Remembering Clint Carlson: How a mild-mannered man in a Hawaiian shirt became the "patron saint of American horseshoes"

I lost a friend on Friday. Chances are, so did you. This article is a roundabout way of introducing my readers to Clint Carlson, in case they are young enough or new enough to the horse world not to remember a shy smiling horseshoe salesman in a Hawaiian shirt. It’s also a roundabout way for me to say good-bye.

For 20 years, Clint gave his heart and soul to making and selling some of the very best horseshoes ever manufactured at that time. He did it very quietly. He was an unlikely legend -- and one of the very best friends the horse world ever had.

Jayne and Clint Carlson. Clint sold horseshoes in a Hawaiian shirt, didn't want to be around horses, and was usually on his way to or from a Jimmy Buffett concert, but somehow he fit right in in the horse world, and changed the way American horses are shod. (Photo by Tim Helck)

I’m going to tell you Clint’s story from my point of view. You will learn how a mild-mannered Jimmy Buffet fan became “the patron saint of horseshoes”, as he was dubbed by Fran Edens. I was lucky to have a front row seat as Clint's legend was forged.

It all started in 1985. I arrived at the American Farrier’s Association (AFA) Convention in Raleigh, North Carolina, ready to launch my new publication. I was there for the trade show, and I was holding my breath; whoever had the booth next to me mattered. Certain neighbors might scare the farriers away. Others might be talkaholics; the farriers would avoid them. You just never knew.

I arrived at my booth and to my surprise, I didn’t recognize my neighbors, though I could tell they were brothers. I didn’t recognize the name, either: “St Croix”--were they from the Virgin Islands? Who were these guys?

I tried to make eye contact. “I’m the girl next door,” I began. One shy, soft-spoken brother shook my hand loosely, and said matter-of-factly, almost in a whisper, “I’m Clint.” He explained simply that he and his brothers and father were going into the horseshoe business. Not because they wanted to, but because they had to. I wanted to hear more.

Curt Carlson, Clint's dad, became
the owner of a horseshoe company
by accident; he and his sons built
it into an empire.

Curt Carlson, Clint’s father, owned a tool and die business in Minnesota. As I remember it, he had come to own a startup horseshoe company called St Croix Forge when it went bankrupt. Curt was their main creditor; his firm had expertly crafted the machining parts needed to make the new shoes, but he was owed a lot of money. Suddenly, he found out he needed to disburse the assets or else start his own horseshoe company.

So he made the daring choice to start making horseshoes.

Curt called his four sons home from all corners of the globe. He was gambling that, between them, Kenny, Bob, Mike, and Clint would have – or learn – the business, tool-and-die, and manufacturing skills needed to run a successful horseshoe company.

One thing they had going for them was that the former owners had already introduced a respectable intro shoe. They had worked for one of the large horseshoe companies and believed they had a better idea of what a keg shoe should look like. They had the idea, but lacked sustainable capital.

The Carlsons would be nice neighbors for the trade show. Aren’t people from Minnesota always nice? Clint had been a hockey star in his youth and went to school in New Hampshire on a hockey scholarship. And as the week went by, they met a lot of people; most of them politely listened to their plans and wished them luck.

But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw out in the parking lot. The Carlsons had traveled from Minnesota to North Carolina in an old Greyhound bus. Clint explained that their business plan was to travel around the USA in the bus, visiting horseshoers and finding out what was right and what was wrong with horseshoes on the market, including their own.

And so, at that trade show, my company and St Croix launched into the market.

For anyone who wasn’t around horseshoes in the early 1980s, “keg” shoes were a problem. Two similar basic shoes, made by two Midwest companies, were used on the majority of the saddle horses in North America. Others had tried to crack the market and failed. It was an era when handmaking shoes was done only by a few farriers, but handmades were about the only alternative to keg shoes. There wasn't much choice.

St Croix’s timing was perfect, as it turned out, since shortly afterwards, “turned” shoes from Europe – in front and hind, left and right, clipped and unclipped versions – started shipping to the Americas. It would take them a while to catch on; availability was sometimes a problem, and they cost more than American keg shoes. There was a brief window of opportunity for St Croix, and the Carlsons leaned into it.

Asking questions

Clint told me many times over the years that followed, “All I ever set out to do was talk to horseshoers. To ask them what they wanted, what could make a shoe better.”

No one had ever asked them before. Plus, Clint would listen as long as they kept talking. He’d remember their names. He’d even pick up the bar tab or the diner check. But most of all, he carried their ideas, their drawings of nail holes and heel shapes sketched on cocktail napkins, back to Minnesota. There, his father and brothers went to work, making not just a better keg shoe – a shoe that had the changes farriers wanted to shoe a horse more efficiently or safely – but changing the way that horseshoes and horseshoers interacted.

Retailers on his side

Another challenge for them was that it is always very difficult to get farriers to change the shoes they ordered, once they were used to using them. For that part, Clint realized he needed to make friends with the few farrier supply houses in business back then. There were not that many of them in the 1980s, and they were mostly ex-horseshoers and their wives. Most seemed content with the status quo, had low expectations of manufacturers, and might not have room to take on more product lines. Existing keg shoes were even sold in hardware stores, until suppliers started hanging out their shingles. Many were just selling horseshoes out of their basements or the back of a truck at racetracks.

