Post your worst shoeing experience,real or perceived, how deep the snow,how cold,how wet,hot, lugging your anvil 50 miles over broken glass just to be informed that they really can only afford a trim! Bs or truth, just be polite.
OK Ray, back when I was young and dumb and the adrenalin was still taking charge I had a wreck inside a horse trailer when a horse tried to turn around . He mashed me against a wall and broke several of my ribs. Soon after a rancher called. He needed several horses done to get his cattle to mountain pasture. I tried to beg off on account of the ribs, but he insisted that he really needed the horses and they were easy to do. So I agreed. I arrived to find no one there, but the horses were in a large corral. Hell, they weren't even easy to catch, let alone shoe. I had to rope a couple. I had to scotch most. I left a few rope burns on those. I got it done and his check was good, but we've had no business since, and that's fine with me.
Drafthorseshoer, counting your post as the 1st, Jack s as the "or so",one more and we ll have made progress on ya. 35 or more years ago, I was asked to winter shoe two horses recently purchased at auction for a new horseowner. I well remember that it was pretty cold and the appt. was at around 3 in the afternoon. When I got there the man did not have a barn ,but a truck body,maybe 20 foot long split into straight stalls, got one horse shod and went to work on the 2nd. . that bastard of a horse kept pulling backwards each time i tried to lift up a hoof, the guy decided that he would hold onto the halter using the 4 x 4 post to leverage his arm against, I remember getting to the words"I don t think that s a good ide.........a when I heard snap. The bastard pulled back ,the guy didn t let go and the arm was broken, bad, he wouldn t let me take him to the ER until i finished the horse, the lip chain worked well. At the ER i helped him fill out the forms and when they told him to take a seat I asked if he would like me to send him a bill for the shoeing,he sai no the money was in front pocket of the jeans he was wearing, on the side of his broken arm and that i could just reach into his pocket and take my pay,this in the waiting room of the ER. I again offered to bill him and he said no.... so i reached into his pocket and took my pay swearing to myself that if i so much as saw a crease of a grin on his face i d break his other arm. True story, he never called me again, wonder if my hands were too rough!
It was on a Tuesday. I was fresh out of shoeing school (over 10 years ago) and got a call to shoe 5. It was February and supposed to start snowing and they wanted me there at 5 pm so it would be dark in about an hour. I asked if they had a barn with lights to work in and she said yes. I arrived to find a shed with one light bulb and no walls. I could drive to the barn but the horses had to walk up a very steep rock and root covered hill. One was a mini that I explained didn't need shoes. One they decided not to shoe and a 3 year old who had never been shod. I never saw the other 2 horses they claimed to own. I started working on the uncooperative 3 year old and was about half way through. It's cold and raining and this woman says she is cold and is going inside. I say I'm cold too, let's take the horse inside and finish in the living room. She took the hint and stayed. I got the horse done and left. Two days later she called to say he bent a shoe walking up the hill. I showed up running 5 minutes late and got a terrible lecture from her father about wasting their time by being late. I didn't even unpack my tools. I just explained that i was not going to be able to shoe for them. The woman had a fit because I wasn't going to fix the shoe and demanded to know why I was talking to her "like that". I just said something about losing my number as I got in my truck and drove off.
I've had so many, I couldn't think of one at first. Then I started counting the scars on my hands ( 13 on the left and 7 on the right) and some of them came back to me. Got this when a Belgium blew, and the holder whom I had told not to stand behind me, but did, held on as the horse ran backwards and was dragged into me sending me under the tap dancing dinosaur, who stepped on most of me, especially the hand. Remember getting a nail dragged through my palm while shoeing a pony. Wrapped it in vetwrap and duct tape and went to the ER for stitches, returned and finished the pony and trimmed 5 more, cradling the feet in my wrist, 'cause the hand was wrapped up the size of a soft ball. But the one that particularly stands out was "Winston", the mini donkey. I had been trimming him and his feral mate "Wilbur" for a while, and every time I was there I got kicked. I was younger and dumber back then. These little pukes couldn't be caught, tied, walked, or handled in any way, except by an idiot farrier who was bigger than them. All during each half hour fight, the owner kept saying "be a good boy Wilbur (or Winston), Winston want a cookie?" which pretty near drove me crazy. The last time I was there, Winston kicked me 3 times. After the last time I drew off and kicked him so hard his feet came off the ground. The lady screamed "You KICKED him". I reminded her that he had kicked me 3 times and that I owed him 2 more, but In was feeling kind and was going to let him off easy. Then I went out to the truck and wrote down the name of a trimmer I didn't care for, with the phone number, and gave it to the lady with my highest recommendation. Regards
I've had a few cuts and scrapes through the years but my worst experiences have by far been with owners not the horses.
