When you finish with school, you may want to dabble with a variety of horses and disciplines, working under experts in the fields and also learning from your own mistakes. However, you may eventually find a specific discipline or breed that you want to focus your practice on.
Experts from different fields have volunteered some thoughts from their own personal experience to help you learn about the business climate and expectations each discipline brings to the table. While each farrier may have their own ideas about what works, they all carry a wealth of knowledge and great ideas to take away.
Pleasure/Backyard By Bill Mayfield (Eagle, Wis.)
Get The Horse’s Background
Quiz owners as to how they’re going to use their horse. It helps you figure out how to best shoe the horse and what type of shoe to select. Also, get a brief history of the horse. How long have they owned it? Has the horse had any problems or lameness issues? That also helps you figure out whether a horse could potentially have problems such as forging, stumbling, etc. Find out as much as you can.
Know The Owner’s Limits
Backyard horse owners are usually more financially challenged. You have to be careful. Do the best thing for the horse, but also be sensitive to the client’s financial limitations. Make the horse comfortable using more limited resources first. Then if that doesn’t work, you can use more elaborate methods.
Expect Novice Horse Owners
You might get more first-time horse owners when shoeing backyard horses. Maybe it’s a lady in her 50s who has finally gotten herself financially stable enough to get that horse she wanted all her life. You might be dealing with people who aren’t horse people. So they are really going to be reliant on the farrier for information, and not just on the feet. They may ask you for other information, such as advice on handling the horse.
You should warn them against spoiling their horses too much. I find that with new horse owners, they tend to spoil too much, and a spoiled horse is hard for anyone to work with — the owners and the professionals.
Bill Mayfield has been a farrier for 14 years and works primarily out of southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. He works on everything from trimming minis and donkeys to shoeing draft horses.
Hunter/Jumper By Mike Wharton (York Haven, Pa.)
Communication Within The Team Is Crucial
You will be on your own one day, so you need to understand the problems you see. You must take that information back to owners and trainers. Be involved with a team and be a team player.
The younger generation seems to have a difficult time communicating verbally, so you have to be able to communicate the problems and let them know they can discuss things with you. Have a relationship with the owner, rider, vet and groom. The groom often can tell you a lot about the horse’s performance and soundness. The team is counting on you, so know your job and be assertive.
Keep Appointments
If you’re working with top-level horses in Wellington or elsewhere, you need to be available. That is huge. If you have difficulty keeping appointments, you’re going to struggle in the hunter/jumper world.
Horsemanship Is Required
Horsemanship skills are a rarity today. A lot of the good horses are already bought and trained, so you may be working with people who are not good all-around horsemen. Even some farriers are not. You need to be skilled in using all the materials available to you.
Maybe you’re not familiar with everything, so you need continuing education and hands-on work with other farriers. Get connected with a good farrier, someone of good reputation, so you can get your first steps into this discipline.
Mike Wharton has been working in the farrier industry for 43 years and does most of his work in central Pennsylvania near Philadelphia.
Dressage By Doug Workman (Cleveland, Ga.)
Answer Questions
Working with dressage clients requires clear communication. They tend to be inquisitive and want answers, and it’s important to find out what their concerns are. As a farrier, you need to explain what you are doing with each horse and how what you are doing will help those horses.
Keeping that line of communication open makes your job as a farrier easier and your relationship with the horse and owner stronger.
Know The Rider’s Ability
If I’m working with a really advanced rider, such as a Grand Prix rider, it’s entirely different than working with a novice rider. The high-end rider knows what’s going on — they have a better feel for their horse. They don’t often require me to fix problems for them and can help their horse out as the rider.
On the dressage lower levels, the riders are looking for farriers to give them extra little benefits to improve their riding and improve their scores. Great horses are born, not shod. It is a much more difficult task working with a lower-level rider who is aspiring to be good and depending on you to help them do that.
Understand The Footing
I need to know exactly what kind of environment or footing these horses are working in. Right now, people are using a lot more synthetic footing, and everywhere you go it’s a different material. All of these footings are different in the amount of traction they get, and it really changes the way the horses move.
I have to stay on top of that environment. For example, is it more rubbery where they won’t slide a lot? Just a simple change in the traction we give them and the type of shoe we choose can make a tremendous difference in the way the horses move. This is how you give them the best opportunity.
If you have the time, watch your guys work and watch them at the shows. It’s not a major trimming change. It’s just about helping them in those different environments.
Doug Workman has been a farrier for 29 years. He works mainly out of the Atlanta, Ga., area with dressage horses and hunter/jumpers.
Standardbreds By Steve Stanley (Versailles, Ky.)
Understand The Trainer’s Role
Standardbred trainers are a little different from most other disciplines. They do most of the track work themselves, and many even drive the races. They understand completely what is happening to the gait of their horses. Some can and do even shoe their own horses, so you had better be on your game.
