When Walt Taylor kicked-off the presentation by Anvil 21 members at the American Farrier’s Association convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, he promised that the next four hours would cover “good, basic stuff.”

Basic hardly covered it. And “stuff” is much too mundane a word to cover the cornucopia of practical shoeing tips, professional and business advice, philosophy and chuckles served up by these legends of horseshoeing. Stuff? Buried treasure is made of such stuff.

Experienced Group

The Anvil 21 Club has 39 members who have a combined total of more than 1,000 years of horseshoeing experience. Obviously, members who took part in this event couldn’t share all of their horseshoeing lore, but they did provide something for just about everyone (for some specifics, see pages 32 to 35 in this issue).

And don’t get the idea that this was just a bunch of old timers sitting around telling horseshoeing stories. While there was an element of that, even the stories were packed with horseshoeing knowledge. The Anvil 21 gang obviously spent some time putting together this presentation and covered topics as broad in scope as the considerable experience of its members.

Something For Everyone

Jim Keith of Tucumcari, N.M., opened his tool box to hand out tips on how to maintain tools and use them more effectively. Lee Green of Yucaipa, Calif., and Scott Simpson of Belgrade, Mont., teamed up to talk about developing an “Eagle Eye,” not just for winning shoeing contests, but to add efficiency to your…