One summer, I was shoeing AQHA runners at a illegal bush track in Alabama, back in the '70s; 110f with 100% humidity everyday. This here "Yankee" was recruited to go there ,by a TB trainer, who figured I was young, dumb and fairly honest. I ended buying new tools from Centaur weekly ,when mine were magically disappearing. I left most of my inventory at the local Post Office, where it was shipped to. I was constantly bribed and/or threatened to shoe the horse, I was working on "right" and bribed/threatened to shoe "the Favorite" not so "right". It was the only time in my life I carried and slept with a Smith & Wesson under my pillow, in the stall I had for a home. I had been plating for a couple of the Mafia guys in Detroit but it was scarier down there. After 3 months, the GOOD MONEY just wasn't worth it anymore. On the plus side, I made enough to propose to my future wife and put a down payment on my farm.
Had to trim a coming two year old and the only 'safe' place to do the job was in the puke's stall. Was working with another farrier who was handing me my tools and another guy who was handling the horse. I was under the pelt when all of a sudden he just went crazy. Before I knew it, I was on the ground under him and he was tap dancing all over me. I managed to roll out from under him and that pelt came after me, striking and biting. The only thing that saved my life was the that the other farrier jumped forward and got his shoulder in the horse's chest and drove him backwards off and away from me. Seemed to startle that puke long enough for the guys to drag me out of the stall. I managed to drive home, about 2 hours, took some meds and a shower and called it a night. 'Bout 3 in the morning I went into a full body cramp and the EMT's had to be called. Got some muscle relaxer into me, got transported and in the morning, after a proper exam, found broken ribs and lots of general, minor damage. Best thing that came out of it was that they found I was diabetic and started me on a treatment/management program. 'Nother time, I went to trim this sorry old bitch for the first time. She was close to home. It was a Saturday and I had just come from a baseball awards luncheon for my son. Had eaten way to much pizza and drank too much soda so I was stuffed. Got the left front trimmed(did I mention that she was foundered and hadn't been worked on in quite some time?) Anyway, put the left front down and went to the left rear. Got it trimmed , stood up with my hand tools in my right hand. Now, I knew that the best way to walk around the back end of a horse was either as far away as I could get, or as close as possible. I chose the latter. Had my left hand on her rump and as I got squarely behind her (she was 15.2 hand, 1200lbs) she simultaneously took a step forward, squealed and fired with both hinds. At that point I was exactly one arm's length away from her. The just trimmed left hind caught me in the ribs just under my arm pit. The untrimmed and really ragged right hind caught me on my sternum and then raked across the right side of my body. Managed to drive myself to the hospital ER which was about six miles away. By that time, I had a perfect black and purple imprint of the trimmed hoof, three broken ribs, a cracked sternum, liver damage and three deep cuts on the right side just past the sternum. To this day, I carry the scars from that encounter. It was worse because I was full of food from the awards ceremony and they had to pass an NG tube to suck it all out. That was almost thirty years ago. One more. First appointment with this particular horse, a 2 yr. old filly with little to no handling. Hot and humid so I set up my squirrel cage turned it on and she seemed to like it and she settled down. Got to the hind end and she got mad. Squealing like a stuck hog, jerking her leg, laying on me, etc. But I was hungry and determined. Finally got the hind leg up and started trimming . She was still squealing and jerking and all of a sudden she started wringing her tail. Then she squats a bit more and starts to pee. Now, imagine, my squirrel cage fan is blowing hot air from back to front, she's taking a never-ending piss and her tail is spinning through it . At the same time, the fan is blowing that tail right into my face. Undeterred, I got that foot trimmed and then went over to the stock tank for a short swim........ Maybe some other time, I'll regale you with the time the horse bit off my finger tip..... No me importa, its all in a day's work......
