This summer I met a retired Farrier at a fishing resort where I was getting propane. He had worked race tracks for thirty years. In our conversations he spoke about the crooked testing, how an incompetent hack would be passed with out even taking the test and others not passed though their work was above the norm. It was an ol' boys network that let in (or kept out) who they liked (or didn't) or who payed whom. All of the regulations and licences and organizations and Government Departments will never keep bad work away from, or produce good work on the mats in a barn. It's up to me. It's up to you on each foot you do. I just had an interesting experience. After not having horses in the family for about 16 years, my youngest daughters just received a horse each for their tenth birthday last Friday. My son Jess (his 16th birthday too) and I shod them as they were a bit tender being barefoot and going to work now. I made a few jokes about not having to worry about quicking them or that we could beat them as hard as we wanted, but I found that both of us approached the work as though it was on the best horses in the best barn we do, and I only have a Driver's Licence.
Since you mention that George, he did say that he was on Union and nonunion tracks. I think it all relates to Jolly Old England in that it's all about regulation.
Cool. No problem. bill ,start the thread and keep the comments to the subject, not comments like i deleted in your response here. ray
