American Farriers Journal Podcast

American Farriers Journal Podcast treats farriery the way a trade journal does: as a craft, a business and a set of risks worth understanding early. Recent episodes mix reported case stories, argued commentary, an anniversary reflection and a sit-down interview. What ties them together is usefulness. Take the Texas rehab story. Peyton, a highly decorated Sorrel Quarter Horse gelding, won a National Snaffle Bit Association world championship in 2022, and two months later an accident fractured the short and long pasterns of his right hind leg. Surgeons stabilized the bones with plates and screws. His owners, Mike Hachtel and Tammy Farnsworth, leaned on a therapeutic team that included Collinsville farrier Danny Anderson. Anderson and his son Jared fitted a six-degree wedge, secured with an elastic bandage, that gave the horse enough support to put weight on the foot. The account builds toward February 2023, when that package is due to come off and the barn waits to see whether the right hind will take weight. The Florida profile is about people rather than hooves. Clayton Wilbur remembers a trade where farriers would leave a barn rather than share what they knew. He says he fought his way in by working for free, sweeping floors and measuring toe lengths. His advice today is to stop being scared and get involved with an experienced farrier. With his wife, Terri, he is starting the Equine Enclave, a peer support group for farriers, veterinarians, trainers, nutritionists, equine dentists and grooms. Two episodes argue rather than report. One says criticism of the International Horseshoeing Hall of Fame proves the trade cares who is held up as an example. It then explains the nomination process, in which current Hall members serve as the Board of Electors, and advises that strong nominations include plenty of detail. The other examines a wrongful death ruling. In 2009 Pat Barrett, who had trimmed hooves for more than 45 years, was knocked down in a rocky Southern California corral and suffered a head injury that cost him his life. The episode sets out the questions his widow, Nancy, raised about who must secure a horse and judge whether conditions are safe. It admits that the court's answer, which put that responsibility on the person under the horse, is not a popular one. The anniversary episode is quieter. Mike Lessiter recalls stepping off the bus at age 11 on the day in 1981 when his parents, Pam and Frank Lessiter, founded Lessiter Media. He credits his father with a 'meat and potatoes' standard of reporting that gave subscribers knowledge they could use right away. In the interview, editor Jeff Cota talks with Marshville, North Carolina farrier Mike Stine, who came to the trade through his own horse. At 65, Stine still stretches his hips, lower back and hamstrings every morning so he can keep working five or six days a week. He also makes the case for building other income and putting money to work. What a listener gets is the trade seen from under the horse: the technique, the physical toll and the legal exposure.