Calgary Stampede: World Champion Will Be Named on Sunday

C   A   L   G   A   R   Y

I'd like to be able to tell you who is winning and who is losing at the 2010 World Championship Blacksmith Competition at the Calgary Stampede, but I honestly don't know. I've been promised the results but they aren't available yet.

I do know that there are 60 farrier competitors and that they represent these countries: Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Hungary, The Isle of Man, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, and the USA. The judges are Andrew Reader-Smith of New Zealand and Craig Trnka of the USA.

It doesn't seem possible that there is no one there from Wales. Farriers from Wales have probably held the World Champion title more years than any other country: Grant Moon, Billy Crothers, James Blurton and Richard Ellis were all World Champions from the tiny country. And Grant Moon won the title something like six times!

The Calgary Sun has a short video report on this year's competition. It features California's Mike Chisham and Missouri's Cody Gregory.

More news will be available soon, hopefully. The Top Ten competitors from the events so far were presumably announced tonight and will go forward to tomorrow's nail-biting finals.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com 
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Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.