Diamond's Back! Questions and Answers About the "New" Diamond Horseshoes and Tools

In 2015 the Royal Kerckhaert Horseshoe Company purchased Diamond Horseshoes and Tools.  What had once been the widest-selling shoe and tool line in America (and far beyond) has been getting a new look and, for many products, a new feel and new features. How are things going for the brand, now that the transition to the new owner is complete? Hoofcare and Lameness posed some questions to Farrier Product Distribution (FPD), which we hope will be helpful to everyone who uses--or whose horses wear--the Diamond brand of shoes and tools.

Political Cartoons: Public opinion was forged with humor from the blacksmith shop

How would Joe Biden look at the anvil? Traditionally, political cartoons have portrayed US Presidents as blacksmiths and, sometimes, farriers. Here you see President Woodrow Wilson portrayed in 1917 as a striker, not the smith. Uncle Sam is the smith, and he is urging Wilson to swing and hit, while the iron is still hot. The shoe has "crisis" written on it; it probably refers to the hesitation of the United States under Wilson to abandon isolationism and enter World War I on the side of the Allies. This old political cartoon by William Allen Rogers is from the archive of the Library of Congress's Cabinet of American Illustration.

Saturday Night Live notwithstanding, there hasn’t been much to laugh about when it comes to US politics lately. And ever since former-farrier Lincoln Chafee dropped out of the Democratic primaries back in 2015, there have been almost no tie-ins at all to hoofcare, horseshoes or even horses.

Shane Westman Joins the University of California at Davis as Large Animal Clinic Farrier

Shane Westman recently was appointed Large Animal Clinic Farrier at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. (Image courtesy of UC Davis)

Congratulations to the University of California at Davis and to Washington farrier Shane Westman on Shane's official appointment as farrier at the UC Davis Large Animal Clinic. Shane is embarking on a new career path that will see him following in the rather large hoofprints of that university's famous longtime farrier, Mr. Charles Heumphreus and, more recently, another longlasting farrier, Bill Merfy.