Wes Champagne's Blacksmith Buddy: A Life-like, Positionable Horse Leg Simulates Shoeing / Trimming for Training, Demonstration and Practice

   Sponsored Post from Wes Champagne   

Learn about Wes Champagne's Blacksmith Buddy in this introductory video.

When I heard that California horseshoer Wes Champagne had a new invention, I sat back and said, "Hmmmm...." My mind lit up with imagined new lightweight shoes, or space-age adhesives, or something that you could put on a racehorse so it could break the sound barrier, or maybe jump the moon.

After all, Wes has quite a "track record" already, as a pioneer of adhesive shoes for racehorses and quarter crack repair. He pioneered the "direct glue" method and shod the first winner of a Breeders Cup race with glue-ons, Lit de Justice in the 1996 Sprint. 

I was in for a surprise this time, though...

Silent Anvil: J. Scott Simpson

The late J. Scott Simpson, horseshoeing icon of the Great West, is in the center of this photo, flanked by Danny Ward on the left and Walt Taylor on the right. This was taken at an American Farrier's Association demonstration in 1988. There must have been more than 1000 farriers watching them that day.

I'm writing this while I'm snowbound and icebound in my little house in New England. I should be 1000 miles away in Mobile, Alabama at the American Farrier's Association convention.

Today I found out I'm not the only one who's missing from the annual gathering of the hoof tribe.

Farrier educator, author, entertainer and raconteur J. Scott Simpson of Arizona and Montana has died but it's too soon to know much. All I can tell you is who Scott was. Or is, since his place in the farrier world is not likely to change just because he's not around. He's part of the fabric, the folklore and the family.

Scott was and always will be revered by possibly thousands of people who went through his farrier training courses at Montana State University, Walla Walla State University and his own Northwest Horseshoeing School.

He magnified his effect on the farrier industry by authoring several farrier books, including one of the overlooked classics of all time, The Mechanics of Shoeing Gaited Horses.

I may be snowbound, but I had these two photos of Scott on my laptop's hard drive; they were taken at Diamond Tool and Horseshoe Company's first "Working Farrier Demonstration", held on a big stage at the AFA convention in 1988. I'm not sure why I have them so handy 25 years later, but I'm glad that I do.

Scott was completely at ease--you could always hand him the microphone and he'd take it from there, whether it was at a shoeing demonstration or in the ballroom at night when he'd sing and play guitar.

Scott began shoeing in the 1950s in California; he learned at Ralph Hoover's famous horseshoeing class at CalPoly University in San Luis Obispo, in the class of 1959, along with his long-time friend, Montana's farrier tool wizard, Mike Williams.

A few years ago, Mike and Scott organized a reunion of horseshoers who had been in Hoover's classes between 1959 to 1961, and they managed to pull together 27 graduates and get them to Montana to take a photo.

Scott started teaching at Montana State in the early 1970s and left there in 1983 for a stint at Walla Walla before starting his own school. He wintered in Wickenburg, Arizona, where he seemed determined to play tennis and team rope in spite of repeated operations to replace things like hips--he was perhaps the first bionic farrier. It seemed like he was always in for replacement parts.

He was vice-president of the American Farrier's Association for several years and was an original mastermind of the AFA's certification program. No, he didn't always agree with people--especially people from east of the Mississippi.

But one of the things that Scott gave the farrier world is also the most enduring and most valuable: his simple, catchy "eagle eye" system of using visual memory to recognize five basic hoof shapes--good old Norman, Spike, Tag, Stubby and...well, everyone knows who the fifth one is.

By my records, J. Scott Simpson was 78 years old. In the last email I received from him, he told about his return to the Catholic church after a long absence and how much he enjoyed two perspectives on Catholicism between Montana and Arizona as he traveled back and forth.

I don't know what sort of funeral plans are being made, or where, but people will not just be saying good-bye to a great friend and farrier. They'll be saying good-bye to a legend of horseshoeing embedded so deeply in the great western tradition that his name is as close to a horse-hold word as you can get.

Ralph! That's the fifth shape from Scott's eagle eye discipline for recognizing hoof shape. How could I ever forget? That's how good a teacher Scott Simpson was. He helped me and countless others cut through the clutter at a time when farriery was getting very cluttered, indeed.

They ought to name a hoof shape, and a lot of other things, after our friend Scott Simpson. Not that anyone who ever met him is likely to forget him, ever. Some of us think of him, subconsciously, every time we pick up a foot. And we always will.

