Without a hoof you have no horse.

That’s what farrier Jessica N. Lowman says.

She knew when she was 12 that she wanted to be a farrier. “I’ve always known that horses were my passion in life, and I wanted to have a job where I could work with them,” said Lowman, now 21 and a partner in Jeff Houston Jessy Lowman Farrier Service in Montgomery. “It was always fascinating to me when the farriers at the barn I worked at would come to shoe the horses. I would always watch, and I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to help horses perform to the best of their ability because without a hoof you have no horse.”

Born in Bridgeton, N.J., and raised in Raymond, N.H., Lowman’s mother homeschooled her from kindergarten through high school. She went to Heartland Horseshoeing School in Lamar, Mo., when she was 16 to learn the basics of blacksmithing and to ascertain if she wanted to do such work for the rest of her life. “I only fell more in love with the art of farriery,” historically a male-dominated profession, she said.

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