San Juan Bautista resident Jordan Garrick may put shoes on horses’ hooves during the day to pay bills, but he moonlights as a fledgling actor.
Garrick, 36, already has been a stand-in for Bryan Cranston, the lead character in the television series “Breaking Bad,” a job that required standing in Cranston’s place while the photographer and director arranged lights and props for filming. And Aug. 17, he’ll be a star on Discovery’s American Heroes Channel in a leading role as Gip Clements, the sidekick to outlaw John Wesley Hardin. The segment is part of a six-piece television series called “Gunslingers: Icons of the Old West,” which exposes little-known facts about America’s first villains and heroes, according to the American Heroes Channel website, ahctv.com.
“I accompany him for a lot of the gun-battle scenes and there’s a lot of horseback riding scenes, too,” Garrick said. “He was one of the most notorious outlaws of the old west – a true gunslinger.”
When Garrick is not acting, he pays bills by putting shoes on horses. He’s been a farrier – or professional shoemaker for horses – for about 16 years. Before that, he was a horse trainer in New Mexico.
“I got to talking with the local farrier and he told me about his job and how much he makes, and I thought, ‘That sounds like a good way to make a lot of money,’ ” said Garrick.
The farrier now lives in California but he frequently makes the 1,000-mile drive to Santa Fe, N.M., where does acting gigs and picks up farrier work along the way.
“New Mexico has a fine reputation for producing rough horses and rough working conditions, and I had plenty of both,” Garrick said, as he reflected on his move out of New Mexico and into California.
He’ll be channeling his inner wild west, though, in his role as a gunslinging outlaw in the episode that will appear on televisions across the nation this month.
“Farrier work pays for all of these acting adventures, but I’m on the road a lot,” Garrick said. “I wish I had stock in a gas company because I use a lot of gas, but it’s just part of being a young actor. You just have to go where the work is.”
The constant movement between the worlds of acting and picking up horses’ feet has led to a few great stories. Once, Garrick was driving his work truck up Highway 101 when the hitch to his trailer started to break. He pulled to the side of the road and managed to fire up his welder just in time to re-connect his rig and make it to his audition in San Francisco. Garrick did the audition but was surprised to learn the call for talent was for a modeling gig and not an acting one.
“Simply stated, I am not model material, so there I was playing the part of the fool for 10 minutes that felt like 10 hours,” he said.
Garrick prefers the kind of acting jobs that allow for horseback riding and occasional backstage livestock wrangling. It’s this authentic ease with horses that has given him an advantage over others in the western genre and keeps him coming back for more.
“It is certainly an adventure. There’s a lot of high times and there’s a lot of low times, too,” he said. “I just feel very fortunate that I have a supplemental career that can fill in that gap and also fill in my portfolio.”
