Farrier Visit

Billy has been my farrier for 3 years, but last time he was here, he told me he could no longer come to my house to shoe my horses since he'd dropped all other clients out my direction. I thought I might be able to trailer out to him, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided this was not practical on a regular basis. So I decided to have Tony shoe my horses now.

Tony is another farrier that works with Billy and has been out to my place many times. He usually works on Serts and then helps Billy finish Tanna since Tanna takes longer.

I was very pleased with Tony's work today. Tanna's feet look very nice. The chunk out of his left rear hoof is getting smaller.

Here is a picture taken right before Tony arrived.


And here is a picture taken just after Tony left.

Tony just did a reset of Tanna's shoes, so he didn't have to shape new shoes or alter the left rear to accomodate the nails in the different places. These shoes only have 5 weeks and about 35 training miles on them, so they're not worn down at all and should last me through my coming endurance rides.

Last time Billy and Tony were here, Billy added stud pins to Tanna's shoes. These are the middle of regular horseshoe studs, but just the middle. Billy drilled a hole into the heel of each shoe, one on either side and put a stud pin in each hole. The friction holds the mini stud in place. These studs are very useful for pavement work as they are so small they only come into play when the horse is on pavement or solid rock. They don't affect any thing in grass or gravel.



I have been very pleased with the performance of these stud pins. I have ridden Tanna on the pavement a few times. Our local road was black-topped in Spring 2006 and without these stud pins, Tanna will slip. With the stud pins, he can do a nice trot without worrying about falling. The silly horse even tries to canter on the pavement, he feels that secure. I don't allow him to do that, but he sometimes gets a few steps in before I can rein him back to a trot. We even go up and over a local paved hill without incident.

With some studs you have to worry about too much traction and worry about the wear and tear on the joints, but these stud pins give enough to not be hard on the joints, but not so much that the slipping is dangerous. They are really a great tool for me since many of my training rides are out my front gate onto pavement. While we get off on the shoulder as much as possible, we still are on pavement a good bit of time.

These stud pins are going to become standard equipment for my horses whenever they are shod.

And one last picture of the boys after all the standing around waiting for the farrier to come and be finished.