Shoutout to the old farrier who let me shadow him for a day back in 2012

I was over at the Blackburn Arena in Lexington last weekend and saw this young guy shoeing a horse like he was in a race - no feel for the hoof at all. Makes me wonder, do they still teach the old rasp-and-feel method at any of the farrier schools these days?

3 comments

3 Comments

dixon.james1mo ago

Man that hits close to home. I had this old timer named Red let me follow him around for a summer back in 08, and he always said you gotta talk to the hoof, not fight it. The way he'd run his hand down the leg and just know where the shoe needed to sit was something you can't learn from a video. Makes me sad that the quick and loud approach seems to be taking over. You ever run into any of the old school guys still working that way?

ivanbell1mo ago

Hell, that young guy probably learned more in a week than you did in a summer. All that old "feel the hoof" talk is just romanticizing slow work when there's a better way to do it.

anna4911mo ago

Cant even feel my own feet half the time after standing in the warehouse all day, so I'd probably just drop the horse shoe and trip.