A week ago, Mike Lessiter took his Mother and me to see the newly-released “Reagan” movie … the story of how former President Ronald Reagan had the goal of wiping out communism around the world. It was an excellent movie and one I’d recommend you find the time in your busy schedule to attend.

It’s a well-told story of the critical concerns regarding communism around the world back in the 1980s and how the Reagan administration attempted to deal with them. 

At the end of the movie that the three of us attended, there was unanimous applause from the theater-goers. Nobody in the theater got out of their seats until the very last of the rolling credits and the showing of still more pictures and facts were wrapped up on the screen at the conclusion of the movie.

So what’s the tie-in with the newly-released President Reagan movie and the framed Arlington National Cemetery photo and shoe shown here that hangs on my office wall? Yea, maybe it’s a bit of a reach on my part to associate the Reagan movie with one of the framed items on my office wall, but there’s a farrier story that ties the two together.

In the movie, there’s a scene where a U.S. Army horse-drawn caisson carrying the casket of former President Reagan is going down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., in June of 2004. 

American Farriers Journal Editor Visits Arlington

Back in 1999, one of our American Farrier Journal editors produced a 10-page AFJ feature on the “Nation’s Farrier” at Arlington National Cemetery, which is located at Fort Myers across the Potomac river from the nation’s capital.

While interviewing official Arlington farrier Pete Cote, our reporter mentioned that I collected horseshoes that had been worn by a number of famous equines.

Cote told our staffer said that when President Reagan passed away in a few years, he would send me one of the shoes nailed on a foot of one of the 6 horses used to pull the funeral procession wagon through the streets of Washington.

After President Reagan died in 2004, I thought about the promised shoe that would be a great addition to my collection. However, I wasn’t about to write Pete and ask about the shoe. Some 5 years later, I figured that Cote had forgotten about sending me the promised funeral procession shoe for my collection.

As the days went by, I’d given up hope of getting the funeral procession shoe. So I was really surprised when the shoe arrived in the mail 7 weeks later. I soon had it framed along with one of the photos from the “Nation’s Farrier” that now hangs on my office wall. As you may be able to see from the accompanying photo, the display also includes these words from Pete Cote…

PRESIDENTIAL FUNERAL PROCESSION. This is the right rear shoe worn by Danny, working in the wheel position on the military-style caisson that carried the casket of President Ronald Reagan during the Washington D.C. funeral service in June of 2004.

I also have several other special shoes framed and hanging on my office wall … including a shoe taken off one of the horses that pulled the Budweiser 8-horse hitch and another shoe worn by a pony owned by Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie. During a 1999 visit to the Graceland barn in Memphis for our long-term “Shoeing for a Living” series I saw the pony and the place where now deceased Mississippi farrier Lim Couch shod the Elvis horses for many years. (There’s another personal story behind each of those shoes, too, that needs telling one of these days.)

This personal experience is a great example of the all-important value of farriers and equine veterinarians always keeping their word. Demonstrated so well here with a promise by Pete Cote, a man of his word and the “Nation’s Farrier” that was promised 25 years ago.

Shoeing at the Nation’s Most Famous Cemetery

Here are a few paragraphs from our “Nation’s Farrier” feature that appeared in the March/April 1999 issue of American Farriers Journal. (To read about the full “Nation’s Farrier” shoeing experience at Arlington National Cemetery, go to …)

Pete Cote shoes the horses that pull the full-honor funeral caissons at Arlington National Cemetery, is the official farrier for Presidential inaugurations and shoes the only horses owned and maintained by the federal government

Pete Cote was a farrier before the U.S. Army made him one of its own, but little did he know the Army and horseshoeing would both be a major part of his life for the last 30 years. 

When the Army drafted Cote into service in 1969, the new soldier let his superiors know he had unique skills. His abilities as a farrier eventually brought him to historic Fort Myer, located across the Potomac River from the heart of Washington, D.C. 

For the past three decades, he has shod the horses that pull the caissons during the typical four or five full-honor funeral processions for military veterans held daily in the 612-acre Arlington National Cemetery. These 43 horses represent the Caisson Platoon, a subunit of the more than 200-year-old 3rd Infantry, also known as the “Old Guard.” Incidentally, this is the only full-time equestrian unit remaining in the U.S. Army. 

An average of 25 funerals of all types are held each day at Arlington and these horses play an important role in the four or five full-honor funerals that deliver the bodies of fallen heroes to their final resting places.