With an astounding eight-fold increase from participating shoers in a year’s time and outstanding support from 47 farrier suppliers, the 2001 mail-in forging exercise was a rip-roaring success.

Besides offering unlimited opportunities for participants around the world to expand their forging skills, the dollar value of products that shoers received for participating in the mail-in forging exercise undoubtedly qualifies it as the world’s richest farrier competition.

Co-sponsored by the World Champ­ionship Blacksmiths’ Competition held during the early July Calgary Stampede and American Farriers Journal, 71 farriers from seven countries each took home $426.85 in valuable farrier supplies simply for participating in this extraordinary mail-in forging exercise. In addition, each participant also received an evaluation of their shoes from the judges.

The top 25 finishers in the exercise also split an additional $10,871.49 in valuable farrier supplies, making a total of $41,177.84 of products that were awarded in this year’s event.

Marshall Iles, chairman of the World Champion Blacksmiths’ Competition committee and a farrier from Calgary, Alberta, says the mail-in forging exercise was extremely successful. 

“I was not only impressed with the number of entries, but also the fact that they came from a number of countries and the exceptional quality of…