So You Think You Are A Horseshoer.

Or Farrier For You Latin Aficionados.

When we first moved to Montana, I went to local veterinarians to introduce myself and let them know I had the skills to handle any hoof or leg issues that they came across. They were very encouraging and said that they would be grateful for someone local that could balance feet properly and forge appropriate shoes for various hoof injuries. Apparently, they would have to look for a farrier from Bozeman or Billings for specialty work or corrective shoeing and those places were at least an hour away.

At home that night a thought kept nagging me. “Specialty work” they called it. The term “corrective work“ was just as bad. During my apprenticeship, and then in my own practice back in Connecticut, you weren’t considered a farrier if you didn’t know how to do everything required to shoe any horse. As a matter of fact, I didn’t consider myself a horseshoer until I was confident that no matter what you threw at me, I could handle it.  Here in Montana, I was getting the impression there were two types of shoers. One type just puts shoes on for beer money. The other type knows what they are doing. There was some serious education on the farrier trade that needed to be done.

Every time you shoe a horse, you attempt to balance the foot from side to side and front to back. You always try to improve the horse’s movement so that they can do their job well. There are serious concussive and compressive forces at work as a horse moves. It all has to do with the horse’s anatomy and the way horses take up the shock of their movement. As I have said to many youth groups, if you get stepped on, you wouldn’t believe it, but lots of the force is not going down through the foot and on to your toe, but is instead directed up the leg where it is taken up by tendons, ligaments, and muscles.

I remember having a confidence crisis when I shod a foundered horse with heart-bar shoes for the first time back in Connecticut. I was so worried, I swallowed my pride and asked my old Master Gary to come and look.

He showed up and after examining both feet, he set the last foot down and asked, “So why am I here again?”

“So, it looks alright?” I asked.

“Did you have radiographs done to be sure about the fit in relation to the coffin bone?”

“Yes sir. The vet and I both looked at it. It was good.”

“Well then, yes it looks fine. First time you made heart-bars on your own?”

“Yeah. When I got to the part where it looked like a tangled mess and could never be an actual shoe, I panicked a little, but I remembered watching you do it and having the same issue. You said it would be fine, and it was.”

“Nice job. Your nail holes need a little work. Now you owe me lunch for a consulting fee.”

I started getting phone calls for horses with foot problems not long after visiting with the vets in Montana. My first issue was explaining to people that I could not fix what God had created. People assumed that when they asked me about “corrective work,” and I said that I could in some cases fix some problems, that meant I could fix anything which is one of the reasons I hate the term.

 I had a horse that had a straight wall on the inside of one foot. A horse’s front foot should be shaped roughly like a circle or an oval. This foot looked like the letter D. It had been born that way, the owner said. I gave the animal a going over. It traveled well. It wasn’t lame. I straightened up after testing the feet for sole soreness and found nothing unusual.

“I guess I don’t understand the problem here. I doubt that I can make this straight wall broaden out. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Why are you concerned about it? Is he going to the show ring?”

“Oh heck no. He’s just a ranch horse.” The owner replied.  “I have a hard time driving nails on that wall when I shoe him. Say, you don’t know any tricks on how to drive nails on a foot like that, do you?”

This was my first encounter with the time-honored western tradition of ranchers wanting to learn how to do a farriers work so they didn’t have to pay me. It would not be my last.

I knew a rancher named Jim down on the Yellowstone River.  He would have me come to shoe the big pain in the neck horse he had that also had terrible feet. The feet were soft and mushy. Thin walls that did not want to hold nails. I drew triple clips in an attempt to keep the shoes on and I had done pretty well over time. I used thin bladed nails to keep from tearing up too much wall and punched two new nail holes to give me options on placement. He took this horse into some really terrible country chasing cows and elk, so I used every trick in my book to keep shoes on. I pleaded with Jim with each visit to try and keep the horse out of the mud and horse manure in the loafing shed in order to keep the feet drier, but of course that never happened. The horse was not well behaved at all, so it was a struggle every time. You might ask why did I do it? Simple. We needed the money, and I liked the guy.

At first Jim would stand there watching me very carefully. He would pick feet up and examine each one as I finished. I thought in the beginning he was admiring my work. I’m such a knucklehead.

