As a farrier, or horseshoer, Larry Sonniksen, 63, trims horses’
hooves, heats and shapes iron shoes to fit, and attaches the shoes
with nails. His techniques are little-changed since
”
hot-shoeing
”
was developed around 500 years ago. He teams with the owner and
the veterinarian to keep the horse
”
sound,
”
or
”
able to move without pain for whatever they have to do.
”
”
I’ll inform the owner if I see problems, but I don’t fix
them
… I learned not to practice medicine without a license’
”
Sonniksen says.
As a farrier, or horseshoer, Larry Sonniksen, 63, trims horses’ hooves, heats and shapes iron shoes to fit, and attaches the shoes with nails. His techniques are little-changed since “hot-shoeing” was developed around 500 years ago. He teams with the owner and the veterinarian to keep the horse “sound,” or “able to move without pain for whatever they have to do.”
“I’ll inform the owner if I see problems, but I don’t fix them … I learned not to practice medicine without a license'” Sonniksen says.
By watching a horse move, however “sometimes I can make a suggestion … maybe even contrary to what the vet thinks.”
Sonniksen has been shoeing for almost half of his life, using the skill to pay the bills for years now.
“I started horseshoeing to put myself through school,” Sonniksen explained. “Then I taught vocational ag for seven years in Salinas and managed a ranch for several years,” but has been a full-time farrier for the last 30.
His education, learning the horse’s anatomy and body structure as well as the mechanics of shoeing, helps him spot problems and set up a corrective shoe if necessary.
Raised in a ranching family in Monterey County, Sonniksen was riding horses when he was barely more than a toddler.
“We had a four-year-old mare that had bucked off her rider and crippled herself. One day my dad was working with her and parked her next to the water trough. I climbed up on her and rode her a ways … before I got in trouble.”
Sonniksen himself was but four years old, “I had no idea how dangerous this was.”
His dad brought the horse back to health and three years later, they won third place at the Monterey County Fair.
Lately, though, he has noticed a shift in his clientele from working ranches to “backyard” horses and show horses.
“I lost most of my ranch business after I was ill for a couple of years,” he says. “Now I just do a couple of ranches … but there are more horses now than when it was just the ranches and their teams.”
“There are probably six or seven farriers in the area, and there’s more than enough business for all of us,” he says. “I cover San Benito County, a bit of Monterey and southern Santa Clara … If you do a good job and charge reasonable prices, you can’t keep up” with the volume of business.
The shift from the reined cow-horse to pleasure and show horses hasn’t made much of a difference in the craft of farriery. But Sonniksen has noticed farriers have become a dying breed.
“Our traditions are fading… participation in the Saddle Horse Show is less than before. Now I do more dressage horses. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s just different.”
And the field could soon become more different than ever before with the development of the plastic horseshoe well underway. Sonniksen said most people question using a plastic shoe, although polyurethane shoes have been around for 25 years.
The current version, called the “Four Wings” for horses, is different from the traditional iron horseshoe in shape as well as material. One of the biggest differences is a middle support which cushions the “frog'” the fleshy inner part of the horse’s hoof, and helps pump blood back up the horse’s leg.
“We’re still in the R & D phase, but we see that it spreads the concussion making it easier for the horse to grow heel,” Sonniksen says. A dozen horses around the county are wearing it right now and he has seen 100% improvement in a couple of them.
He looks forward to the plastic shoe being another, better tool at the farriers’ disposal, though he admits it does abandon the tried and true metal shoe that has been working for centuries.
“I”m a traditionalist,” Sonniksen concludes. “But the principles of this thing are good, and it will allow us to keep a lot more horses sound without using drugs.”