Know The Gaits
Understand the difference between trotting and pacing. It is like shoeing two different breeds. Interference issues are not the same. Gait nuances in terms of effectiveness and efficiency are also vastly changed between the two gaits. The best way to learn this is hands-on in the stable or by working with an experienced farrier, which is something I highly recommend to all young farriers. Seek out excellence and work with that person, even if you have to do it for free.
Shoeing Is Performance-Based
As with any competing horse breed, shoeing objectives are absolutely performance-based. If you make a mistake, it will be evident as soon as the next training session or race. Conversely, if you have put the wrong shoe on, and the horse wins, then that shoe isn’t going to be changed. You must know how shoeing and trimming changes affect gait and performance. If you cannot maintain proper balance in the hoof, problems will arise. I see this time and again. (I did say some trainers shoe their own horses right?)
There are so many different shoeing packages available now that understanding what a shoe or pad is designed to achieve is helpful. Don’t just see the “new fad” and think “let’s try this.”
Some products are thought out and can benefit in certain situations. For example, Flip Flop pads are wonderful for horses with sore knees. Many people assume they help sore feet as well. They actually have no benefit at all to a horse with sore heels, but since they have a large pad area over those heels, many think it helps — not the case at all. Understanding all the products available to the farrier takes time. Spend the time.
Steve Stanley has been involved with Standardbreds since 1974, when he was 14 years old and helping his father. He works mainly out of Versailles, Ky
Barrel Racers By Tom Stovall (Comanche County, Texas)
Remember The Basics
Free advice on shoeing barrel horses is worth exactly what you’ve paid for it. Shoeing barrel horses, like shoeing every other class of speed horses, is just anatomy and applied biophysics. There’s no “magic bullet” or “super shoe” — it’s still just basics. Put another way, nothing — no rider, no shoe, no drug — can possibly make a barrel horse run any faster than it can, but there are a million ways to stop a horse from running as fast as it can.
Establish A Baseline, Work With The Rider
Every horse is different, and no single model will work for every horse. Establish a baseline consisting of hoof length, angle and type of shoe on both fronts and hinds for every barrel horse. Keep records.
Another component is communicating with the rider. Without communication, a farrier cannot possibly know how his work is affecting the performance of the horse. Make any changes based on communication with the rider; then compare the results of those changes to baseline performance. Be prepared to make more changes.
Know Their Nature
Shoeing barrel horses can be one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of being a farrier. Most of what you’ve heard about barrel racers is true. Barrel racers are notorious for listening to other barrel racers. They want their horses shod with whatever shoe the horse that won the big barrel race last week was wearing.
Furthermore, I find that barrel racers are also seldom amenable to having their farrier point out that pilot error, not shoeing, is the reason their horse is not winning.
Tom Stovall practiced as a farrier beginning in 1981 and is currently retired. He shod several world champion running horses and spent the 1990s flying around the country shoeing barrel racers.
Racing Thoroughbreds By Jim Jimenez (El Segundo, Calif.)
Make Mistakes Off The Track
Get some help from an established farrier, and make your mistakes off the racetrack. If you make a mistake on the track, you have established a poor reputation early on. I’ve seen a couple of people who have come onto the racetrack too soon and have made a mistake on a horse, and by the time they drive out the gate, it’s already all the way out on the racetrack. It may have been a good farrier, but maybe he or she made one mistake and now have established a poor reputation.
I’m not talking about big mistakes. For example, I went from school, where I learned to shoe horses full, immediately to a training center where I learned from my mistakes. At the racetrack, if you lose a few shoes, you gain a reputation that your horses’ shoes come off.
Choose Your Employers Wisely
When a trainer asks you to shoe their horses, you need to work with trainers who want you to shoe their horses the way you shoe, not the way they want you to. You need to do it the way you know how to shoe horses and do the best job.
When trainers ask me to shoe their horses, I ask them why they want me. Did they see the way I shoe and like it? I don’t just want them to say they heard I was good. When I go into a barn, I ask the trainer for a 90-day trial. They will see me shoe all the horses three times, and if the trainer wants me to keep going, then I know he wants me because he likes the way I shoe horses. And I find out how they pay.
Learn To Work With Vets
Learn to work with all veterinarians, but choose barns where you have a good relationship with that vet. Other vets may be good but don’t see eye-to-eye with you. I work mainly with one veterinarian now, and there is nothing we don’t talk about regarding the foot. He comes to me, and we work out a plan together and try each other’s ideas. It’s so helpful to work with a veterinarian as a team member, and not fight with them.
Jim Jimenez has been a farrier for 41 years. He currently works out of Southern California and does most of his shoeing for Doug O’Neill.
Endurance Horses By Jeff Pauley (Burnsville, N.C.)
