ARCHIVE - EFFA 2009

February 2009 - Forge Magazine

 

Archive - Forge Magazine - February 2009
Presentation of Certified Euro-Farrier Certificates

As Forge reported in the December issue, David Gulley, FWCF, took up a two-year presidency of EFFA at its recent AGM in Saumur. At the same meeting the chief instructor of the Cadre Noir, a veterinary surgeon, presented the very first Euro-Farrier Certificates.
In his address, the chief instructor, said, ‘as every farrier knows, the commonest causes of lameness lie in the horse’s foot. However, it is not just lameness that concerns us, but also getting the best possible performance from a horse in whatever discipline it may be performing. The vast sums of money spent on research, production and marketing of human sports footwear show how important the link between the foot and the ground is to performance, and this is just as true for the horse as for the human.
‘EFFA’s aims include the improvement of basic standards of training in farriery, the spread of best practice and lifelong learning for farriers. In 1999 EFFA secured European Leonardo da Vinci funding to develop basic standards of competence in farriery, and these standards were issued in 2002. Once standards had been agreed, the next step was to establish which countries had training and examination schemes meeting these standards, and to give public recognition to them. An Accreditation Board, funded by EFFA with support from the UK, was set up and has now visited eight European countries. Of these, six have been accredited as meeting the EFFA standards and these are: Holland, Switzerland, Great Britain, Austria, Denmark and Finland. Two countries were visited and not accredited, largely because the standard was not felt to be high enough to guarantee competence as a self-employed farrier, although adequate for an employee under supervision. It is hoped that these two countries will be able to benefit from the process and will apply for a revisit in the near future. In addition to those countries that have been visited by the Accreditation Board, a number of others are developing training and examination systems that should be ready for accreditation in the next few years.
‘Having developed basic farriery standards, and having identified those European countries that meet them, the next step is to give public recognition to those farriers who have had the appropriate training and have shown by examination that they meet or exceed these basic standards. This is where the concept of a Certified Euro-Farrier comes in, and I am delighted today to be able to present Certified Euro-Farrier certificates to those EFFA delegates who have been nominated by their accredited national associations as meeting these standards.

The first group Certified Euro-farriers; the first two UK recipients are David Gulley and Gary Burton who are at the
right of the picture