A few weeks ago, the owner of a horse breeding facility shared some insights about their former farrier.

They’d used this highly recommended farrier for 9 months and were happy with his work. After trying to contact him for a week after an appointment was missed, they found another farrier 2 hours away who was glad to accept all of the area’s shoeing work.

“The previous farrier stood up 20 customers in the middle of the show season and most of us had over 10 horses in our barns,” says the owner. “He didn’t show up for any of his shoeing appointments, made no telephone contact and we simply didn’t hear from him.”

Besides leaving over 200 horses high and dry for footcare, the situation also represents a communications concern.

When our editors surveyed a cross-section of horse owners 18 months ago regarding footcare, 24 percent said their biggest gripe was that farriers are hard to reach, don’t return phone calls, are difficult to schedule, don’t show up when they say or show up hours late.

Under Promise, Over Deliver

By not showing up or routinely being late, these farriers do what’s often called overpromising and under delivering their services. One reason is not scheduling horses properly for shoeing or not recognizing how much time it’s going to take to shoe a problem horse. Yet a quick phone call can alert the next client and make being late much more bearable for everyone.

If you constantly show up late, maybe…