the new Mustad USA president, Aksel Karlson.

Meeting with farriers and handing out nail samples around the country, confirmed my opinion of the Mustad nails; too coarse and too stiff. However, their price was competitive, the quality was consistent and the points were sharp. I recommended refining the dimensions and using a softer wire. It also was apparent to me that many of horses had thinner hoof walls and the old standard 5 City Head nail was too coarse for these feet. I recommended developing a new nail using the standard 5 City Head with the slimmer Mustad 4½ CH shank. The first slim nail was born.

Looking at the first samples with Klaus Kjelstrep, now in charge of the Auburn operation, we tossed around names for this new nail style. It is a combination of two nails, so it’s a combo. That stuck.

The 5 Combo, along with the redesign of the other nails and packaging began to grab a significant part of the market. I recommended sponsoring the Specialty Forging Competition at the AFA Convention and starting clinics at selected schools and farrier supply shops. Mustad was now in the game. Capewell was shook up and at the same time, the Cooper Horse Nail Co. got in the game. Its version of the 5 Combo was the 5 Lite. The horse nail race was picking up. Capewell introduced its version called the 5 Slim Blade, which did not do well against the Cooper 5 Lite.

By 1985, Capewell Manufacturing decided to get out of the horse nail business and approached Mustad to take over the horse nail division. I attended the meeting to discuss the ramifications of this. The production process of Mustad nails is an efficient forging process, while the inefficient Capewell process is done by multi-step rolling process. There were divided market preferences for both. The Cooper nails were produced with retooled Capewell machines, hence their higher quality; however, the company was selling nails at under their costs to develop their place in the market.

The market demanded both rolled and forged nails now, so it made sense to acquire Capewell. With Cooper’s losses and a year’s inventory waiting, Cooper approached Mustad for acquisition. The project now was to rebuild the Capewell machines in a new modern plant and combine these three brands for distribution. 

I worked with Goran Gustavson, who supervised the design of the new facility and the rebuilding of the neglected Capewell machines. The first thing we did was redesign the 5 Slim Blade to what it is today and develop a new tamper-proof package. We instituted new quality control measures and changed from the weight to count boxes.

Switching to unit pricing vs. the traditional, by the pound boxes caused a lot of dissension amongst farriers. To help settle down the discontentment of the farriers, we devised a sweepstakes with many prizes. Starting with full cases of nails, to a year’s supply of nails and a grand prize of a truck and cap. I selected the truck and drove it to the AFA Convention in Albuquerque, N.M., to award it. 

Many years later, I traveled to the Mustad factory in Dahls Langed, Sweden, to work on the Endura nail project and visit Gustavson. It was like coming home to a place that I’d never been before.

Horseshoes

Around the time all this shake-up was going on in the horse nail business, St. Croix Forge began producing copies of Diamond’s horseshoes. 

Nordic Forge had eaten into Diamond’s market share, so new competitors made them nervous. St. Croix did not get far until several years later when Clint Carlson assumed the reins. He reached out to farriers and developed some new styles like the Extra and Eventer. Eventually, front and hind and pre-clipped patterns were developed. This was needed to compete with Kerckhaert from the Netherlands, which already had these styles and was finding a market in the U.S.

At another meeting, we discussed the idea of bringing a Mustad-branded horseshoe to the American market. The original models were nice front and hind general-use patterns. My question was, “Which horseshoes are we competing with?” No one had an answer for that. With the acquisition of the Capewell brand we decided to market them under that name (Figures 1a & 1b at top ). The farrier market was not ready for something new and that project died.

However, that foray into the horseshoe world had the effect of bringing Clint Carlson to offer St. Croix for acquisition to Mustad. This development brought updated manufacturing methods and new shoe styles to the St. Croix brand. The Eventer Plus, Extra Plus, Advantage and Sure Fit were the result. Today, there is a great selection of sections, ground surface and weight, formerly unavailable, even 25 years ago.

Eventually, new styles for the Mustad brand like the Equilibrium and LB series came onto the market. Now you can find a shoe of any width, thickness, weight, modification, clip placement, punching, or ground surface, for almost any horse.

Tools

You can have a high-quality tool sent to your door, overnight with a couple clicks on your iPhone. In the 1960s and ’70s, the standard in nippers and other hand tools was Diamond’s line. However, the “gold standard” especially for hoof nippers were the ones produced by GE Forge & Tool. These tools were scarce and expensive, mainly because they were not mass-produced. GE stood for George Earnest, a farrier on the West Coast who started the company producing these nippers by hand.

In the mid 1960s, Ralph Hoover founded the company bearing Earnest’s initials and developed a method to have the tool components forged and hand finished. Eventually, the Garner family acquired the business, modernized the production facility, and took an active role in the farrier industry. In 1979, after the AFA Convention in Fresno, Calif., Bruce Daniels and I went to visit the GE production facility and saw how the tools were produced.

Anvils

The book Anvils in America chronicled the many different anvils that were manufactured in building this country. Sadly, many of those anvils were melted down to build tanks and battleships during World Wars I and II. The thinking back then was horses were no longer needed for transportation.

