The worst Farrier… ever!

Just as Willow was beginning to recover from the Leg Sucking Mud Incident, we had a run in with a newbie farrier. The regular farrier (who is great!) was training an apprentice farrier. They can get the 7 horses done in record time! So I trotted out Willow for the new guy. I should have known things were not going to work when Willow tried to stomp him and chew his hide off. I was so busy trying to save him, I couldn’t watch what he was doing. I know, it’s no excuse… I know better now!

He put no roll on the front of the hooves (or breakover, whatever you call it), he pared out a bunch of sole and then completely took out her bars. There was nothing left to hold her feet together, and she was very tender until her sole grew back! She had massive flare very quickly. I was bad in so many ways.

Not even two weeks later, Will had horrible chips in all her hooves, and then long quarter cracks! Of course these showed up just as the Gotland people (Pat’s Gotland breeding friends from Denmark) were visiting. They just shook their heads at the trim and said should never see that with the Russ. So all the men trouped out to the barn and trimmed her up, and showed Bill the best way to trim a Gotland. I took a few trimmings from Bill, but she has the best feet out there now, and I have decided to learn how to barefoot trim myself! But it took several more weeks before I was confident to ride her.

So a few great things came from the visit, including meeting the Danes and going on some fun rides with them! But now I think: sure, I can trim myself - I couldn't possibly be any worse than that farrier we actually paid to do it!