I have been fortunate enough to visit a lot of farriers’ shops, so I have an idea or two about what makes for a good one.

Every farrier has “lost shoe” stories. You get a call from a client whose horse reported back to its stall with one missing. Now the client knows it had all four shoes when she turned it out in the paddock. What’s more, she’s searched the paddock on her hands and knees, mucked out the stall and gone over the area between paddock and stall with a fine-tooth comb and no shoe.