Who or what decides if a person is a farrier

Dave I love the 'successfully altering' hahaha, I have witnessed people who consider altering the interface is sufficient.

Well back in 1997 when Mark Pain and Scott Lee taught me how to build shoes and I passed some type of certification in Placerville, I would have to say about three months of pounding away on bar stock before I could build a shoe the AFA and Mark Pain liked. Although I sucked at making bar shoes, the welding part.

ehhh 2006, so learning to make shoes again...hehe, um lets just say im saving up money for a lot of bar stock.. haha and propane

Grandpa was a farrier he raised me, have been under horses since I was a child, I could shoe a horse by the time I was fifteen,

Then I went to Sierra Horseshoeing School when I was seventeen/eighteen,(mark pain)

then I apprenticed under Trevor Hirschberg in Phoenix AZ for awhile, then I branched out on my own in the Phoenix area, So from 1995-2003 I was shoeing or trimming daily, 1997-2003 working with forges and building shoes, 2006 helped out grandpa for a bit, then took a break and fished on the Pacific Ocean for crabs, black cod and halibut, then started up business again in apr of 2011.... I don't know how to figure percentages...heh

hey thanks David, I posted something in the shoe building thread, directly related to your advice.

Chris, I have to admit that I may not be stinky enough for your standard . But am working on it.

Sometimes I think am a bit nuts when am away from work and start missing the smell of the frog

Merriam-Webster is a good place to find the definition of words.

far·ri·er

noun \ˈfer-ē-ər, ˈfa-rē-\

Definition of FARRIER
: a person who shoes horses


Origin of FARRIER
alteration of Middle English ferrour, from Anglo-Frenchferrour blacksmith, from ferrer to shoe (horses), from Vulgar Latin *ferrare, from Latin ferrum iron
First Known Use: 15th century

As the usage has progressed since the 15 century, in the current vernacular, a shoer can only hang some cold iron on a hoof, but a Farrier builds and applies custom fit Equine orthotics.
The problem is that many horses don't study English vocabulary, and walk off fine from an iron hanger but gimp around after the Farrier's work.

The fact still remains that some of the best farriers/horseshoers in the nation are not certified.

But all this is just my opinion, and I have no certification, so I am aware that it carries little weight with most.

In America maybe not and rural Irish areas it still makes no difference except to a few but where I lived and worked in Ireland before moving out to Saudi there were basically five farriers working in the area. One of the lads never qualified, dropped out of his apprenticeship after 2 years but was a competent shoe'r. How ever quite a large number of his clients over the space of a couple of years switched to one of us that was qualified after realizing he wasn't, no problems with his work only their imagination's getting the better of them in most cases.
We have a register of 'Master Farriers' (that'l start them off ) that's easily available with quick Google search and is published yearly in the Irish Field (equine news paper), if your name isn't on it whether your good or not some owners start over thinking when they have problems that are usually related to poor riding ability and purchasing a horse that's above their capabilities.

Best in the nation according to what criteria? What makes it a FACT according to you?

I am pretty sure that your personal criteria for determining who the best farriers in the country are differs greatly from my personal criteria. Actually since I haven't seen the work of all the farriers in the country, I would only offer my opinion in regards to the best I've seen, which came from farriers holding the FWCF.

Most certifications establish objective criteria for MINIMUM skills and knowledge. As such, when I meet a farrier that holds a certification, even if I have not seen their work, I have some assurance that at some point they met the minimum standards required to earn their certification. Otherwise, I have nothing to go on until I see for myself what an individual can or can not do under a horse or at least engage them in a dialog and find out if they have a an education and skills comparable to or exceeding the minimums I can expect from someone with "paper."

Conversely, I tend to judge the work of farriers "with paper" more critically than the work of non-certified farriers. My expectations of certified farriers are higher. When I see poor work out of a certified farrier it brings me great disappointment and embarrassment. When I see poor work out of an un-papered farrier I feel sympathy because I don't expect them to know any better.

I feel, for me, certification and titles are more like challenges. In video games you have the game but you also have challenges. The game is to defeat all the enemies. You can win by only defeating all the enemies. The challenges are, doing it with nothing but head shots or with a certain weapon only. Although they are not the primary focus of the game they are very difficult and take lots of skill to achieve.

I see getting certifications and stuff as challenges for myself in the universe of Horseshoeing/farrier work. ;-).

Best in the nation...to me...means they are sought out when everyone else has exhausted all their best attempts at making a horse sound. A person who many vets highly regarded in their field seek out and use the services of said farrier. Someone who is highly sought out not only in their state, neighboring states, but far beyond their region.

What makes it a fact...to me it's pretty tough to argue with the evidence, when a person is sought out over other farriers, when a person is brought in by numerous vets, someone who when presented with a lame horse is able to see the issue, formulate a plan and fulfill that plan again and again. Long term careers, long term success with many lameness cases resolved successfully.

Like I said in the beginning the proof is in the pudding...or as someone else said "in the tasting". It's hard to argue with long term success.

Again...this is all just my un-certified opinion.

Someone else said it's not what you know, but who you know that counts.

Ahhhhh, guilt by association......

I'm not a real doctor, but I know about a guy that played one on TV.