Draftshoer, the bush track was on the back half of a huge cattle ranch, I think the little town nearby was Raleigh
The worst horse I never did was a percheron stud named Rocky. Long story short the vet had pushed enough drugs to kill a bull elephant and it wasn't enough to keep this SOB from trying to crush me like a beer can with a front foot. I walked away from that one and hoped lighting would strike him so he wouldn't kill anybody. But thinking back, I think lightning would've just pissed him off.
I forgot to mention , "my secret weapons" were Victory race plates and a stalljack (unseen items in those parts); Bubba's horses, the competition, were wearing steel, Diamond Saddlelites, Bronco planes or Toe and Heels. I must have heard a thousand times, "yur nut frum 'round cheer, haa?" Most everything I plated with stickers or block heels behind and outer rims w/ grabs or the occasional Louisiana grabs (damn wickedly horrendous shoes) in front.
more than 1 cm or 1/2" tall. twice the height of a regular grab. With them, the horse could really get a hold of the track but if they ran any distance (more than 4 furlongs, 1/2 mile) or wore them for any length of time (2-3 weeks); they are a "breakdown" waiting to happen. When I used them, I always tried to pull them as soon as possible after a race. These horses were running 1000 yds, 1/4 mile or 3 furlongs.
I think my craziest, though maybe not the worst injury, was the time a mare pulled the hitchin' rail loose, swung it around and hit me right across the back of my shoulders. It was a good enough whack to give the bruise across my back the wood grain pattern, wreck both rotator cuffs, bounced up and thumped the back of my head. I was knocked down but never went unconscious. I do not remember any thing about the wreck or anything that happened during the first forty five minutes. I found my self sitting on a hay bale across from my (15 year old at the time) son Eli and asked him why I was sitting there, where did all this blood come from, and why I was hurting so bad. He said I had been wandering around for forty five minutes asking questions. He said he'd been trimming the other horses and got the mare ready to shoe. I tried but couldn't use a hammer or tongs so I instructed shoe shaping and Eli finished up. I was out for about six weeks, and just before I went for surgery on my left shoulder a Chiropractor fixed it. It was quite the strange feeling over the next year 'feeling' my memory healing up, though I never got back that first forty five minutes. I asked Eli a while later what he was thinking when I was walking around in a daze and he said; "I thought I might get to drive the new truck!"
Had a new customer with a 16 hand TWH. He was tied to a tree. Did the front left no problem. Was trimming the back when he set back and drove me straight into the ground. I use a hoof jack now.
not the worst but the hardest day was; i was at the shoeing school here in Australia, i was 17. i was asked to go out with a farrier. so i did . he was checking me out for apprenticeship. we went to a couple of places but mostly at this arab stud. so it was "do this,do that" all day long, you can image. i remember the pain in my back and the fatigue, as i wasn,t fit for this work. and i was a weed of a kid. ive never felt so tried in my life. i was exhasted, i will never forget. he offered me and apprenticeship, but because of my immaturity and bad advise i decline, unfortunately. probably the worst was when a horse pulled shoe nail across wrist and cut it open, so long story short. at the hospital ,the young doctor gave me the drug for the stitch up, but he didn,t wait for the drug to work and immediately proceed to stitch me up and i felt every stitch, bloody muncher.
Rick's story with the "full body cramp" brings back a memory from this spring. I was shoeing a stallion late april, they are all jumpy and tired of being locked in stalls around this time. We made it through the trim with some effort, but then it started to rain. We took the horse into a garage with textured concrete on a steep incline. I was nailing up the left front when he decided to rare up. As he went up somehow my knee twisted but my foot couldn't twist fast enough on that concrete. I immediately fell on the concrete to catch my breath for a while. Eventually I finished the horse and went home, hoping the damage wasn't that bad. That night my knee swelled up and stiffened, and the pain from my knee took over my entire body. I woke up in a sweat, tried to get a glass of water, and almost hit the floor. My wife said I was so pale she knows what I'll look like when I'm in a coffin. I took some ibuprofen and it took about 30 min. before my heart and lungs felt like they were working again. I took NSAID's and slept on the couch with my leg elevated for about a week after that. I never had it X-rayed, but felt normal after the stiffness wore off. Lessons learned: A surface of dirt or pea gravel is better for knees than textured concrete. Keep OTC naproxen or ibuporfen on hand to take the edge off pain or inflammation after a bad day or an injury.
