Doyle Blagg, a member of the 2010 class inducted into the International Horseshoeing Hall Of Fame, was unable to attend the awards ceremony in February at the International Hoof-Care Summit due to health complications.

The Guild of Professional Farriers may not be exactly reinventing itself, but the organization is embarking on an ambitious program of improvements designed to enhance its position in the hoof-care profession.

From 1915 to 1981, Illinois was I believe the first of only two or three states to have a licensing requirement for farriers. One of the requirements for a license was having completed a 3-year apprenticeship. Most farriers I spoke with who were affected by the licensing law had nothing good to say about it. They felt that it was unfairly applied and discriminatory. If you were friends with the examiner and/or they needed more farriers at that time, you had a much easier time of passing the test and being licensed than if you were not friends with the examiner or if they did not need more farriers — no matter how good you were.

While it has been possible in the past for shoers to deduct the cost of an office in the home that is used 100 percent for business purposes, a new U.S. Tax Court opinion may make it possible to do so even if the room is used for some personal uses. But one caution is that this opinion went against the existing tax law, which requires a room be used “regularly and exclusively” for work in order to take a home office tax deduction.