For the past several years, one of the door prizes at the International Hoof-Care Summit has allowed winning attendees to spend time with an experienced farrier and clinician of one of the event’s educational partners.

Dustin Kendrick of Fort Wayne, Ind., who has a farrier practice with his father, was one of the 2012 winners.

“My prize was to spend two days with Conrad Trow, a farrier in Kentucky,” recalls Kendrick. “FPD (Farrier Product Distribution of Shelbyville, Ky.) set it all up. Everyone was really friendly and helpful in getting my ‘Day With A Clinician’ organized,” says Kendrick.

Kendrick appreciated the fact that Trow and FPD worked around his schedule.

“I was actually supposed to be down in Kentucky with Conrad for a weekend, but had other plans for that weekend. So they let me drive down there on a Wednesday night and I was able to spend Thursday and Friday with them,” says Kendrick.

“While he was with me, we did a wide variety of different horses, and some things he’d never experienced,” recalls Trow. “We took him to Churchill Downs and we did some horses at the racetrack. He’d never been down there. We worked on some other sporting horses so he got to see a lot of the different things I do in my practice,”

Trow’s practice includes racehorses, eventers, hunter and jumpers and dressage horses — a little bit of everything.

“I don’t specialize in any one particular thing,” he says.

Racehorse Experience

“Conrad works…