ANSWER:

In the late 1970s, Rich Albrecht, APF-I, and his wife bought land to build a house and barn. While walking the property, Albrecht approached the small stream that ran through it and noticed a horseshoe in the water.

“A horse could have thrown it going through the wooden gate that stood at the tree line, or maybe it washed down the stream to this spot,” says the now 77-year-old farrier from LaGrangeville, N.Y. “I hung it on a limb of a small ash tree where it stayed until this year.”

The tree was growing over the Phoenix heeled shoe in June 2018 (Left); however, the tree succumbed to ash borers. Albrecht was forced to cut the tree down in April 2023 (Right).

“You can see how much the tree grew around it over the years,” says Albrecht, who has been a farrier for 39 years. “The Phoenix Horseshoe manufacturing plant was located in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which was 20 minutes from this location.”

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SOURCE: Rich Albrecht, APF-I.