Fifty years ago, Florida horseshoer Henry Heymering sat at his kitchen table and turned out the first edition of American Farriers Journal (AFJ). Much has happened over the past 5 decades within the farrier industry as we celebrate the magazine’s 50th anniversary.

A man with a vision for a better-educated farrier trade, Heymering started his shoeing career in Arcadia, Fla., after graduating from Bud Beaston’s Oklahoma Farrier’s College.

Henry Heymering

That first AFJ issue was 8 pages and was mailed with a 10-cent stamp and offered an annual, 4-issue subscription price for $1.50. The sole advertiser in that first issue was C & M Horseshoe Sales of Conroe, Texas. Owner Donnie Cates, who later purchased AP Tool Manufacturing, seldom missed advertising in future issues.

Prior to the mid-1970s, Heymering said local farriers largely refused to get together to discuss shoeing ideas. Most farriers believed sharing solutions to a specific footcare concern would give others a competitive edge and would lead to stolen customers. Farriers desperately guarded their accumulated knowledge, often packing up their tools and leaving a barn whenever another shoer showed up.

While Heymering saw horseshoers unwilling to work together on a local level, he envisioned a noncompetitive national sharing concept that led him to start AFJ.

That first year he had 54 paid subscriptions. By year two, it grew to 250 farriers. Circulation continued to increase over the coming years as farriers found an appetite for hoof-care information.

Heymering’s earlier research chronicled the market — just three U.S. horseshoeing schools and few local, state farrier groups in 1965. A decade later, nearly 100 U.S.-based public and private horseshoeing schools and 30 newly-formed farrier groups existed.

By 1972, the U.S. horse population had worked its way back up to 8 million horses from a low of 3 million in 1960.

“It was the crest of the wave of the increase in horses and horsemen,” says Heymering. These and other numbers gave him the confidence that a magazine could advance the growing demand for hoof-care information.

In late 1975, Heymering answered a phone call from Walt Taylor, president of the American Farrier’s Association (AFA), a national group formed a few years earlier. Taylor asked if AFJ could be the group’s official magazine. At that time, AFA had 54 members while AFJ had 200 subscribers. AFJ soon became the group’s official publication, an agreement that continued through 2002.

Too Much Work, Too Few Hours

By the late 1970s, Heymering was working 50 hours a week trimming and shoeing plus burning the midnight oil turning out the magazine. He realized this schedule was unsustainable and looked for a buyer for the publication that had been a labor of love for 5 years.

In 1980, Heymering sold AFJ to Massachusetts publisher Dean Laux. Heymering stayed on as a consulting editor for 2 years while continuing to shoe in Florida.

In 1989, he moved back to Maryland to care for his aging parents. He continued to shoe in the Old-Line State and soon after wrote the 366-page historical bibliography of the farriery trade, On The Horse’s Foot, Shoes and Shoeing.

By 1991, Laux was having financial difficulties with his magazines in the health care and travel fields and sought a buyer for AFJ.

Wisconsin Buyer

A decade earlier, I’d grown restless working at a larger publishing firm and eager to become an entrepreneur. In 1981, my wife, Pam, and I purchased two agricultural publications from my previous employer. After 10 years and surviving the devastating economy of the 1980s, our family-owned publishing company needed to expand.

Red Renchin trims the cuff of a Sigafoos glue-on shoe in 2014

I came across a “magazine for sale” ad that turned out to be AFJ. Since purchasing the magazine in January 1992, AFJ has operated for 32 years from offices in Brookfield, Wis., while carving out an all-important information niche in the worldwide farrier industry.

A Quick Start

There have been many exciting times for our staff, family and readers. Here are a few that are most memorable to me.

After owning the publication for 3 days, newly brought-on-board advertising director Alice Musser and I traveled to Louisville, Ky., for equine veterinarian Ric Redden’s Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium. Attending this event was like “drinking water from a fire hose” when it came to our first chance to soak up footcare information. To us newbies to the industry, the depth of the technical information available on trimming and shoeing at this event was overwhelming.

Along with meeting hundreds of farriers, we met Wisconsin farrier Red Renchin and learned he only lived 16 miles from our Brookfield offices. He soon became a great friend and hoof-care instructor to our staff. After retirement, he wrote many articles based on his lifelong shoeing experiences and visits with other farriers in an official role as AFJ’s technical editor.

Six weeks later, we continued our farrier education at the AFA convention in Daytona Beach, Fla. We felt the excitement farriers shared about our new ownership and went home energized about their ideas for learning and the need for continuing education in the trade.