Lee Liles collected more than 500 anvils and displayed them in his National Museum of Horseshoeing Tools in Sulphur, Okla. I was fortunate to make several trips there before Liles passed away.

The Hoover anvil was the forerunner to the GE anvil, which is now produced by Anvil Brand. Steve Kraus

There were many beautiful anvils produced for farriers during late 1800s. Bill Pieh, from Centaur Forge, recognized the scarcity of farrier anvils in the mid-1960s. He had Kohlswa, of Sweden, produce some of the early modern day farrier anvils. Southern Steel had farrier anvils cast in Japan for the U.S. market. 

Legend has it that Doug Butler, working with Ralph Hoover, built up the horn with fiberglass, of a Southern Steel anvil and with some other modifications and produced the original Hoover anvil (Figure 2). That was the forerunner to the GE anvil, now produced by Anvil Brand. I bought an early GE farrier anvil, which I still have.

Ken Mankel, out in Michigan, produced his line of farrier anvils. In Texas, Al Pinson developed the AP farrier anvils. Don Jones from NC Tool Co. produced the NC line of more portable farrier anvils like the 70-pound “Short Sugar.”

Glue-On Shoes

On a trip to California in 1985 to promote the newly designed Mustad race nails, Peter Kreis (head of Mustad marketing), showed me some glue-on shoe components and asked the question, “How would a glue-on shoe affect the nail market?” This was right after Mustad acquired Capewell.

The original concept involved fabricating the shoe from components and then gluing the finger side tabs on with Super Glue. It looked complicated to me; however, I could see the use for them when working on lame horses, especially laminitis cases. 

Making this shoe started from cutting the hoof shape from a dense pad to any configuration, like a heart bar. Then a profile with the glue-on tabs was attached to the shoe. Next, the shoe is glued on while the horse is standing on it. The tabs were secured to the foot with industrial strength Super Glue.

Glu Striders were the first glue-on horseshoes to assist lame horses, especially those with laminitis. Steve Kraus

I engaged Burney Chapman and Myron McLane to be part of the project because they were the leading laminitis experts.

We developed teaching clinics for farriers to train them on how to use this first glue-on shoe known as Glu Striders (Figure 3). We then developed the original foal correction components called the Baby Glu and eventually the ready-made version called the Easy Glu and Race Glu. These were the first commercially available glued-on horseshoes to the U.S. market. Now, 40 years later, Garret Ford of EasyCare is using a similar adhesive tab system in his modernized versions.

At the University of Pennsylvania during the 1980s, Rob Sigifoos developed a fabric cuff-style glue-on horseshoe. Eventually, the company SoundHorse emerged from his efforts. Glue-on horseshoes for lame horses and foal correction became obvious to Dr. Ric Redden. He developed the Nanric line to help with these problems. Soon, other players were developing glue-on horseshoes as a better understanding of adhesives became mainstream. Curtis Burns developed the Polyflex shoe, the first dependable direct glue-on shoe. None of this was available 40 years ago.

Farrier Rigs

In the 1970s, most of us put a cheap cap on a pickup, threw our tools in and went off to shoe. We used 2x6s for shoe racks, or just put the 50-pound boxes of Diamond Bronco shoes in the back somewhere. 

Doug Butler’s early publication showed how to build a low-profile farrier topper with side and back doors that swung up. I copied that with sides and a bottom, so I could lift the whole unit out with camper jacks. I put a coal forge in it, small oxyacetylene tanks and an adapter that turned a hand drill into a drill press. Traveling to competitions, I observed some nice one-of-kind custom units.

In 1973, the oil embargo took gas prices from 39 cents a gallon to 99 cents a gallon. I decided to use a fuel-efficient Nissan mini truck with light cap with side doors. I installed a Valley single Hot Box and even though I reduced my inventory, I had to add an extra leaf spring.

At one of the AFA conventions, I met Jack Schwartz of Monetta Farrier Specialties. He had produced a fiberglass farrier body shell, with side doors and a full height rear door. 

I ordered one to install on a full-size truck as shoeing prices caught up to fuel prices. I built my own deck for it, installed some racks for shoes and tools and installed an NC triple burner because of the number of draft horses I was shoeing.

I was quite proud of this unit when Brent Chidsey came to work with me as an apprentice. As we drove around, he would come up with some better ideas on how to organize things better. Eventually, he was ready to work on his own, so he put together his own unit — without my mistakes.

As other farriers saw his truck, eventually someone asked him to build one, and Stonewell Bodies was born. Like the aforementioned farriers, each one has contributed to and changed the industry.

To sum it all up, the farrier profession constantly has been innovating the tools, equipment and horseshoes available, driven by market needs. However, when I look at the 100-year-old Asmus collection of horseshoes hanging in the Cornell Farrier Shop, I see timely versions of everything we use today.

The innovators, both today and before my time, are the ones who produced the necessary items that the horses and farriers need at the time. 

The basics of horseshoeing have not changed for hundreds of years. What has changed is how horses are used, trained, bred and who owns them. Manufacturers just respond to the market’s needs. In the end, the farriers innovate to solve their problems.