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Making the shoe fit
MSU's acclaimed farrier school forges international reputation
by Suzi Taylor |
Page 1 of 4 |
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In a small, cinderblock building just a mile west of campus, 10 MSU students are learning a rigorous hands-on trade that blends science, skill and intuition. The work is physical and sometimes dirty. Extreme heat and cold are common. The roar of forges and hammers on anvils drown out casual conversation, and if it weren't for the Carhartts and T-shirts, the scene could be from pioneer days.
These students are here -- as they will be all day, every day for the next three months -- with a singular dedication: they want to learn to shoe. And MSU's Horseshoeing School, affiliated with the MSU College of Agriculture, has built a reputation as one of the best programs in the country.
These students come with a multitude of motivations, though most want to make a career out of this trade. Horseshoers can make a decent living and are in high demand. No machine exists that can replace a farrier's interaction with the horse.
"It's usually just a dirty old foot in front of us," said Tom Wolfe, the instructor for the last 25 years and de facto personality of the MSU Horseshoeing School.
| A truly successful farrier -- one who knows the art as well as the science -- is one with "horse sense". |
The farrier's job has changed little in 100 years: Balance the horse and help its legs bear weight evenly by trimming each foot. Like people, no horse has perfect posture, and the farrier must understand equine anatomy in order to evaluate the horse's legs and feet: Has the horse been injured? Does one foot flare to the side? Is it a working horse? A show horse? Or put out to pasture for months at a time?
And like a human with ill-fitting shoes, a trimming mistake can cause lameness or keep an injury from healing properly.
If a horse needs shoes, the farrier acts as blacksmith, heating an "out of the box" preformed shoe to 2,000 degrees in the forge or bending steel to create a custom shoe. It's physically demanding: hammering hot metal on an anvil, then lifting and supporting the horse's leg and bending over double to measure the shoe against the foot. Then it's back to the forge and anvil to reshape, re-measure, reshape.
The farrier attaches the shoe by nailing it to the thin "white line." This quarter-inch-wide band separates the hoof wall, which is non- living like a toenail, from the sensitive living laminae, which is tender and will bleed. These are tiny nails in tiny holes on a 1,000- pound creature who might object.
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