FARRIERY:
UPDATE:
February 2012 issue HORSE Magazine:
We need to have experts around us we can trust. sometimes we need to ask those people to go above and beyond the call of duty, and a good relationship with your 'experts' is vital.
You may notice from this photo (my husband did), that the farrier is being offered a double-decker and a cuppa, this is a good start, but wait until he has finished doing a tricky job eh?
FARRIERY: My message, if your farrier falls short of the expertise you'd expect from him, change him. An unhappy relationship with someone whose job it is to take care of your beloved horse is just not worth it.
Check out the Worshipfull Company of Farriers: website, there you can find farriers in your area and cross-check them with any reccomendations.
ORIGINAL MESSAGE: FARRIERY
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January issue 2012
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Hi Jo,
I am writing in response to a letter in January issue
‘missing costs’ regarding farriers.
Fiona Morris obviously doesn’t think her farrier is worth
the cost of a set of shoes, but she has forgotten the cost of shoeing isn’t
about the raw materials, it’s about having someone very skilled and
experienced, with years of apprenticeship and training, looking after your horses
feet.
What she may not realise, because the operation looks so
smooth and practised, is that every visit her farrier is checking the balance
of her horses feet, watching how he moves, trimming to straighten or correct,
shaping the shoe, so he remains sound and rideable. This is a very
skilled job.
Farriery is the one cost I don’t moan about, because a good
farrier, like mine, is worth his weight in gold.
Farriers get a lot of criticism from owners, about costs and
unreliability, but I have the best farrier in the world and I am happy to pay
him what he’s worth. When he doesn’t turn up or is late, I try to think
that that could be my horse he’s taking longer with: requiring speciality
bespoke made corrective shoeing or emergency footwork, and my farrier takes the
time it takes to do the job right, so he is quickly forgiven.
Steve Taylor, comes out at almost no notice to
put shoes back on, he made a shoe specially to relieve a tendon injury my horse
had (much to the surprise of my vet who thought he’d be lame for much longer,
Steve’s forged on-the-spot, corrective shoe made him sound), and when I
had the HORSE Magazine photographer come round, he got out of his sick bed to
come out to me to check their shoes were OK for the shoot.
Treat your good farrier well, appreciate his expertise,
you’d be lost without him.
Thank you
Shelley Rand, Tom & Henry.