But, eventually, they did take on St Croix.

Most of them are gone now, including legends like Murray Madow, Charlie Guimarra, Jerry and Tim Helck, John Breckenridge, Jon Davis, Mike Williams, Bill Pieh, Bill Clark, and so many more. Clint couldn’t have done it if those pioneer suppliers (and several more who are still with us) hadn’t agreed to stock his shoes, and their businesses no doubt prospered from St Croix sales.

In the 1980s, there were no influencers, no big-name farriers giving clinics. No one was wearing polo shirts, jackets, and aprons emblazoned with logos of companies they endorse. Almost no one was flying in from the UK or Australia or Asia. The few farriers who were well known at that time were either the first wave of farrier contents winners, senior farriers no longer with us like Jay Sharp, Bruce Daniels, Bob Skradzio, and Jack Miller, or farrier school owners, like Bob Reaume, Buster Conklin, Danny Ward, Bud Beaston, Bill Miller, Gene Armstrong, Lester Hollenback, Reggie Kester, and Reuel Darling. All of those competitors and educators are gone now.

When St Croix first joined the industry, farriers didn't need to wear logos on their chests. The industry was so small that everyone was known by first name, by face, and (especially) by reputation. There were very few clinics or contests, compared to today, although 1985 was also the year that the late Burney Chapman hit his stride and started giving clinics on laminitis shoeing. PowerPoint didn’t even exist. The AFA Convention was the supreme meeting ground, the place where deals, and sometimes big profits, were negotiated inside that trade show.

The sponsorship question

All that was about to change, of course, and Clint played a big role. St Croix started advertising heavily. Mustad and Capewell were two separate and competing horse nail companies back then. Mustad was new to the Americas in the early 1980s; they invested in sponsoring events and classes and trophies. Contests suddenly offered prize money that would pay for more than it cost to fill your gas tank for the drive home. St Croix pitched in.

Soon, Clint was on a mission to make St Croix’s name known not just in America but all over the world. Along the way, he became known as a high bidder at farrier charity auctions; he amassed an amazing collection of artist-blacksmith treasures. He became a patron of several artists, including the late Charley Orlando, a New York artist-blacksmith-farrier who designed and built amazing architectural railings and sculptures inside and outside Clint’s house, and Virginia’s still-with-us Jessie Ward, who created extraordinary paintings and multi-media artwork for him.

In 1999, Clint surprised everyone by sponsoring the first Women Horseshoers of America (WHOA). Clint and Jayne traveled to Europe with (left to right)  Laurie Fiesler, Jayne and Clint Carlson, Kathleen Poor, Kelly Vermeer, and Alice Johnson, including a ski trip in the French Alps. They let me tag along.

Fourteen years after that day in Raleigh, St Croix came of age. The little company that traveled to its first trade show in a used Greyhound bus was acquired by the Mustad group in 1999. The worth of their work was obvious. Clint would become director of marketing for Mustad.

Of course the brothers, including Clint, stayed on for some transition years as consultants. But Clint yearned to spend time with his wife, Jayne, and children, Melissa and Josh, after so many years on the road. They all learned to scuba dive. They were often off on dive boat adventures in the tropics, and Clint’s future started sounding more and more like he was living his favorite Jimmy Buffet songs, not just listening to them.

Changing shirts

One day early in the new millennium, Clint took off his St Croix polo shirt and put on his bula (“Hawaiian”) shirt, for good.

Next step? Clint and Jayne decided that they would move to Fiji. The last time I actually saw him, Clint flew back to the USA for an AFA Convention to do some PR work for Mustad, and hand out some prizes sponsored by St Croix. I smiled as Clint walked on stage to give out a trophy wearing a Fijian “sulu” (men’s sarong or kilt), with a big shark’s tooth around his neck.

That was the last time I saw him. We talked on the phone sometimes; he’d check in with me on New Year’s Day, which is a nice tradition, but slowly the gaps became wider. 

Clint comes home

Clint finally came home from Fiji last week. His health had deteriorated significantly, his liver was failing, and he was back in Minnesota with his family, where it all began.

Clint died on Friday, June 20, surrounded by his family and dressed in his favorite bula shirt. Jimmy Buffet was playing in the background, of course, his daughter Melissa assured me.

Forty years ago, Clint Carlson asked a lot of questions and, especially in the beginning, he asked farriers all the right questions. They were questions no one had ever asked before.

Outside the scope of this tribute, Clint and Jayne became great personal friends to me, and we enjoyed adventures all over the world. But that's another story.

In the end, I hope Clint got all the answers he was looking for. He and his family certainly improved the profession of horseshoeing in many ways, but more than that, he enriched and even changed peoples' lives, including mine, and maybe even yours, with his friendship and kindness and determination to make a difference--and always -- always -- make a better horseshoe. 

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