Caution, suspicion and resentment are brewing among the owners of private farrier schools as an American Farrier’s Association task force prepares to look into the qualifications of all North American farrier schools.

The school owners were planning to meet Aug. 19 and 20 in Oklahoma City, Okla., to discuss the pending AFA survey of the schools and the future relationship between private schools and the AFA. Bryan Quinsey, executive director of the AFA, was to be given time to address the school owners and answer questions, according to Reggie Kester, owner of the Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School and chief organizer of the meeting.

About 30 private school owners were contacted, and every one of them was expected to attend, according to Kester. He says Quinsey was not to be allowed to attend any portion of the meetings other than the time in which he would speak, and that the owners would try to develop a plan to “head off the regulations” that the AFA “seems to have in mind” for the schools.

Cooperation Unlikely

The owners’ meeting was held too late for the results to be included in this report. However, the owners were expected to vote to not respond to the AFA survey of the schools, according to Bob Smith, owner of the Pacific Horseshoeing School, Sacramento, Calif., and a member of the survey task force.

Smith says the owners also were to discuss a recently revealed letter written in spring 2004 by Walt Taylor, founder of the AFA…