--Fran Jurga

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; 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.  

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Doug Butler Will Open a Horseshoeing School in Nebraska; Butler Professional Farrier School Will Be in Crawford

Doug Butler, PhD, FWCF will open a horseshoeing school in Crawford, Nebraska this fall. Teaching alongside Dr. Butler will be two of his sons, Jacob and Peter. "Butler Professional Farrier School" will also offer a certification program for its students to progress from level to level, and will offer classes from beginning to advanced as well as personalized graduate-level training.

Learn more at http://www.butlerprofessionalfarrierschool.com

Farrier Schools Meet in Oklahoma City; Educators’ Alliance Formed

Farrier Schools Meet in Oklahoma City; Educators’ Alliance Formed

A two-day meeting has just closed in Oklahoma City, OK; Can you say “American Farriers Education Council”?

Let’s just call it AFEC.

Many pundits on the sidelines of farrier politics thought that when Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School owner Reggie Kester called a meeting of school owners and instructors, the result would be a massive attack on the American Farrier’s Association, whose task force on education and registration in early 2005 was highly critical of the farrier education system in the U.S.

Instead, the reports from Oklahoma yesterday and today were optimistic and encouraging. “This is the best thing that could have happened,” beamed Doug Butler PhD FWCF, author of Principles of Horseshoeing III, the textbook used at most farrier schools around the world. “It brought these people together for the first time in years and they are working together for the benefit of education. I am very excited.”

According to Dr. Butler, 16 farrier schools were represented; a total of about 25 people were in attendance.

AFEC certainly did vent its frustration over recent negative publicity, but most instructors are long-time members and supporters of the American Farrier’s Association and are hoping for improvement in relations following the AFA’s mid-year Board of Directors meeting in Omaha in early September, which will include an open forum on farrier education and licensing. AFEC’s frustration is outlined in a list of 16 resolutions related to AFA politics and makes clear the AFEC stand that blanket criticism of farrier education will not go unanswered.

According to Chris Gregory FWCF of Heartland Horseshoeing School in Missouri, there are 47 farrier schools in the US. Hoofcare & Lameness has identified 24 private schools and 11 college/university-affiliated schools that offer courses aimed at complete beginners. Our criteria was that a school be “brick and mortar” and teach a residential horseshoeing course. There are a few schools that we just don't know much about. Other schools teach only advanced courses or short seminars as enrichment for working farriers; still others teach night courses for horse owners who wish to learn to care for their own horses. We also found two schools that teach horseshoeing by distance learning (aka “correspondence course”). In the fall of 2005, two new farrier schools will open in the USA that will teach new ideas in farrier science, such as barefoot hoofcare, hoof boots, and plastic horseshoes.

Officers of the new association are Reggie Kester (Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School) President; Bob Smith (Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School) Vice President and Spokesperson; and Susie Goode (Tucson School of Horseshoeing) Secretary-Treasurer.

Among the accomplishments of the group, in addition to the formation of the association and the hashing out of a list of resolutions related to AFA politics, were the resolution that member schools would adopt the use of a standardized curriculum based on the new edition of Butler’s textbook. He will work with AFEC to create testing modules to monitor students’ progress through the lessons in the book.

Another key development is the addition of continuing education events to attract graduates back to their alma mater farrier schools for upgrading of skills or certification levels on an annual basis.

For more information, please contact Bob Smith: 916 366 6064. I was not there so I can’t answer your questions.

I am posting an image file of a press release and resolutions from AFEC and hope it is readable. if you click on the image, you will go to a photo page and in turn can scroll through both pages of the news release and view the resolutions.


--Fran Jurga

Alternative Farrier Schools Ready to Open in USA

So, you want to be a farrier! Great, but could you summarize your philosophical view of hoofcare for me before I recommend a school?

Matching potential farriers to farrier schools became a lot harder--or maybe easier--recently when two new schools announcedp plans to open this summer.

The Academy of Hoof Technology in Lexington, Kentucky will be a branch of a successful school already operating in Germany. Run by Alexander Wurthmann, the school teaches "alternative" farriery, and advocates barefoot trimming, plastic shoes, and hoof boots.

Meanwhile, in Plymouth, New Hampshire, the Bridge Gap Farrier School will be launched at a facility that will include a "founder farm" recovery center for laminitic horses. The school also will run seminars for horse owners. Robert Bowker, VMD, PhD and foam-support enthusiast Tommy Lee Osha will be part of the instruction team.

We hope to have more information about both schools' actual offerings soon.