Did you ever wonder how a horse is shod? Does it hurt when the farrier nails the shoe in place?

Joe White, Farrier Extraordinaire, Banner Elk, North Carolina

Joe White, a tall, lean man with close cropped hair and beard, bends and stoops to lift the front hoof of a three year old colt. This black horse with white hair sprinkled in his coat has never before had shoes. He’s been ridden and is curious about people, maybe too curious. As Joe takes a hoof pick from his rolling wooden tool box, the colt sniffs and mouths Joe’s head. Joe shakes his head to discourage the horse.

Joe sets the hoof on his modified chaps covered leg and picks the packed dirt out from around the frog on the underside of the hoof. Blue shifts his weight and feels the top of Joe’s head with his lips. When Joe replaces the pick with nippers, he bends over to inspect the hoof. The pasture and dirt road have kept the hoof in good shape but not shoe ready.

"How long have you been doing this?"

"I started in the 80s helping a fellow that had stables at Sugar Mountain Ski Resort. I started doing the easier stuff and worked my way up. Those stables were gone in the 90s so I built a clientele." Joe takes the nippers, huge toe nail clippers, and clips off a ring of hard nail. Blue noses the back of Joe’s shirt, leaving wet splotches. Joe shoes him off like a horse does to a fly.

He trims the feet every six or eight weeks, as often as a person has to trim toenails. Nail growth slows down in the winter. He averages three or four horses for most clients. To save travel time, he schedules a route to include three places a day on average. In the winter, Joe grooms the ski slopes for Sugar Mountain. The worst part of the job of farriering? Scheduling, paperwork for the IRS, and records that any small business owner has to keep.

The best part of the job? "You learn horses and people. You get to know the regulars." He encounters a wide range of characters, both horses and owners. Sometimes guests want to take pictures of him working. It takes forty-five minutes to an hour for each horse. Some horses require orthopedic work to keep their stance and balance in proper alignment.

Joe hooks the nipper back in place on his tool box and pulls out a huge rasp to file the hoof. Nail dust rains down on the rubber matted floor. Joe stands and places the front hoof on a rubber tipped stand to complete the filing. He had backed his pickup truck just inside the barn door. The metal barn had wooden stalls with locally crafted iron bars. The large stall floors were covered with wood shavings. Joe had tied Blue to a railing, but sometimes the owner holds the lead rope.

Joe repeats the process on each hoof. Blue grows bored and lifts the stand in his mouth, then lets it drop. Curious, he does it again. On the third attempt, Joe stops his work to move the stand out of reach.

The back of the capped pickup had been modified with a pull out bed. Joe pulls a specialized wooden sawhorse from the bed of the truck and loads an anvil on top of it. He slides out the bed which brings a propane gas forge to within easy reach. He lights the forge and heats it to 2400 degrees and heats the shoe. The shoes are shipped to him from a farrier supply store and he receives them the day after he orders them. He puts a shoe against a hoof and re-files a section of the hoof. He checks fit again. The shoe has to be flat against the hoof.

When asked what have horses done to him, he replies, "Most horses are fine. You get kicked once in a while so you have to be aware. They can sit on you, fall on you, or bite you." Joe holds the shoe with heavy-duty tongs in the flame of the forge. The roar of the flame holds Blue’s attention for a while. His head is held high and ears are pointed forward. When the shoe is red hot, Joe hammers it into shape against the anvil.

He lifts the hind hoof and puts the hot shoe against the hoof, singeing the hoof. Steam accompanies the hiss of burning. The acrid smell of burnt hair balloons up. "By the end of the day, my clothes stink from this," Joe says. He holds it in place only moments, then plunges the shoe into a five gallon bucket of water to cool it off. He uses his hammer and nails the shoe in place from the bottom. Blue doesn’t pay a bit of attention. Joe uses the claw of the hammer to twist the exposed tip of the nail off. After he completes nailing all the shoes, he bends and files down the remainder of the exposed nail tips which serve to hold the nail in place.

The moment of truth has arrived. What will Blue think of his new pedicure and shoes? Joe leads him out of the barn to the graveled road. Blue picks up his feet and prances. He nods his head as if to say Thanks to Joe.

Joe lives with his wife, Dawn, and their children, Ethan and Camela.

Maggie Bishop’s mystery, Murder at Blue Falls, the Horse Found the Body, came out in the Fall of 2006 and is spotlighted on her website http://maggiebishop1.tripod.com