A hands-on approach to learning from an established farrier is often the most effective way for a new farrier to learn the trade.
Paul Goodness, senior member of Forging Ahead, a group farriery practice in Round Hill, Va., says most students should arrange to do some kind of mentorship after graduating from a farrier school. His practice provides a 1-year internship program for new farriers.
“We can speed up young farriers’ careers by getting them out there and exposing them to all sorts of things they need to know to be a successful farrier,” he says. “It’s not just working with the horses, but also working with the clients.”
Farriery Is More Than Horses’ Feet
Farriery has many facets that must be combined for a successful business. A person might mechanically be the best farrier in a certain specialty, but if he or she can’t deal effectively with the public, scheduling or bookkeeping, the business could fail.
“Perhaps a client has spent the past 3 months trying to get her horse to a certain competition and it’s the biggest thing in her world right now,” Goodness says. “It’s our job to do our best to figure out how to help her get the horse sound enough or traveling properly to meet that goal. Clients appreciate someone who tries to understand their point of view.”
Managing and balancing a schedule is another important aspect, Goodness adds.
“It’s crucial to show up on time and to realize that the clients have lives, too. They need to know when you are coming, and you need to get there when you say you will. They may have taken time off work to be there while you are trimming or shoeing the horse. Some farriers treat their clients poorly, with no respect for the clients’ time.”
Putting The Horse At Ease
When selecting a mentor, make sure that he or she can teach horsemanship skills.
“A big part of success is how well you can handle all kinds of horses and make that horse feel at ease,” Goodness says. “You have to be able to slip in there and have the horse actually want you to change its shoes. The horse needs to be able to trust you, rather than view you as a threat to its well-being.”
Jim Keith, a Wingate, Ind., farrier, has been working with apprentices since 1984.
“Apprenticeships are great for young farriers because they need to learn what the business is,” he says. “They also tend to get hurt because straight out of school, they’ll get all the cheap, bad horses that no one else wants to do. Working under an experienced farrier, they get to see what it’s like to have a good clientele and good horses.”
As a farrier, you will encounter many challenges and a good mentor will recognize opportunities to help you work through them. Goodness recalls a recent experience when he and a new student were working with a former racehorse that has many physical problems, especially in the hocks and stifles.
“The horse was giving us a hard time because it was uncomfortable,” he says. “The owner offered to sedate the horse some more after it already had been given one round. I told the owner to wait, because I wanted to work with this new farrier.
“We had a great session on how to address this kind of challenge. The new farrier learned that he just had to stay very calm, and twist himself into a little pretzel shape and find the position where the horse can be comfortable and not in pain. Those small skills can make it or break it for the farrier.”
Even though training horses is not the farrier’s job, it pays to take a little extra time and patience with young horses experiencing their first trimming or shoeing. This can make a big difference in whether that horse will be good or bad in the future — or even if you want to survive the next hour.
“It might be a 45-minute job but could take an hour or so,” Goodness says. “A little patience and finesse may save on your medical bills.”
Getting Your Foot In The Door
A young farrier has many options when seeking an apprenticeship.
“If they go to the International Hoof-Care Summit or other meetings, they can leave their name and number with different farriers they meet,” Keith suggests. “Our Indiana Farriers Association does this in our newsletter every couple months.
“We also do it by word of mouth. If someone wants to get an apprentice, they may call the schools to see who is coming out.”
For new farriers seeking a mentor, it helps to write down specific expectations, goals and the role they want a mentor to play in their career. Once a potential mentor is identified, ask to meet that person to discuss the possible arrangement.
“I’m a firm believer in the old saying that you retain 10% of what you read, 20% of what you read and see, 30% of what you read, see and hear, and up to 90% of what you teach,” says Coschocton, Ohio, farrier Dave Farley, who began teaching apprentices in 1975.
If you have to explain or show it to someone else, it makes a big difference.
