A pair of farriers earned a trip to the 2016 International Hoof-Care Summit after the American Association of Professional Farriers (AAPF) awarded them Roy Bloom Scholarships.

Ashley Gasky of Ballston Lake, N.Y., and Deanna Stoppler of Fairfax, Vt., were recognized as the inaugural scholarship winners in mid-December after fulfilling several application requirements:

Before reaching for hoof packing, it’s important to consider why. Ask yourself, what’s behind the intention of packing the hoof? How will it benefit the horse? It’s important to scrutinize your reasons and establish an objective.

Like other farriers, Mike Bagley was getting client calls from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., 7 days a week. Understandably, it is hard to keep your cool when it seems like clients don’t respect your private time. Now the Canton, Ohio, farrier leaves it to his voicemail to help. The voicemail greeting states his hours of contact and informs the caller that he does not work on Sundays. “By limiting the times I take calls I’m adding a human element to myself,” he says. “It tells them in a subtle way that I am human too and need my time away from work like anyone else does.”

If you go to a Jim Quick clinic expecting him to dictate how you should shoe a horse, you’re at the wrong clinic. Instead, the Niwot, Colo., farrier says his purpose is to not give instructions to tell other farriers how to shoe, but to share his thoughts on how he does the job. Quick did just that at Bruce Daniels Memorial Clinic in early April when he suggested points of consideration regarding medial-lateral balance.