From the issue dated March 17, 1995
PORTRAIT
A Certified Master at Shoeing Horses
By Peter Monaghan
Fort Collins, Colorado -- Doug Butler is the only American ever to shoe a horse with the unequivocal approval of the 639-year-old Worshipful Company of Farriers.
That 3,000-member British guild has only 40 fellows worldwide. Mr. Butler, an associate professor of animal sciences here at Colorado State University, is its only American fellow, ever.
He also wrote The Principles of Horseshoeing, the standard American textbook of the 2,000-year-old craft and science of farriery. It describes the skills needed to shoe a horse properly: thorough understanding of the anatomy and physical functioning of horses; and the strength and dexterity to mold metal into shoes that fit.
Mr. Butler learned farriery growing up on a farm in upstate New York. He worked his way through college in the early 1960's by shoeing and training horses.
At that time, American farriery was ailing. From the 1940's, with the advent of mechanized farm work, shoe- and tool-making skills had slumped. Machine-made shoes had become common.
To stage its comeback, American farriery has raised educational standards, largely by looking to Britain's intact tradition.
While still an undergraduate, Mr. Butler taught horseshoeing at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, which was then the only American college teaching it. There, he also wrote the first, short version of his textbook. He expanded it as he studied equine sciences at Cornell University, eventually earning a doctorate -- a credential that is unusual among farriers.
The story of how he went one step further, to become a fellow of a British craft guild, begins in 1979. That year he was asked to judge the American Farriers Association's annual horseshoeing contest.
Says Mr. Butler: "At the contest someone made a comment like, 'What right do you have to judge us when you've never competed yourself?' I hadn't. So I said, 'O.K., I'll be back next year.'"
He did return. And he did win.
He was invited onto the North American team for international competition at the Royal Dublin Horse Show, and became aware that the top British and Irish farriers belonged to the Worshipful Company of Farriers. A British shoer told him the guild's membership exams were mulishly difficult.
Mr. Butler had been looking for a challenge. "As I progressed in learning farriery, I got more interested than the average person in doing it," he says. "I could never quite get to the end of it."
He began to work his way toward the guild's highest honor -- fellowship status. He attained it in 1992 and joined a group that has had only 150 members since the guild was founded in 1356.
In addition to sitting for difficult examinations, he had to write and formally present a thesis: "Factors Affecting Hoof Balance." He also had to make an assortment of specialized horseshoes -- one in front of his exacting examiners, within 50 minutes. The finished product had to fit a particular hoof perfectly -- the first time.
Those shoes are now on show in his office here. So too are a horse skull, a set of leg bones, charts of horses, and a photograph of Gene Autry and his horse, Champion.
Mr. Butler holds farriery classes at an off-campus equestrian complex.
Even to an uninformed onlooker visiting a recent class, his skill and personalized approach to farriery were unmistakable as he demonstrated a difficult design to five apprentices. Amid a din of hammers clanging on anvils, and the pungent odor of horses, he and his students worked at small forges. Mr. Butler heated and reheated a metal bar while shaping it with an economy of effort that clearly impressed his students.
As he turned an emerging shoe this way and that, he pounded it rhythmically, maintaining its symmetry by striking each side of it an equal number of times. In a near-musical flourish, he punctuated each count with a tap of his hammer to the anvil. Quickly he was done, and ready to fit the shoe to a horse, which until he began to treat it had been lame.
Mr. Butler teaches farrier craftsmanship and management to about 70 students each semester. He also teaches courses in animal behavior, training, management, and nutrition.
These days 85 per cent of animal-science students are female. In farriery, however, almost all the students are male. They come from, or plan to work on, ranches or farms.
The demands of farriery are considerable, Mr. Butler says. "Very few students stay with it." Still, he is guaranteed a steady supply of novices by Colorado State's several accomplished teams in horsemanship, polo, show-jumping -- and horseshoeing.
Mr. Butler publishes and markets his textbook himself. It first appeared in 1974 and was expanded in 1985. It, and study guides and videotapes he also publishes, are used by most North American farriery educators, whether at colleges, where about 40 per cent of farriery classes are held, or at private farriery schools.
"His text is an important one," says Allen Smith, president of the American Farriers Association. "It has been highly influential." Mr. Butler is "an internationally known clinician" who has helped revive American farriery, adds Mr. Smith, who is also a professor of library science at Simmons College.
That revival, Mr. Butler believes, must continue to look to the basics, even as sophisticated methods are introduced. He insists that modernity isn't all progress: "There's no substitute for a sound horse, and a horse isn't going to stay healthy unless it has healthy, sound feet."
Copyright © 1995 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