One cold rainy Saturday morning I was happily sitting next to the wood stove drinking coffee and watching the boys play a video game when Kerry brought me the phone. Her eyebrows were so raised up I’m surprised they didn’t pop right off her face. It could not be a good phone call.

“Hello?” I said warily into the receiver.

“Hey John, it’s Jim.”

“Well, hi, Jim. You getting any of this rain?”

I had just been there to do that rotten footed horse and I was concerned he had pulled a shoe off along with most of his foot.

“Yeah man. It’s really nice. To tell you the truth, John, I need a favor.”

“Sure Jim. What do you need?”

“I was wondering if I could borrow some tools off you.”

I was taken aback. I had been in Jim’s shop. He had enough tools to start a hardware store. What could I have that he would need?

“Well Jim if I have what you need, sure you can borrow them.”

There was silence. Jim finally said, “What do you mean if you have them?’

Now I was confused.

“Well, Jim, you have a lot more tools than I do. I find it hard to believe I have what you need.”

Jim burst out laughing.

“Oh, I see! No, John, I was talking about horseshoeing tools.”

“You want to borrow my horseshoeing tools? My hand tools?”

“Yeah. I think I’ve learned enough by watching you that I can do my other horses. I just don’t have the right tools and you know how expensive they are. I figured I could use them this weekend while its raining and get them back to you by Monday.”

 “I’m sorry Jim. Can you let me put you on hold for a sec? I think my mom is on the other line.”

“Sure. No problem.”

I looked at my darling wife whose eyebrows had settled down but the veins on her neck were sticking out a touch.

“Did he tell you what he wanted?” I whispered as I covered the phone up with my hand.

“Yes. I almost told him no for you and then give him a piece of my mind, but I don’t know him well enough to tell him off.”

She is so cute and polite, don’t you think?

I figured that the only way out of this was the truth.

“Jim! Sorry about that.”

“That’s OK. Moms, what are you going to do?”

Say, Jim, about the tools. I don’t think you have thought this through. You know Charlie Colter, right?”

“The contractor? Sure, I do. He built my pole barn.”

“What do you think Charlie would say if you called and asked to use his table saw, circular saw, his nail guns and compressor so you could remodel your kitchen on the weekends because he is pretty expensive and so are the tools and you thought you had learned enough by watching him to do it yourself?”

There was a long pause. I knew Jim was still there because I could hear him breathing.

“I imagine he would tell me to go to hell.” Jim was obviously embarrassed.

Now once again this is where I prove I am a nice guy no matter what The Head Dog Trainer will tell you.

“Yeah. I think he would too. Jim, my tools are the best I can afford because the quality makes my work easier and better. I can’t take the chance of my nippers getting bent, or worse, having the blade chipped on a pebble or nail. Now I would be happy to teach you what I can so you can do it yourself but I will charge you for it because it took me years to learn, but you will need your own tools. You can buy less expensive tools at the supply store. Besides, all you really need are pull offs, nippers, a hammer, and a rasp. I’ll sell you a good rasp at my cost. You own a hammer for nailing. I saw it in the barn. Those old pull-offs you have with the hammer will work. You have a hoof knife and I’ll show you how to sharpen it properly because those stainless blades can be a bugger. So, all you really need are a pair of hoof nippers. They are about $120.00 for good ones. I would invest my money in those.”

“John, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jim it’s not a big deal.”

Jim and I went on to have a long professional relationship and he decided that it was dumb to hurt himself shoeing when he could pay a dummy like me to do it. “Worth every penny,” he would say as he signed the check.

I went to another place on the Sweet Grass River once where the owner, Stan, was nice enough at first. He had caught up all the horses, something that was not always the case when I show up, so I appreciated it. We spent the time chatting about the ranch and the area’s history as I worked. What was strange was that he had said on the phone he needed a shoer to do corrective work, but I never did find a horse of his that needed anything special.

I was heating up a pair of shoes in the gas forge to work when he wandered over from the hitching rail.

“So why do you do that?” he asked.

‘Heat up the shoes? Well did you know there are only two reasons a horseshoer will go to hell? One is hitting cold steel and the other is not charging enough!”

It was a common question out here and normally I get a big laugh out of people with that joke, but this guy was not amused. In fact, he acted like he took offense. To be honest, I have never understood guys like this. I met them occasionally in my travels, and I’m afraid that they are most often ranchers. They really take some strange stuff seriously and they always think they are real tough guys.

