The time following your graduation from hoof-care school is likely filled with a variety of feelings. 

You may be relieved after completing your final examinations. You probably feel gratitude for that instructor who pushed you further to give your best effort. Perhaps you have some frustration over knowing that even after weeks of schooling, there is still so much more for you to learn.

Above all, you have conflicting thoughts surrounding your future. You’re excited about your new career, but you also have some fear about the unknown road ahead.

How will you find clients? Where do you turn for advice when you are in a jam? How much should you save for taxes? What do you do when you butt heads with a colleague?

Although it won’t provide the answers for all of the scenarios swirling in your head, we hope that the American Farriers Journal Career Guide will help create a road map for finding answers. 

We’ve enlisted farriers throughout the United States to deliver the insight they’ve cultivated through years in the industry. Some of these people were in your place only a few years ago, while others are Hall Of Fame shoers who have been at this job for decades.

While everyone’s experience is unique, there will be some common road blocks all farriers face. Through the stories and quick tips in these pages, you’ll be better prepared to come up with a solution.

By the time you finish this issue, you will realize that you can often turn to your fellow farriers with your career questions.

Sure, there may be competition over clients, disagreements or that one farrier who just can’t get along with anyone — including the horses. But you are entering into an industry that is also a community.

I recall what Texas farrier Pat Burton told me after his shoeing rig was stolen last spring. After receiving offers of assistance from other farriers, including free use of trucks, tools and inventory, he asked, “In what other industry would you see your competition come out to help you?”

In essence, that’s what the Career Guide is all about: dozens of your potential competitors, willing to give you a hand when you need it.