International Horseshoeing Hall of Fame member Bob Schantz of Foristell, Mo., has passed away.

Schantz was hospitalized earlier this week and passed after suffering a cardiac arrest, says Lee Green, a fellow Hall of Fame farrier and owner of The Shoein’ Shop in Yucaipa, Calif.

“He has always been an awesome friend and farrier and a great supporter of our favorite profession,” Green says. “His friends and family were his greatest love. I have had some of the best times with Bob, especially on our Anvil 21 Pack trips throughout the 1990s, when we loved to go out in the high country. I just talked to Bob last week, as we usually do, and he seemed to be fine and was enjoying life. He planned to attend the next [American Farrier’s Association] convention in Little Rock, Ark., and I was looking forward to seeing him there.”

Schantz got into farriery after buying a racehorse with some co-workers in 1972. His interest in horseshoeing kindled, Schantz moved from his native St. Louis to Tennessee in 1974 to attend horseshoeing school and practice the trade. He returned to St. Louis and started the Spanish Lake Blacksmith Shop in the old building. During that time, his father Chester Schantz, helped repair the building and recalled how he and his brothers and sisters came to that very shop more than a half-century earlier, traveling by horse and wagon.

By the early 1980s, Schantz had developed and patented an atmospheric propane forge, which was…