Worshipful Company of Neanderthals and Foot Butchers. (Essex branch)

I have few real hates in this world: wasps, house agents, rough toilet paper (you know the stuff you got at school that looked like tracing paper) and farriers (you know, used to be called blacksmiths before they became upwardly mobile).

Having two horses has meant that like it or not I have had to come into contact with these people, I mean like an urgent bowel movement or being forced to use a solicitor, sometimes the unpleasant is unavoidable. I must point out before I go further that my great grandfather was a blacksmith, and that at least two farriers I know are pleasant competent guys……..well I suppose there would, by the law of averages have to be a few OK ones out there. The majority I have met however are simply unpleasant bullies, who have graduated into farriery because they would have been rejected by any self respecting group of wandering, horse abusing ‘pikeys’!

Why this storm of vitriol? Well virtually to a man these skinheaded muscle bound loudmouths are opposed to any form of barefoot treatment for horses, despite evidence that for a great many animals this can be a very beneficial way to go, and for some animals like our Murphy it can be the only way to go. This opposition is based purely on prejudice, and also to a large degree sexism....as many 'trimmers' are female.
But it is not only that: My great grandfather was a truly gentle man with whom I feel privileged to have spent time ……admittedly when I was quite a young child………. and I suppose my expectations of a farrier were coloured by his wisdom and kindness. What I found when I started to see the work of modern mobile farriers in Essex appalled me. I saw horses that were simply nervous, kicked punched and manhandled. Owners are verbally rubbished who dare to criticise wildly incompetent shoeing with clenches left sticking up, feet ‘boxed’ with no toe and high heels to look ‘pretty’ etcetera.

I appreciate that there are probably many good farriers country wide……….we ourselves found one in the end, one who was prepared to encourage us on the road to the barefoot option. An option that will not suit every horse I hasten to add, but an option that any self respecting farrier should at least discuss with his clients. Sadly the only person animal the average ‘Essex Foot Butcher’ does respect is himself………It may be different elsewhere, but somehow I doubt it.

By the way The Worshipful Company of Farriers, the body that oversees the accreditation of all farriers in this country, is a feudally organised ‘guild’, fronted it seems by some quacking chinless ex cavalry type, who from his biog on their website seems to be eminently qualified to subjugate jonnie foreigner or do a spot of ‘fishin’, but when it comes to shoeing a horse almost certainly have to get some ‘bod’ to do it for him.

Oh and dont even start me on the subject of bloody vets!