Scott Lampert, a farrier with 30 years of experience, remembers an important, long-ago shoeing lesson as if it happened yesterday.

At the time, Lampert served a high-profile client with one of the top hunters in the country who had qualified for the indoor finals in Washington and New York. Lampert had shod the horse 2 weeks prior to it being shipped from Indiana to Washington. But upon arrival, the horse didn’t seem right, according to a call from the client — not lame, but with a bit of a reluctant stride.

Lampert was not scheduled to get to the event for a few days. He suggested that in the meantime, the client take the horse to Jack Miller, his trusted mentor, who was on site.

“When she walked the horse up and explained to Jack what was going on, he took the lead rope and asked her to get him a cup of coffee,” Lampert recalls. “When she returned in 5 minutes, he handed her the lead rope and told her to try him now. She went back and tacked the horse up, and her horse was back to normal — normal stride, licking his lips in comfort and performing as well as ever.

“When I arrived, I went straight to that horse and looked at him,” he says. “I was so focused on the fact that he may have put on a new shoe or a pad, changed the trim, that I was surprised to see it was still…