Message from the President - Frank Reilly DVM APF-I
Adaptability is a key component all farriers have … some will use this important aspect to change with the times to continue in their craft and some will ignore it and struggle to continue in this business.When you look at many successful farrier business', you often will see that they started out in one type of discipline (perhaps in standardbred racing for example) and changed to dressage and hunter/jumpers when several tracks in their area closed and their clients moved on.
Farriers that are always learning from the best, no matter the discipline, not only pick up knowledge to then carry over to their business, but they also gain the know how to walk into a barn later in life and talk with the trainers and owners of many different types of horses.
For example, a 25-stall barn is being built 1 mile from your house with gaited horses or cutting horses that you usually don’t do much work on, but you know from your talks with farriers that do these horses, what those horses need, the lingo, the slang terms....and you can go in there and get that account. Are you going to drive by the barn twice a day for years and say, "I don't do those type of horses" and miss out on a good paying/nice people opportunity?
The IAPF gives you that chance to talk to farriers that are at the top of their disciplines and ask them questions about how they got there, what did they do in the early years, what do they do for ABC hoof problems...and gives you knowledge now and perhaps options later in life in case you need to make changes.
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change» Albert Einstein