“I grew up in an era when farriers would not share anything; they kept all their better ideas to themselves,” says Farley, president of the American & Canadian Associations of Professional Farriers (AAPF and CAPF). “Now, farriers are discovering that if you teach, you learn more than anyone else — just by doing your research to teach it.”
Whitestown, Ind., farrier Mike Whisler advises persistence when looking for an apprenticeship.
“I went to shoeing school, then tried to find somebody to work with so I could make some money and get more experience,” explains Whisler, who has been working with Keith for 7 years. “I met Jim at the horse fair in Indiana. He told me he might have a position open up and I just kept bugging him and calling him.”
That persistence has paid dividends in getting his practice off the ground.
“Working with Jim has helped my career,” Whisler says. “New farriers have an attrition rate of more than 95% in the first 5 years. So, I felt I should get hooked up with someone who already has an established career — if for no other reason than to wait out those first 5 years. After that, the attrition rate drops dramatically.”
The Selection Process
Finding a mentor or someone to help you along might not be easy, though. Not every established farrier wants an apprentice or student helper.
“Being a mentor can be a difficult and demanding position,” Goodness says. “You have to be a teacher, as well as do all your regular work.”
Mentors sometimes have a trial period to make sure there are no personality conflicts.
“The potential apprentice needs to ride with you for 2 to 4 weeks,” Keith says. “In that length of time you’d know if you are compatible or if they have habits that drive you crazy.”
Before accepting an apprenticeship, a mentee should ask questions about the hours they’ll work, schedules, compensation and other expectations. These agreements vary from apprenticeship to apprenticeship.
“Jim and I had an arrangement in which I would get paid a certain amount of dollars per horse that I worked on,” Whisler explains. “I’m an independent contractor and if I didn’t feel comfortable doing something or had some issues with a client, I had the right to choose not to do it. A person has to be judicious about this, however, and not overuse that kind of choice.”
Coming out of school, Whisler suggests apprenticing with more than one farrier.
“My arrangement with Jim was that I had a day off,” he says. “I worked with him 4 days a week and worked on my own for a day or 2. I picked up the Indiana Farriers Association directory and persistently bugged any of the members who were within driving distance to see if I could give them a day’s work.
“In the beginning, this helped build my client base but it also gave me a broader look at things. I could observe different ways of doing things, more ideas about how to shoe horses, how to run a business and so on.”
AAPF Mentorship Program
The AAPF has established a mentorship program that focuses on developing ongoing relationships of learning and offers continuing education credits.
“It’s one of our greatest membership benefits, not only for the individual but it also helps them maintain their continuing education hours,” Farley says. “Both the mentor and mentee can sign up online and earn credit hours by learning from each other.”
The mentoring program has three main goals:
- Encourage members to volunteer to accept mentees for periods ranging from 1 week to 1 year.
- For professional members (mentors) to develop mentoring relationships with other professional farriers (whether mentors or mentees).
- Encourage member farrier schools to recommend that their graduating students apply for a mentoring relationship through the AAPF.
Two hours of mentoring or 2 hours being mentored equals 1 hour of AAPF continuing education credit.
Out On Your Own
When you’ve gone through an apprenticeship, there has to be some thought about how to end the term.
“It is important that both the student and the mentor have a clear idea of where it should end, and be working toward that goal,” Goodness says. “Everyone is better off having goals to shoot for.”
After mentoring for nearly 30 years, Keith has some standards.
“I usually have them stay with me for a minimum of 2 years,” he says. “One apprentice was already working on his own when he came to me, so his level of learning was higher and I didn’t have to teach him as much.”
Some shoeing schools are very specific about what their graduates need to face by the time the apprenticeship concludes.
“They spell out certain milestones or goals they’d like their graduates to achieve by certain times,” he says. We incorporate these into our program. By the end of a 1-year internship term, these individuals will have a certain base set of skills and can go out into the world and market those skills.”