One of the best pieces of advice for success came from an industry leader: “Avoid the politics of the industry and you’ll do well.” That’s been great advice we’ve followed for 32 years.

Gary Faulkner Was the First

Three months after purchasing AFJ, I extended a Washington D.C., business trip to spend a day with Woodbine, Md., farrier Gary Faulkner. On the way to the airport that night, an idea was born that led to what became our highly popular “Shoeing for a Living” feature, a series still going strong after 32 years.

Gary Faulkner and the First Shoeing For A Living article.

Our audience liked reading about how AFJ editors rode and reported alongside 200-plus farriers on their day’s work. Besides a great learning experience for our AFJ team, its demonstrated a willingness to spend our work days in barns (plus a 200-year Irish castle) across America and several foreign countries.

With no available government data on the farrier trade, the first AFJ Benchmark Survey got its start in 1989 with responses from over 500 farriers. Still known as the only in-depth analysis of its kind, its data offers extensive details on pricing strategies, product usage and summarizes significant changes occurring within the U.S. farrier industry. Conducted each year, this exclusive AFJ survey continues to be the leading source of essential farrier industry data.

For example, a look back to 1989 shows average farrier income stood at around $35,000. In 2009, the average yearly income for farriers surpassed $100,000 for the first time and reached an all-time high of $123,532 in 2022.

More Memorable Moments

In 1993, AFJ ran a five-part series “What Will You Do If You Are Sued?” by Cherry Hill, the wife of a Colorado farrier. This award-winning series traced the details of a lawsuit against a farrier and demonstrated the need for farrier liability insurance when a lawsuit arrives on the doorstep.

Among the most frequently discussed issues among farriers has been proper hoof balance. In 1997, Nebraska farrier and educator Doug Butler penned an extraordinary 6-part series to help farriers better visualize these concerns.

In 2008, the AFJ editors produced a national award-winning series on the equine industry’s most disgraceful practice — the soring of Tennessee Walking Horses. This four-part series looked at the high-stepping gait still so prized today that trainers continue to apply harsh chemicals and mechanical action devices that are hurtful to horses.

One of the highlights of my career was an unplanned, highly suspicious father/son vacation jaunt to Washington, D.C., with attendance at a trade publishing group meeting. And being surprised and having to fashion an acceptance speech while walking up to accept the 2009 American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) Gold Award. The ASBPE is a group representing leading business trade publications around the world. We are proud the in-depth analysis was recognized, as well as how this series of articles elevated farriery above the best writing from reporters for The Wall Street Journal, Time, Business Week and other leading publications.

Working around USDA regulations, some trainers continue to “sore” horses for the show ring today. With new government rules coming in 2025, hopefully we can ban soring once and for all. But we can’t underestimate the political power and dollars of Tennessee Walking Horse groups, which once again will try to kick these needed changes down the road, leading to continued suffering for this breed.

Some 49 nails were used to hold the pads together on this Tennessee Walking Horse. Equine veterinarian Tracy Turner says this is clearly excessive when you look at how the nail locations were used to add weight in the heel area. Frank Lessiter's series on scoring won the 2009 Gold Award in feature writing from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. The ASBPE is a group representing leading business trade publications around the world.

Independent Editorial Control

There have been a few times over the years when AFJ refused to give in to individuals, groups and suppliers who demanded a role in determining AFJ’s editorial content. With our established “telling it like it is” all-important editorial independence philosophy, we’ve never wavered — even when it meant losing advertising sales and subscriptions.

A case in point occurred in 2002 when the AFA member subscription arrangement dissolved over our refusal to yield editorial control. This meant AFA members had to now pay for an AFJ subscription.

Our company’s success was uniquely based on a refusal to compromise editorial quality. Instead, our editors have concentrated on delivering valuable, practical and technical footcare content to readers and viewers for over 3 decades. We would not censure new ideas and techniques others made work.

A new look in equine hoof-care education took place in 2004 with AFJ’s launch of the International Hoof-Care Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio. More than 500 farriers, veterinarians and other hoof-care professionals attended from 40 states and 8 countries. That Summit included 6 educational general sessions, 12 Hoof-Care Classrooms, 24 Hoof-Care Roundtables and innovative one-on-one networking opportunities among farriers, a winning playbook that has continued every year. Now in its 22nd year, this highly innovative international event offers the world’s largest supplier Hoof-Care Trade Show that features the latest products and innovations.

