Attention is often paid to forging temperatures, hammer blows and anvils, and rightly so. There are other aspects of forging that are equally important, yet don’t get as much consideration. “A lot of people have problems because they’re just all over the place,” Sacramento, Calif., farrier John Williams told attendees at a late summer forging clinic at The Horseshoe Barn. “They’re just spread out all over their anvil. They throw their stock up there, any old place, and then they just take their hammer to the stock.”

’Tis the season. Days grow shorter and the skies threaten snow. Barns sit quiet. Horses stand barefoot. Farriers slow down and start daydreaming about the shiny new tools in magazine ads and winter trade show booths.

A while back I completed one of the best clinics that I ever had the pleasure of attending.

It's early, but one of Bill Ruh’s customers has apparently decided she’s stood quietly long enough. The farrier shakes his head as he describes her quick gallop toward freedom, across a west central Michigan bean field, in the general direction of nearby Grand Rapids.