Bryan Koch

This is the story about a horseshoer who started as a teenager helping his grandfather trim his logging horses in the 1970s. He grew up around horses and cattle, quarter horses bred on the family farm and draft horses used on the family farm. He went to Oklahoma Farrier College, got his formal training from Bud Beaston and returned to the east coast to set up his business in 1975. He worked very hard and traveled long distances to earn the trust of the old timers and they, in turn, let him have some of their knowledge.

This is how you learned in those days…the days before there was a keg shoe for every type of horse and hand-mades ruled, the days when you bought lengths of steel and nails were purchased by the pound not the count, the days of oakum and pine tar, the days of cutting leather pads out of hides not purchased precut, the days of making your shoeing box and coal forge because these things could not be purchased.

And he learned. He joined the fledgling AFA, #874. He traveled with local shoers on the days he had little work and they in turn helped grow his business by turning over clients that they could not get to on a regular basis. He did not let them down, and the clients, they recommended him to other horse owners - pretty typical for this time period. But, he also excelled and continued to learn from every horse. He attended conventions and seminars with Bruce Daniels, Burney Chapman, Danny Ward and Bob Scrazio.

He took care of race horses: broodmare with crooked legged foals, sales yearlings that needed some help to bring top dollar, multi-million dollars breeding stallions — and when one foundered, he saved his breeding career. The veterinarians began to take notice and they referred cases to him. He made one of the first glue on shoes, to help a broodmare keep her foal through gestation; I still have it. It’s a steel shoe with a metal rim welded around it, he held it on with Quik-Poly.

As our life together changed and children came along, so did the horse industry. The Saddlebreds and Morgans had left the area but the Thoroughbred was still king, on the racetrack and the show ring. There are many riders that credit him for keeping their favorite mount going through one more show, one more season. There were many children who won ribbons on ponies that he kept sound, because no one else could. There are owners who cried on his shoulder when the vets could not figure out what was wrong; and as he continued to shoe to the vet’s prescription, he found sources to refer them to. And, there are owners who cried on his shoulder after purchasing a horse passed by a vet, but not by him; he had warned them that there were underlying problems. His purple tee-shirts became infamous.

He specialized in the one percent of horses that could not be done by just any horseshoer. This time, as his reputation grew, owners and trainers kept him their secret. Their horses were winning and they did not want him shoeing the competition. He was busy and the horse industry was changing again, the big breeding farms were gone and the TB was declining but horse shows were plentiful and crowded, he was satisfied. He had been shoeing for almost 40 years — his boys were grown, it was time to cruise.

The spring of 2010 was brutally hot and he was not feeling well. His physical in December did not show anything remarkable but I persuaded him to go to the doctor again. This time they found something and it wasn’t good. We got a diagnosis in June…cancer, too far along. He continued to shoe through the middle of August, when he just could not go on. It was then that he told his clients and began the process of making sure that he found someone to take care of this special horse or that peculiar pony, that all of his clients were covered. They came to visit, everyday, clients and shoers until the end of September when I had to ask them to stop, he was just not strong enough. He died on October 6, 2010. He was Bryan Vern Koch, my horseshoer, my husband and my best friend. I will miss him forever.

— Marcy Koch, owner of Anvil Mountain Farm (Westminster, Md.)