To many outsiders, Texas seems like a whole other country. And residents of the Lone Star state are proud of this — the notion even appears on state specialty license plates.

But just as all regions of a single country aren’t homogenous, neither are the different areas of the second largest state in the United States. How is Texas’s diversity reflected in the state’s farrier trade?

It’s tough to cover the entire state in one article, especially one that takes half a day to drive across. Several Texas farriers report that the national economic downturn didn’t impact their practices or areas that much. However, the real lesson from three farriers is it takes more than a good economy to build and maintain a thriving practice.

Diversity And Customer Service Protects A Practice

A shoer for 29 years, Steve Petrosky’s footcare practice is unique. Not simply a farrier, he studied veterinary medicine at Texas A&M and veterinary surgery at the University of California, Davis.

Based in Damon, Texas (south of Houston), his practice’s eastern boundaries stretch from Beaumont in the north to Corpus Christi to the south. Headed west, his practice spans the metropolitan areas of San Antonio, Austin and Waco. To cover this area and the 840 horses on the books for 6 weeks, Petrosky operates a multi-farrier practice.

His team, composed of himself, two fulltime American Farrier’s Association Certified Journeymen farriers and three apprentices, work on a variety of horses, including pleasure horses, working cow horses, rodeo horses, hunters/jumpers…