When John Muldoon moved to the Oklahoma City area in 1984, he thought he was putting horseshoeing behind him.

Muldoon had moved to the Oklahoma capital from Colorado to take a job with an oil company, and figured he’d be too busy doing field work to have much time to spend shoeing horses. He was ready to move on after 8 years of shoeing, during which he worked primarily on gaited horses — mostly Saddlebreds, Arabians and Morgans – while also doing therapeutic shoeing at the Littleton Large Animal Clinic.

Of course, it may have been in his mind that he’d be able to pick up a little extra ready cash by shoeing a horse here or there. But for the most part, he was ready to hang up his shoeing apron.

Yeah, right.

“I hadn’t been here long when I had a call from Dr. Beckey Brewer from Chickasha. She asked if I shod horses,” he recalls. “I told her I used to. She said she got my name from Dr. Charlie Vail at the Littleton Large Animal Clinic. She had a horse she was doing a pre-purchase exam on and all it needed was a good shoeing job.”

So much for Muldoon’s shoeing “retirement.” He shod the horse — and the horse had a trainer. The…