UK NEWS - Edward Martin Cultural exchange
News and views from Oliver Roberts
The cultural exchange – an awesome experience
My name is Oliver Roberts, and I successfully completed my apprenticeship in August 2008. My enthusiasm for the Edward Martin MBE Cultural Exchange was fuelled by former NAFBAE President, Richard Hurcomb during my diploma block at Warwickshire College. After an interview by NAFBAE’s Executive Committee, I was chosen to represent the Association in America for three months on the programme. My good friend and farrier, David Grant DipWCF, stepped in to look after things while I went on my travels.
Flying to Chicago, Illinois, at the end of March, I was nervous until we landed; when I suddenly thought, ‘right, bring it on!’ Vern Powell picked me up from the airport; he was to be my coordinator for the next three months. Vern put me at ease and answered any questions about where, how and what I was going to do. I stayed and worked with him for the first week. Vern was very easy going and nothing was too much trouble for him. During that week in Illinois it rained, snowed, froze and became very windy. We experienced four seasons in one week! Apart from the weather, another shock was the vast size of everything – roads, fields, lorries and some people!
Desperate to experience some hunting in America, when the opportunity arose I jumped on a plane and flew to West Palm Beach, Florida (on my 22nd birthday). It was incredible, and all made possible thanks to a lovely lady called Melinda Haines who sorted me out with a horse, correct attire and hunt ball tickets!
Next stop was Atlanta, Georgia. Here, I joined up with Chris Joyce an English farrier who moved out to the USA about nine years ago. We drove three hours to the Fox River Valley Hunt kennels where four amazing days followed, with an excellent mix of coyote hunting thanks to Tony Leahy, good shoeing thanks to Chris and some night life too!
A whistle-stop trip back to Chicago for a clinic with the new NAFBAE president Craig D’Arcy and Martin Hague (the last exchange lad), which was very informative and the 30 or so farriers that attended, all thoroughly enjoyed it. I was also fortunate to spend a few days with Bill O’Neil, a fascinating farrier who had been shoeing for 30 years and to meet Tyler Voltz a great guy who had come to help Vern.
In Madison, Wisconsin, I attended the WCB (World Championship Blacksmiths) competition. Watching the WCB team and the American farriers team practice was awesome. The three-day competition was run alongside the Mid-West Horse Fair, which attracted huge crowds most of whom congregated around the WCB circus tent. From the magnificent mustangs to the speed and spinning of the reining horses, my weekend was educational, entertaining and downright fun.
After the competition I made the eight-hour trip to Kentucky (horse capital of the world) with Conrad Trow, Chris Overley and Brian Osborne from the Kentucky Horseshoeing School. In Kentucky, I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Mitch Taylor on the use of ‘Toe grabs and their effects on locomotion’, at the famous Keeneland Racecourse. It was extremely informative. The cameras used in his study took up to 2,500 frames per second of horses leaving the starting gates to see what, if any, traction was gained using different grab heights.
Mr and Mrs Rodney King were my next hosts in Kentucky. Rodney is one of the farriers from the world famous Rood and Riddle veterinary hospital. His wife Natalie works in the office there. Nothing could have prepared me for the size and scale of the practice! Established in 1986, Rood and Riddle has 300 staff, 50 vets and 10 very big barns of operating theatres, stables and laboratories. They also have their own podiatry unit, which is where I was based for a week. I was lucky enough to witness tendonotomies, necrotomies as well as going out on stud calls around Kentucky. The facilities and the way everybody treated me was absolutely second to none. Rood and Riddle are official vets for the FEI World Equestrian Games in the Kentucky Horse Park next year; I was fortunate enough to attend the Rolex three-day event in the park during my stay. I then returned to Conrad Trow for another memorable week, working, learning and visiting all sorts of places. We managed to get some time in his forge most nights as Conrad was practicing for Calgary. His shoe board was more like a story of great people that have been and worked there.
On the day of the Kentucky Derby I flew right over the course en route to Denver, Colorado, it was an amazing spectacle. I was picked up by Tyler Voltz and spent one week working with him in Sterling. Tyler is a great outdoors person and he twice took me branding, which was great. He showed me a large number of snakes, coyotes and horses. Then off to Fort Collins I went, to stay with John Hildebrandt, the President of the Rocky Mountain Farrier’s Association. Fort Collins is directly at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, which provides an impressive backdrop to a lovely part of Colorado.
In Fort Collins I was lucky enough to stay with Brian Buckner. He was one of the nicest guys I worked and stayed with on my trip. He and his family were great hosts and we managed to get lots of shoe making practice. Brian sorted me out with my own little caravan. It was really very nice to have a bit of time on my own. I admired Brian's ability to balance his family life with shoeing and shoemaking. He was a great farrier and nothing was ever too much trouble.
