Travels - Argentina, Part 4

The Argentine Clinic

The folks at Mustad had planned the clinic several months in advance, and they allowed their suppliers to send their customers for the hands-on clinic. I know this caused a little problem since there were limited spots, but there really wasn’t any other way to make it fair. Also, having too many people at a hands-on clinic makes it so that no one gets what they are coming for, and the clinician gets worked to death. I felt bad for many of the folks that contacted me and weren’t able to come, but we did schedule another trip in June for anyone that wants some education. If you are serious about some intense training, El Picazo is going to have a 3-day clinic with me in June, followed by a FITS Exam with Fabio Furquim, CJF, ASF and myself. Contact Tomas Lockey if you are interested in any part of that.

The facilities at El Picazo are amazing. It is a very well designed building with walls that can be taken down with ease. The school was built and is being run by HHS graduate Tomas Lockey. After coming to the Heartland, he went to Asia and shod a lot of polo horses. He ended up shoeing a horse named Picazo for a man named Graham from Canada. Picazo was a special horse, and the school in Argentina is named in his honor.

We started the first morning with some forging demos and the eager farriers got stuck in to the work. You could see that there was a ton of willingness and desire, and the advancements that we got to see over the next two days were awesome.

On the afternoon of the first day we put a straight bar on a horse. It went well, and the straight bars that the guys made continued to improve. The second day was more forging in the morning, and we put W-shoes on a foundered horse that afternoon. This horse was really sore, and it was great to see him moving around a lot better after the shoeing.

All in all, it was an extremely rewarding clinic filled with good food, a lot of laughs, sweat and hard work. The kind of thing that farriers seem to mix together as well as anyone can.

The last day of the clinic was an open house sort of thing, but again, they had to limit the numbers to only 60. It was a great crowd and a ton of fun. Tomas, Emilio, and Pedro helped with translating. When it came to the scientific side of anatomy though, Emilio Gionatti, a farrier from Argentina that had spent 9 years in the US, was invaluable. He is also being an instrumental part of translating my book from English into Spanish.

We did power-point lectures, forging demos, and ended the day shoeing the back of a horse. Then everyone gathered for another amazing Argentine asado. All of this became a possibility because of a great company that I have been associated with for nearly 20 years. Mustad is an international hoof care company with interests all over the world, and their team in Argentina is just like the ones in every country. Competent, dedicated, hard-working, and doing their best to make our job easier. Thanks Gustavo Lannutti and your team at Mustad Argentina.

This trip was an incredible experience, and we got to meet some people that are destined to become our friends for life. I can’t wait to go back to do some clinics in June and administer the FITS Exam as the Argentine farrier begins to push their skills and knowledge to the next level. Thanks for letting me be a part of your journey.