Education · 1 of 5
The path
No degree, no license, no exam you are forced to sit. Skill and a reputation are the whole qualification.
- 1
High school and horses
Grade 12
Get around horses any way you can: lessons, barn chores, a summer job mucking stalls. You need to be calm and safe near a 1,200 pound animal before anything else.
- 2
Horseshoeing school
8 to 36 weeks
Full-time courses run from a few weeks to nearly a year. Anatomy, forging, trimming and shoeing on live horses all day.
- 3
Apprentice with a working farrier
1 to 2 years
Ride along, carry tools, do the easy trims, get corrected constantly. This is where you actually learn the trade.
- 4
Build your own book
Take the horses your mentor cannot fit in, then the barns nobody is serving. Word of mouth is the only marketing that works.
- 5
Certify if you want to
Optional, from year 1 on
The American Farrier's Association offers voluntary levels, and the top one asks for written and practical exams plus forging a bar shoe against the clock.