It's a gorgeous autumn morning in October as Tim Tritch and I climb aboard his shoeing rig in Angola, Ind., in the extreme northeastern corner of the Hoosier state. Tritch lives a few miles from Angola. He’s a native of the area and as we roll out of town, he tells me that most of his clients are within a 45 to 50 mile radius of his home.

That radius includes clients in three states that come together in this area known to locals as “the Tri-State Region.” Tritch, an American Farrier’s Association (AFA) Certified Journeyman Farrier, shoes at one barn just across the Indiana line in northwestern Ohio and schedules entire shoeing days to the north, in south-central Michigan.

For today’s “Shoeing For A Living,” we’ll stay in Indiana, hitting a pair of barns where he’ll shoe for regular clients.

8 a.m. As we drive, Tritch tells me that while he’ll only visit the two barns today, the pair of stops will involve working on 10 or 11 horses. He agrees that’s a lot of horses, but quickly points out that he won’t be shoeing all of them. The second barn will involve a number of trims only.

8:12 a.m. The countryside we drive through rolls gently and is dotted with small and large lakes. It’s an area known for offering a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities and there is no shortage of horse sign along the roads. We pass  numerous corrals, barns and stables.

“There’s a couple of…