Chapter Sixteen
I had a full day of solo farrier work on Thursday, which was a nice change. Not that I minded working with Julie, but the money was way nicer when I was solo. Jude Brown over at the Broken Axle had referred me to a new client. Guy from India named Mr. Rajashi Kateel, who had retired during the height of the tech bubble. He was nice enough and loved his animals, which was always a plus. I wouldn’t be doing as much shoeing as normal this visit. Mainly trimming hooves and doctoring little things, basically seeing to each of the horses to get them used to me, used to being handled. And of course, give him a chance to see me, check me out, and make sure I was good enough to have around his animals. I respected that.
His horses were never used for work and rarely ridden. Mr. Kateel rode a couple of them, rotating out every few days. He just loved horses, wanted to watch them run from his living room window. The whole place was set up to watch those horses frolic. Overall, they were kept well and let to graze as much as anything.
We had a talk about his horses being barefoot or shod. I explained about the industry controversy over the two choices and explained my reasoning for preferring shod. We discussed the pros and cons of wet weather like we have up here, versus the drier climes like Texas.
It also came down to where he’d be riding the horses. They have better traction and footing in bare feet. So, for sand, snow, soft soil, wooded trails and such, bare feet work. Even concrete, if you keep the horse to a walk.
Also depended on the breed. Thoroughbreds and thoroughbred crosses such as Appendix Quarter Horses had notoriously soft feet and would go lame without being properly shod.
If the horses spent time in warm, dry climes, their hooves would get as tough as iron. Unfortunately, the Pacific Northwest was just too wet.
He said he’d think about it and appreciated my expertise. Good day, solid work, and a nice check at the end of it. I liked Mr. Kateel. He was a straight shooter and treated his animals like family.
Before I left, he asked me if I did anything besides farrier work. I ran through a list of things I’d done besides working with horses and he perked right up. He asked about some custom ironwork and wondered if I was interested.
We walked around his place for about an hour. He wanted to put in a garden: walkways, trellises, maybe some sculpture. He asked if I could give him a quote on a trellis. Something to start the project with. If that came out okay, we’d talk about doing some additional work.
He was great. I can’t tell you how excited I was. I told him I worked with a couple other blacksmiths and that one of them had a lot of experience with sculpture. We agreed that I’d put some sketches together based on his ideas. He wanted lots of roses and horses worked into the motif. I promised him some sketches for the next time I visited in six weeks. Maybe things were starting to turn a corner. Was nice to get a new client for a change instead of losing one.
He watched me drive away, waving from his porch. I’d have to thank Mr. Brown for the recommendation.