“It just seems stupid to me. Why not just bend the shoes cold?”

Now Stan, a man I did not know, had just crossed a line by saying what I do is stupid. It’s a small line but it got my attention. I decided to take a more serious route to educating the gentleman.

“Well, you see Stan, I do this every day. I use my hammer hand and arm hundreds of times day, thousands of times a week. Hammering cold steel puts a real strain on my elbow. The tendon gets inflamed and then I can’t work. I’m not saying I won’t bend shoes cold. I do it if I’m in a rush, but I’m not today.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind if you hurried up a bit.”

Well, I’m sorry to say that tore it. I shut off the forge and began tapping lightly on my anvil with my rounding hammer.

“Stan, am I in some kind of a god dammed race here and don’t know it?”

That backed him up some. He didn’t know what to do. Apparently, nobody talked back to him. Especially with a pound and a half hammer in their hand.

“If you are bored, go do something else, Stan. The horses are fine. I don’t need you here and I don’t get paid by the f***ing hour.” I turned the forge back on and got back to work completely ignoring him.

You see, there is a reason why this sort of thing happens occasionally. I stroll through life with a pleasant look on my face most of the time. Some people have described it as my altar boy face. I’m friendly, polite, considerate, and nice to children, old folks, dogs, barn cats and horses. Some people mistake that for weakness. They think real men are like the characters on the TV show Yellowstone, or the former President of the United States’s mug shot. Tough and grim.

My father taught me that the guy to watch out for in a bar fight was the one with the smile on his face. The tough guys are easy to deal with. A punch in the nose and they will go away. The guy with the smile? He might be deadly because he either enjoys the violence, or knows no one can take him down. Possibly both.

Anyway, Stan beat a hasty retreat, the big dumb bunny. I was working on the last horse’s shoes when he came back looking humble.

“I apologize for pushing you.”

“That’s alright Stan. I apologize for yelling.”

“So, no hard feelings?’

“None at all,” I said.

Stan smiled a little.

“Honestly though. About the forge,” he began.

I had to laugh. These guys never quit.

“Let me show you. Take this shoe and open it up a little on the anvil.”

Stan took a pair of tongs and the hammer and did just that. The man might know what he is doing.

“So, from the fourth nail hole bend the heels in a bit and then we will check for fit.”

It took two trips, but Stan got that shoe real close.

“Ok, now we will heat up a shoe and do the other foot. How many times did you hit that cold shoe do you think?”

“Oh hell. Must have been 15 or 20 times?”

“That’s probably right, about 30 or 40 hits for two shoes. 60 or 80 for four.”

“I see where you are going with this.” Stan looked thoughtful.

“Now take the shoe out of the forge and shape it so it matches the first.”

Stan struggled a bit because the shoe was red-hot and he was hitting it too hard. A rookie mistake we all make when learning. After a few heats, he got it reasonably close. I had thrown another shoe in the fire.

“You struggled but that’s to be expected. It takes practice but you saw how easy it was to bend the shoe.”

“Yeah, way too easy.”

OK, so I have had a lot of practice. Let’s count hammer blows.”

I shaped the shoe in six strikes and concaved the foot surface side so no steel could touch the sole and make the horse sore. Then I cooled it off.

“Crap,” said Stan as he sighted down the shoe for level.

“Oh, don’t give up hope yet! It might not fit.” I laughed. It was telling that Stan did not join in my laughter.

I was having a good day and it fit perfectly.

“So here’s the thing Stan, I can shape four plain shoes in about 25 or 30 hammer blows using the forge as opposed to at least double that doing it cold. I use my elbows for a bunch of operations in the process. Over time my joints will pay a price for doing this. I need to get every break I can if I want to do this until I’m in my sixties. Assuming no accidents or kicks put me out of business of course.”

I never heard from Stan again, which wasn’t surprising.

This is the end of Part One. I got on a roll and wrote 5000 words before I knew it and my editor said it was too long. So we cut it in half and you will get the second part next week.

Once again, please hit the heart shaped Like button if you enjoy this piece. It really helps me. Feel free to comment and also Share this anywhere. You just have to hit the buttons. We are going bird hunting with Bella and Maggie and I’m not sure there is any internet where we are going so I wont be able to chat until Tuesday. Have a good weekend!