The first thing you notice about Eli Beiler is that he is Amish. This is evident by his distinctive handmade clothing, consisting of a plain shirt, black jacket and pants, suspenders, all topped off by a straw hat in summer and black, felt hat in winter. You can also tell he’s married, because he is required to have chin whiskers.

The Amish culture is noted for its fine craftsmanship but this is not so true of the art of farriery. This is due to two things. First, their carriage horses, which they rely on for transportation, require only a utility shoeing job that does not have to be fancy. The other is that the Amish farriers traditionally have been a closed community and did not attend the continuing education opportunities many other farriers did

But this is changing very quickly now and Beiler could be the poster boy for the new breed of Amish farrier.

In 1998, Eli attended his first American Farrier’s Association convention in Rochester, N.Y. He went to another convention in Lexington, Ky., then back to Rochester again a few years later. In 2003, he attended his first International Hoof-Care Summit. He can boast of perfect attendance at all nine Summits as well as numerous regional clinics. Beiler was a presenter during the 2012 Summit, and led hoof-care roundtable discussions on carriage horse shoeing in 2011 and 2012.

He’s also participated in shoeing competitions. His contest experience includes winning two first and two second place ribbons at the Pennsylvania Professional Farriers Association contest in 2004, when he was novice champion and the winner of a beautiful Flatland Forge turning hammer.

Beiler, born in 1960, is the fourth of six children. His father, Jonas, was a prominent farrier in the area, known for his skills shoeing road horses and Standardbred racehorses. Eli learned his skills at his father’s side and shod his first horse at 14.

Beiler, the artist, made a memento for his daughter and new son in law to mark their marriage.

He remembers the day very distinctly, because a client showed up at the shop while his father was gone.

Rather than wait for Jonas to return, the client asked Beiler if he would attempt to shoe the horse on his own. Beiler shod the horse and the client was delighted with the result. Beiler had reached a milestone in his life.

His clients repeatedly told me stories about Beiler’s excellent memory. He readily recalls horses, their achievements, their racing times and how they were shod. Today Beiler’s father, a very young 83, is retired, but still shoes his own horse and is very active.

Beiler recalls that while he was working with his father, their best account was Fashion Farm, the premiere breeding farm and racing stable. There he continued to learn and was exposed to some of the Standardbred industry’s best horses. Interestingly, at age 40, he made the decision that he would no longer work on mares and foals and stopped working at Fashion Farm. The account remains in the family though, as his brother now does the hoof care.

Beiler was married in 1984 and continued to work with his father until 1988 when he struck out on his own.

 

At a cultural Heritage Day Festival, Beiler’s father, Jonas, holds court entertaining the crowd and then shows that at 83, he can still do the work too.

In 2000, Beiler bought his present farm, a beautiful 15-acre property that is a short distance from where he was born and raised. He lives at the farm with his wife, Rebecca, and daughter Lizanne. Three other daughters have married and left home.

Rebecca has a flourishing bakery business on the property. Early on Beiler helped in the bakery on Tuesdays. Finally by 2002 his daughters were old enough to help in the bakeshop. Beiler laughingly says that he was eating all the profits so it was decided he’d retire as a baker.

Eli’s and Rebecca’s son-in-law Melvin Fisher, is also a farrier. He works for Beiler on Mondays at Ginger Tree Farm. On other days he works out of Beiler’s shop and travels to clients within buggy driving distance with his “pickup.” An Amish pickup is a buggy with an open bed in back for transporting shoeing equipment.

Beiler built his modern shoeing shop in 2006. This was a dream come true at the time and he worked there and on the breeding farms until tragedy struck.

Over the years, Beiler has employed numerous apprentices. One of them, Amos Lee, was very special to him. Lee, Beiler’s nephew, started working with him in 2004. But in 2009, he was killed in a traffic accident.

At that point, the shop held too many memories of his lost nephew, so Beiler abandoned his shop business and chose to work exclusively at the training farms.

Today, Eli works out of three Standardbred training stables. He started at Syl King Stables in 1982, Ginger Tree Stables in 1990 and Jacob Hardline Stables in 2003.

Special horses he has shod include:

  • Winning Mister, a trotter with winnings of $1 million, that broke the track record at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in 2011.
  • St. Elmo Hero, a pacer who in 2010 won 22 races in a row.
  • Gabby Glide, a trotter who broke the track record at Harrah Philadelphia wearing four aluminum shoes, going in 1:52.4.
  • Arctic Warrior a pacer with a lifetime mark of 1:49.2.