PROFESSIONAL HORSESHOEING COURSE

The Professional Horseshoeing Course is designed to begin at the basic level and develop you to the point where you feel comfortable practicing your craft for the public and charging a fair price for your work.

Forge skills become more important as you acquire larger accounts with more horses; some of which will require handmade shoes to satisfy a customer. If a customer has ten horses and only two of them require more specialized skills, your ability to do that work gets you the whole account. If you can't do the work, then you don't get that account. As a professional shoer, you will want to work for larger accounts so that you can spend more time working and less time driving. Also, remember that more specialized work commands a higher fee.

Upon graduation from the Professional Horseshoeing Course, you will be competent to shoe almost any type of horse for whatever special requirements the horse may have with few limitations. At the Oklahoma Horseshoeing School this is considered to be entry level, full time professional horseshoeing.

 

 

CURRICULUM:

Lectures, Reading Assignments,                        and Demonstrations: (72 hours) Anatomy with review in great detail of: Bones and Joints Tendons and Ligaments Foot Biomechanics Sensitive Structures Hoof Structure	Theory of Specialty Shoeing including but not limited to: Performance Horses - Western and English Draft Horses Gaited and Walking Horses Endurance Horses Mules
Corrective Shoeing with review in great detail of: Foot Conformation Types Limb Conformation Types The Gaits of the Horse Correcting Faults of Gaits	Determining a Horse's Age How to start and Run your Own Business Horseshoeing: (360 hours) Basic Horseshoeing Hot Shoeing Shoeing with handmade shoes for normal horses Performance Horseshoeing with handmade shoes Specialty Shoeing with handmade shoes Corrective Shoeing with handmade shoes
Therapeutic Shoeing with review in great detail of: Lameness of the Foot Lameness of the Fore-limb Lameness of the Hind-limb Hoof Repair with Plastics Leg Braces

REQUIRED SUPPLIES FOR PROFESSIONAL HORSESHOEING COURSE: Students must have hand tools, text book and manual. The required hand tools and text are itemized in Required Tools section of this Site. If you already have tools of your own you may bring them. If not then PLEASE buy your tools from us here in our office. The reason we ask this is that we have found that almost all of the students who buy their tools elsewhere end up buying the wrong tools to the extent that they are not even usable, leaving them having to purchase new tools anyway. We do have economy brand tools as well as the very best tools, and all are at very competitive prices.  You will be given your course manual when you arrive.