Learn The Sport
Farriers need to understand the endurance sport before volunteering to be a long ride farrier. When working a ride, you may be faced with an abundance of hoof-related issues. The more you understand that horse’s job, the better equipped you will be in helping the horse. You will also learn that time management is of the utmost importance.
Pay Attention To Fit And Traction
Shoeing the endurance horse is no different than any of the other disciplines I shoe, with the exception of the fit and type of traction needed. Fit is determined by terrain, so make sure you know what kind of terrain the horse is working on. For example, rocky, mountainous terrain would require a hunter-type fit, whereas sandy type terrain would be more of a “C” fit with wide-webbed shoes for flotation in a deep footing.
Watch The Horse Move
When working an event, be sure to watch the horse trot before you work on it. Knowing whether you started with a sound or lame horse is useful.
Jeff Pauley has been working as a farrier for 23 years. Most of his business is in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Reiners By Chad Chance (Pilot Point, Texas)
Understand The Trainer’s Role
As a new farrier, you must realize that the ideology the trainers hold on shoeing is very trendy. It is a small circle that these trainers run in, and they communicate with one another on shoeing regularly. So you must understand the thoughts of the trainer in the barn in which you are working to best know how they want their horses shod.
The best way to get into the big barns is to work with farriers who are already shoeing for successful trainers. In the North Texas area, farriers work for the trainers, not the individual owners.
Know The Breeding Lines
Understanding the breeding and conformation of the horses you shoe and the styles of your trainers is paramount in the process of building a solid book of business. For example, in the early 1990s, Hollywood Dun It and Smart Chic Olena were two stallions producing many of the horses showing at that time. The two stallions had totally different conformational makeups.
Dun It was short coupled and heavy muscled and was low to the ground. Most of his babies were built like him.
Chic was a long, lanky horse that was longer in the back and high hocked. If a person tried shoeing these two horses’ offspring the same, they would have major problems.
Be Part Of The Team
Because of the young age at which reiners start their training process, they end up needing help from equine professionals. So it is a must for farriers to have a good relationship with the vets whom the trainers employ.
Also, it’s important to be a teammate with the other professionals who work on these athletes. When trainers win at the big shows, it is a team effort, so we must all work together to create success.
Chad Chance has been working as a farrier for 30 years and operates his business out of Pilot Point, Texas. He is an active forging competitor.
Saddlebreds By Jason Hanson (Florence, Ariz.)
Be Consistent
Be consistent with the quality of your workmanship. Regardless of whether you’re working on a $75,000 show horse or a $75 backyard pet, you should handle them with the same type of respect and dignity.
Those individuals with backyard horses don’t know any different, and a lot of times they care more about their pet. No matter what price you agreed to with a customer, you need to take the same amount of time to trim the horse properly and make the horse look good. The same is true with a fee structure — you have to be consistent with your fees.
Be Professional And Positive
Keep timely appointments and have a professional appearance. When farriers first start out, maybe they can’t afford the best equipment or a fancy trailer, but if their equipment is kept clean, organized and in good working order, it makes them look like quality, professional individuals.
The owners of these horses I shoe are spending thousands of dollars on a hobby. While it is a day job for us, the owners are there because they want to be. So, even if a horse is having difficulty, it’s important to keep a pleasant atmosphere and an optimistic attitude.
Keep An Open Mind
I learned the general principles of shoeing gaited horses as an apprentice with journeyman farrier Robin Hunnicut. That being said, every trainer may have a different opinion on how to shoe gaited horses, and, knowing there are several ways to get one specific thing done, you have to be willing to adapt your philosophy to accommodate and work with the individual. Don’t be so set in stone and think that because you were taught to do something one way that it has to be that way.
Jason Hanson has been working as a farrier for 14 years and runs his business out of southern Arizona. He also travels throughout the United States to work with gaited horses.
Driving Horses By Jerry Mathews (Osawatomie, Kan.)
Attend Driving Competitions
You need to go to the shows and see what is required of the horse so that you understand what the horse needs. It’s much easier if you see it firsthand.
Be Observant Of The Horse’s Environment
You can’t always depend on the owner’s feedback. You have to learn to decipher the living conditions of the horse and the environment, and figure some things out for yourself. So many times what the owner tells you is not exactly the way it is.
Learn First
Understand how to shoe a driving horse before you are asked to shoe a driving horse. That might sound like don’t go to the water until you know how to swim. But if you are asked to shoe a driving horse and you don’t really know what you’re doing and you screw it up, the customer is not going to ask you to work on his or her horse again. So if you know what you’re doing by watching, learning and helping first, then you’re more likely to get called back.
Jerry Mathews has been a farrier for 37 years and works in southern Kansas. He also trains and competes driving horses throughout the Midwest and Central U.S.
