Farriers

My farrier has headed off to Europe for 6 months to spend time with Boyd Martin the number one Aussie with Carriage driving. This left Sam and I (and many others) in a predicament. In my little town we have a shortage of good farriers. The one other good farrier is refusing to take on new clients. So last time Sam was due for shoes we packed him up into the float and travelled 2.5hrs down the road to see another farrier. He works with one of the Equine hospitals so I presumed he would be good. Wasn't I wrong. I should have listened to Sam. He hated him. All farriers love Sam because he stands still and quiet with no complaining unless you take over an hour then he gets restless and bored. Right from the beginning Sam wouldn't stand still, snatching his hooves away, rearing at times. I didn't know what else to do so I got that farrier to finish the job.

Today I went to a new farrier, only 1hr down the road. He took his time and looked at Sam's conformation, the way he stood, walked, his angles, everything. He asked questions and actually listened to the history that I gave him about Sam and his hooves. He took the first shoe off and when he cut away the excess hoof we were in for a shock. The white line at Sam's toe was RED!!!! He was like that in all four hooves at the toe. The previous farrier had changed Sam's gait so badly he had changed it so Sam was landing toe first!

Sam didn't show any lameness between both shoeings only a slight shortness of stride. I thought this may have been due to the fact that it was getting colder and that he was stiffening up.

So Sam now has better angles, was straight away a lot happier to stride out in walk and trot. This farrier created a lovely break over at the toe, my usual farrier always did this but the previous farrier took this away.  I wish I had taken photos but it was so cold and wet and windy I didn't want to slow the process down.

The importance of a good farrier, no hoof no horse!!!!!!