A considerable segment of the horse owning public, especially the
barefoot horse enthusiasts, seem to think farriers are preoccupied
with beating on iron and playing in fire.
They might just have a point.
The farriers on
FaceBook and the F&HRC post a multitude of
pictures showing off their hand-forged horseshoes of all types.
Fullered, swedged, concave, straight bar, heartbar, whip-across,
onion heels, trailers, patten shoes, etc., etc. And darned if there
isn't some beautiful work on display.
And the ability to properly form horseshoes (whether forging from
bar stock or modifying keg shoes) is indeed essential to good farriery. These skills are certainly worthy of praise and
admiration...
But they're ultimately only a means to an end... And that end is
a sound, useful horse.
When I started the lexicon project with the Pocket Dictionary, my
only practical choice for the cover design was black ink on a
light-colored background. In the years since then, mass-printing
tech has given publishers more options, including full-color covers
on most books.
Many recent horseshoeing books take advantage of this with
photographic covers. The most common theme seems to be brightly glowing
shoes, flames,
and sparks. Guys hammering-away at the anvil are popular. Tools,
shoes, radiographs, and diagrams...
Conspicuous by their absence are HORSES. Very few horses are
seen on these covers, except maybe the parts of the critters
unavoidably included in pictures centered on the farrier and the
shoe he's burning or nailing-on.
Forgework is just the most
obvious thing that distinguishes the
serious, professional farrier from the Cheap John shoer. So it's
natural that farriers, and authors writing about the trade, would focus
on it. Even to the point of omitting the horses from the shoeing
picture.
I'm familiar with many of these authors and their work, and know
full-well that they are aware that there's more to horses than nailing
iron onto their feet. Most include relevant horsemanship and care in
their writing.
It's just a sort of subliminal effect that the lack of horse images
has... Of course, it's not just horseshoeing books. Even the logos of
the farrier organizations tend to be horseless. Bar shoes, anvils,
tools... The GPF features at least
part of a horse in
the logo.
Of course,
Millwater's Farriery features the usual hot steel, sparks,
and smoke on the cover... Along with the common feature of diagrams
and some tools... But I made a conscious effort to "horsey" it up a
bit. A reminder that all the forgework, tools, technical study, and
smoke exist to serve sound, working horses like those featured on the
cover.
It was also a chance to give some of our four-legged favorites, past and present, a bit of a cameo.
By the way, the trade paperback proofs have been approved, and the hardcover proofs should arrive tomorrow or the next day. The official release is coming soon!
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