04/30/2026
As they say, more than one way to skin a cat…and I have to admit I have been doing what I do long enough to have seen some
Things myself…great read.
Back when I was doing farrier work, a lady called and asked if I could come shoe her dad’s horse.
She said he was getting older, and this was probably gonna be his last elk hunt on horseback. Said he wanted to take his mare out one more time so they could make one final trip together.
Now that hit me right in the American spirit.
So I said I’d be there.
Day comes. My parents and brothers were in the area, so I said, “You all wanna come along? Should only take about 45 minutes if everything goes smooth."
Looking back, that was the dumbest sentence spoken in North America that morning.
We get there. I unload the anvil, strap on the chaps, grab my tools, and the old man has the horse standing there tied to a hitching post.
I thought I was walking into a routine service call. I was actually entering a live-action folk tale.
Now normally, front feet should’ve taken me maybe 20–30 minutes tops. Instead this horse turned it into a hostage negotiation. Leaning. Pulling. Testing me.
Every time I’d get a rhythm going, she’d shift around and remind me I was working for her now. By the time I finally got both front shoes on, forty-five minutes had gone by.
That’s when I knew we were no longer in regular business hours. But thankfully he was the only client I scheduled for that day.
Then I reached for the first hind foot. That horse would not cooperate. Would not lift. Would not negotiate. Wouldn’t let me near those back feet like she had secrets back there.
We tried feed buckets. We tried petting. We tried sweet talking. We tried ropes. We tried standing different. We tried acting like we didn’t care!
Sweat in my eyes. Pride leaving my body. Family standing around watching my downfall like it was live entertainment.
Then the old man walks over calm as a sunrise and says: “You wanna flip her on her back and shoe her that way?”
Now I laughed at first. Because surely this was humor. Surely this was elder sarcasm.
So I humored him and said, “If you can get this horse on her back I’ll finish shoeing her.”
He nods and disappears, comes back carrying ropes older than FM radio.
Leads the horse into an open patch of yard and starts tying knots with the confidence of a man who’d solved problems before manuals existed.
Loop here. Cinch there. Half hitch. Cross-body tension line. Anchor point under the belly. Witchcraft. Ranch rope slinging geometry.
At one point I’m pretty sure he tied one directly to gravity itself. Then he steps back, looks at me dead serious, and says:
“Alright. I’m gonna pull. You push. When she goes down, somebody get on her neck.”
Nobody spoke, even the wind shut up. Then he squints at me and says: “Alright. I’m gonna pull. You push. When she goes down, somebody get on her neck.”
Before I could process that sentence, my dad had already removed his coat.
Old man pulls.
I push.
Horse tips over in slow motion like a falling tree. My dad launches through the dust and got on that neck like he was claiming new territory.
My brothers are trying to help anyway they can. My mom isn't sure what to do. Dust cloud rolling. Horse squirreling. And the old man tightening ropes like he’s tying a Christmas ham.
We essentially hogtied that horse.
And there I am… tools in hand… trimming and eventually nailing hind shoes onto an upside down horse laying sideways…
While my father is on the neck like a determined gargoyle…
And an 80-year-old ranch wizard coordinates the whole scene with the calm of a librarian.
We got both shoes on, the old man loosened the ropes, my dad dismounts, and the horse stands up furious enough to file paperwork.
Looks at every one of us like she was memorizing faces.
Then the old man pats her neck and says:
“There now.”
There now.
Like we’d just brushed her mane.
We packed up and left like nothing unusual had happened. I never heard if he got his elk, but I hope he did.
And I hope somewhere in those mountains, an old cowboy and one suspiciously watchful horse shared one last ride together.
