PALMER-- It doesn't take a horse whisperer to know when a horse is going to sit on you.
In 15 years as a farrier, Heidi Larrabee has thousands of times been at the tail end of a horse unwilling to stand on three legs while being shoed. It's never comfortable.
Silver, a 1,200-pound Tennessee Walker stallion owned by Kathy Kovel near Lazy Mountain, is one such horse.
"Hey, heyyyy," Larrabee called from her crouched position over Silver's rear right leg. She ducked and moved out of the way of Silver's descending rear end. Kovel pulled Silver's head while the horse, with studied nonchalance, stood upright with his leg tucked as far away from Larrabee as possible.
"This is his booger foot," Larrabee explained, heating a horseshoe in the portable forge she'd set up on her customized truck bed. "I try to start with the worst foot first because that's when I have the most energy to deal with it."
And energy is a top requirement for a farrier. So is upper-body strength, which means the vast majority in the field are men. Women make up about 10 percent of membership within the American Farrier Association, according to an unofficial count.
NO LONG-TERM GIG
In Alaska, Larrabee and Debbie Avritt are two of eight certified farriers currently listed on the association Web site, although many more operate in the state. Russ Uhlenhake, a past president of the Alaska Farriers Association, said the chapter has 18 members, most of whom work in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, but several more aren't members.
Larrabee, who is past president of the state chapter, said she became a farrier in order to care for her own horses. A stint at the Oklahoma Horseshoeing School in Oklahoma City gave her a start in a business she didn't envision as a long-term gig.
"It isn't something you go on in for a long time. Some do, but usually after about 20 years, it's hard on the body and we're going downhill," she said.
In the early days, she brought along her two children strapped in their car seats. Her gear was stored in a big truck box.
Now she calls on her 183 clients with a customized truck topper with shelves for footpads and horseshoes of all sizes. Her 100-pound anvil sits on its own stand; her wooden tool box, stuffed with files, trimmers, a rasp and nippers, looks like it came straight from a blacksmith's forge.
Larrabee has one of those too. Fired by propane, the mini-forge heats metal so the shoe hissed steam when pressed onto Silver's foot. The stallion rolled his eyes, his ears back, as Larrabee checked the fit and killed off any lurking bacteria. The horse senses the shoe being applied but feels no pain, she said. Later, after she'd nailed the shoe on and trimmed the hoof, she treated Silver's foot with purple disinfectant.
NOT IF INJURED, BUT WHEN
Larrabee reeled off a laundry list of injuries earned on the job, most below the waist. A draft horse broke three vertebrae in her back, leaving her with a horseshoe imprint for two weeks and problems with long road trips. A careless stomp by another horse made one of her toes, she said, "burst open like a tomato."
She's had her feet broken so many times she doesn't bother with steel-toed boots. And, despite the Kevlar chaps that stretch past her knees, there are incidents with horseshoe nails and kicks powerful enough to shred denim.
"I was kicked a lot when I first started," Larrabee said. "Now I (attribute) it to rushing. When I'm rushing, it makes the horse nervous, so I take the time to calm them down."
Avritt, a Wasilla farrier, has endured instant toenail removal and a painful injury to her sacrum and has dodged dangerous bites. She employs her horse sense to minimize risk.
"A person needs to be able to read these horses' moods and temperaments quickly and precisely," Avritt wrote in an e-mail. "I do a ton of ground work as well as riding. That is without a doubt a big part of my physical well-being, knowing how they tick."
CERTIFIED TO SHOE
Although most states don't require professional certification, Larrabee is certified and aims for journeyman status.
"The most evident advantage of being certified is that you spent the money for the education," said Uhlenhake, who seeks certification by the American Farrier Association.
"It also means (the farrier) will do a good job because typically (the association) doesn't certify people that can't," he said.
The journeyman test pits horseshoeing against the clock and is the highest certification awarded.
Experience is the only way to pass muster, Larrabee said, and journeyman certification usually goes to farriers with years of work under their belts.
Not that she ever expected to be one of them.
"I never dreamed I'd be doing this for 15 years," she said with a laugh as Kovel led a freshly shod Silver back to pasture.
"I made a monster and now I have a Frankenstein."
Find Melodie Wright online at adn.com/contact/mwright or call 352-6721.