Making the Right Hires

Although Musser never sold an ad, Pam and I hired her as AFJ’s advertising manager. Our prior work together in the mid-1980s and her outgoing personality told us she could handle any task sent her way.

When it came to building lasting and meaningful relationships within the industry, she has no equal. She used these extraordinary traits in dealing favorably with everyone. She was proof of the saying, “If you’re having fun at your job, then you’ll never have a bad day at work.”

Another example of making the right hires was Managing Editor Pat Tearney, who joined AFJ in 2000 and retired in 2013. This showed we could take skilled generalist editors and teach them the farrier business. While other magazines insist on hiring industry experts, that can be a challenging duty for one who knows only “one way” of doing things. And that hiring philosophy certainly doesn’t fit the farrier business — with its many ideas, thoughts, opinions and on-going debates about what’s best when dealing with specific footcare concerns. Besides, many of today’s equine editor’s growing up experiences with horses led to an unfavorable opinion of farriers.

Tearney was an example of our long-held belief that we needed skilled writers first and foremost who could learn what was needed via curiosity and concerns about the farrier audience. As he and others proved, excellent and skilled writers can apply their well-seasoned journalistic skills to communicate technical and practical knowledge and actionable solutions to the farrier audience. Communication skills are the key to adopting to any change.

Today’s superb AFJ staff brings more than 230 years of publishing experience to the magazine, Summit, virtual events, digital and other information sources.

Challenging Audience

“Our editors and I have covered dozens of trades and business segments, but the farrier niche is very different,” recalls my son, Mike, president of Lessiter Media. “Some say this highly independent group can be one of the most challenging audiences to satisfy, but most will also step up and help us figure out how to serve them better.

“This is an industry where personal and professional lives intersect. I’ve watched the friendships that blossomed between farriers, vets, suppliers and our staff. The fact that Alice Musser’s iPhone still rings today with farriers and farrier suppliers nearly a decade after her retirement shows how deep relationships run in this business.

“It’s always satisfying to hear farriers and suppliers talk about AFJ and IHCS contributions to the industry as the trade has emerged from the dark ages over the past 50 years. And we’ve been blessed to be part of it, and chronicle those developments as they’ve occurred in real time.”

Numerous AFJ Innovations

There have been many AFJ innovations over the years. A few examples include the AFJ website where you’ll find 11,687 footcare articles. Type in “laminitis” on the AFJ website and you’ll find 1,492 articles; type “white line disease” and 1,237 articles show up. With “hoof balance” there are 1,266 articles and “sugardine” brings up 86 articles.

Other educational innovations include the yearly How to Get Started in Hoof-Care — A Career Guide for the New Farrier (launched in 2009) that circulates to shoeing school students. There was also the AFJ and Calgary Stampede co-sponsored mail-in forging exercise (1999) which brought in 125-plus  entries some years from a dozen countries, Hoof-Care Advisor daily and weekly newsletters, the IHCS shoemaking exercise, and the Hoof Nutrition Intelligence (2018) and AFJ Facts & Figures (2017) newsletters.

Other memorable developments include the International Horseshoeing Hall of Fame (1992), National Farriers Week (1998), the International Equine Veterinarians Hall of Fame (1997), Farrier Supply Shop of the Year (2024) and the Rising Shoeing Star (2008) program honoring successful young farriers.

You’ll also find over 625 AFJ videos on YouTube and 60 AFJ in-depth reports (8-72 pages) covering in-depth topics. Plus 13 intensive hoof-care books, including 9 in the AFJ Farrier Classics series of reprints from the 1800s and early 1900s. Still more educational innovations are found in the AFJ and IHCS timeline shown here.

50 Years of Success

The enthusiasm shown to our staff, our industry acceptance and approbation of AFJ’s educational projects has been phenomenal.

Ken and Maxine Floyd, owners of Olympia Farrier Supply in Olymia, Wash., were awarded the inaugural Supply Shop of the Year.

“Media peers in other industries have always been wowed when I shared the level of competition that historically existed in what is considered ‘the most niche’ of niche trades,” adds Mike Lessiter. “When AFJ was acquired, there were four publications competing in the same space. In today’s world where everyone is relying on social media as an information source, AFJ has outlasted the competition through focus, determination, loyal subscribers and advertisers.”

As the only equine hoof-care publication that’s been around for 50 years, AFJ has earned its reputation as the “hands-on” magazine for hoof-care professionals farriers and the leading voice of the farrier industry. And there’s definitely much more continuing farrier education to come your way in the future!