A trip to Rifle saw me right in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. We arrived very late on a Friday night and shod all the horses on the Saturday. We then stayed for the branding on the Sunday. Puma Paw Ranch is the second most densely populated area of mountain lions in America; it is proper ranch/cowboy country. I spent the next week with John and the following two weeks with a different farrier each day – Darren Shaffner, Michael Allen and Tom Turner to name just a few.
I was keen to see some tools being made as it was something I had very little experience of and certainly hadn’t seen any being made on a large scale. Brian kindly arranged for me to spend a day with Tony Kingery of Tosaky forge at his home in Denver. Tony is a great guy who taught me an awful lot, in a relatively short space of time, on how to make and assemble a knife; his knives are all hand crafted and assembled. The amount of thought and time Tony puts into crafting his lovely knives is extraordinary. From angles to lengths, everything has been very well thought out and designed. I treasure the first knife I made and respect his dedication.
That evening I was transferred a few hours away to John McNerney of Yukon forge. John is a lovely chap and a real family guy. I arrived at John’s at 11.45pm and we got up at 5am the next day to go and make some shoes with Jim Quick. By 6am the fire was roaring and the sweat pouring as Jim, John and I practiced for the WCB event in a few weeks time. It was surreal to be with two of the best tool and shoemakers around, and then there was me! The rest of the day, I spent making fullers, tongs and hammers with John in his lovely forge. It was so interesting watching someone as great as John makes the tools that I have and use back at home. John and Megan made me feel most welcome and looked after me well. In the evening John showed me how to make Damascus using his power hammer, which was pretty immense!
The next day I joined Jim Quick and went shoeing with him – a real honour. He was one of the judges at this year's World Championships in Calgary; so it was absolutely incredible to go shoeing with someone of his calibre, and to talk about my shoeing job. Jim is a great person who took time out to answer all my questions and queries. I learnt a great deal, from shoeing to tool making. He went beyond the call of duty to arrange all kinds of things I needed. I really have great admiration and respect for Jim and his remarkable generosity – he even sorted my entry fees for the WCB in New Mexico. He is an amazing person with amazing talent who strives for excellence in everything he does.
Between them, Brian Buckner and Jim Quick managed to get me to see gaited horse shoeing. This sort of shoeing was only something I had heard people talk about and so when the opportunity came up to go with Del Slaugh (one of the best gaited horseshoers in America) I couldn’t refuse. It was very different but Del explained everything brilliantly, he is a real character too. I witnessed some double nailing and a few tricks of the trade.
My last few days in Colorado were spent at the Four Corners Contest in Denver, organised by the Rocky Mountain Farriers Association. It was good fun, and provided me with a great opportunity to meet up again with lots of friends I had met during my trip. Trey Green was the clinician and extremely helpful, providing a lot of useful tips. Jim Quick judged the shoeing. Having Trey and Jim judge your work was a real honour. The bonus to it all was that I even won $300!
I flew from Denver to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I was honoured to meet and stay with the Trnka family. New Mexico was dry; the landscape was vast and rolling with lots of scrub bushes. Craig and Chris Trnka played host to me for my last week with my final competition being held just down the road from their house. The Trnka family was most kind and working with somebody as talented as Craig and his son Bodie was an amazing opportunity. We shared many stories and had a real laugh.
The final competition of my trip was the WCB competition, Edgewood, New Mexico, at the annual Hammer and Hooves Festival. It was another great opportunity to thank the influential people that had hosted, helped and tolerated me over the past three months. It was definitely the first (and probably the last) competition where I rode the horse’s there to be shod and rode back again, dodging the bull snakes! Billy Crothers flew over to be the clinician.
On my last day it suddenly dawned on me that this trip of a lifetime was coming to an end and I was upset, although I was excited to come home so that I could apply things I had seen and done. Despite that, a huge part of me loved the American way of life and was sad to leave. All I can say is, any farrier who wants to push him or herself further after successfully completing their apprenticeship should grasp this once in a lifetime experience. The exchange provides an opportunity to meet world-class farriers and broaden your perspective of shoeing; the opportunity to meet exciting new people, who thrive on what you know just as much as you thrive on what they tell you. My only regret was not being out there for longer!
I would say the main differences in shoeing are the breeds of horse and the type of work they do. Fullered shoes were more preferable, although concave was used in many areas. The toughness of the feet really shone through with many guys I was travelling with carrying between 30 and 40 knives! The standard of shoeing I witnessed was second to none and the enthusiasm, certainly within the WCB, was incredible, and something I will always aim for, which is to ‘strive for excellence’.
Thanks
I really cannot thank everyone enough that made this trip possible. Here are just a handful of names that really made certain things special – NAFBAE, Worshipful Company of Farriers, Mum and Mick, Michael Kiernan (my former boss), Dave Grant DipWCF (who kept my business going while I was away), Vernon Powell, Jim Quick, Craig Trnka, John McNerney, Brian Buckner, Melinda Haines, Conrad Trow, Rodney Powell and John Hildebrandt.
