Martin Kenny in gray, stuff deleted
1.As Tom stated, back then we did not have an openness that new farriers enjoy today.
Not so here on the Texas Gulf; later, the entire state. From about 1977 to present, new farriers have had a great deal of information and hands-on help available to them, beginning with the informal get-togethers at the Ft. Bend County Fairgrounds that ultimately led to the formation of the Texas Professional Farriers Association. I know, I was there.
I will grant that the AFA was germane in turning that around, but one can not live on past accomplishments in order to survive in the present world. (look at the big 3 auto makers for proof of that)
Here in Texas, the AFA had little to do with the dissemination of information at the beginning, but its members, notably Jack Miller, Jim Ferrell, C. B. Jolly, Howard Love, Bailey Bradshaw, Larry Crawford, and other show farriers were at the forefront of the movement.
2. You assume that the relationships I spoke of were provided mainly because of the AFA. Some where, others weren't. Back then farriers would to see me coming, because they knew I would be bugging them to join the AFA. We did not develop our relationships because of the AFA. I helped to build the AFA because of the relationships I had made in my own practices.
FLASH! The membership makes the AFA, the AFA doesn't make anything!
3. "My success" had little to do with the AFA. In fact I have openly said that the AFA has hindered my personal growth to some degree. Let me explain that. Most of you have no earthly idea who Martin Kenny is, and I understand that, because I made a personal decision to remove myself from the farrier "society" back in 1996. I was frustrated with how bad my horses feet were looking, and was even thinking of changing professions. (even studied and I am now certificated in an arm of the finance world) But my love was not finance, but horses. So I took a long hard look at myself and the work I was performing, along with the results of what I was doing. I saw that the better I got at mastering the AFA standards, the worse my horses feet looked when I came back the next month. I have to agree, they looked great when I left, but when I came back; well, that was another story. (Sound familiar to any one else out there? I know it does, because many have shared that with me, and I see it every day.)
You appear to be blaming your chronic personal inability to recognize and meet the needs of the horses in your custom on the AFA. In reality, the AFA has never promoted model-based farriery.
Anyhow, I then delved into deep research, at a cost of over a half million dollars in actual outlay and income loss, over about 10 years. What I learned was alarming to me. I learned that the methodology that the AFA and others was incorrect, and actually creating many of the things you all deal with on a daily basis. Those methodologies were actually creating a need for many of the high tech stuff many of you find in your rigs today. (Sole packing stuff, hoof rebuilding stuff, special shoes, etc...)
Hot damn! Another epiphany in which somebody thinks they've found a piece of Farriery's One True Cross. Naturally, all the bad stuff in the past is somebody else's fault and the failures of your personal model couldn't possibly have been the fault of your personal shortcomings in the anatomy, physiology, and biophysics departments. Heaven forfend!
I am going out on a limb here, but the fact is, the Bare Foot crowd, actually had a point.
No they don't. The BUA is FOS. Nobody ever pulled the shoes off a horse that needed shoes to do whatever it does as best it can and improved that horse's performance - and it all boils down to performance, even when that performance is measured by the efficiency with which a horse gets from shelter, to feed, to water, and back.
The way I was (and many of you are) shoeing horses is destroying feet. Please understand that I stick up for you every time I am brought into a case. I tell each new client. "The problem is not that this farrier has done it wrong, the problem is that this farrier has done it exactly like he was taught to do it. The problem is that the he has been following is incorrect!
Balderdash! Your self-aggrandizing rhetoric aside, please be kind enough to cite chapter and verse: be specific.
You can prove this to yourself... simply look at authors of old shoeing books, (Lugwitsz, Holmes, etc.) and you will see, that they were dealing with the same issues of today. (think white line is new, It used to be called "loose wall disease" Look at how often Seedy Toe is written about back then too. They dealt with flares and crumbling walls every day just like you do today!)
No surprises here: Folks have been breeding horses for performance, not feet, since the Hittites were racing chariots.
So if we still have the same problems (which are not an issue to me any more), and we are shoeing like they did back then (which I do not) then something is terribly wrong.
With all due respect, the problems most farriers have are associated with husbandry and/or performance and are primarily exacerbated by breeders who are breeding for better performance, not better feet. DNA and husbandry can be a female dog to overcome.
I owe a debt to the Bare Foot crowd, as they helped to open my eyes and see that I needed to learn how to use shoes in a manner that helped the foot, instead of destroying it.
Bully for you! Now that the bare foot crowd has been instrumental in your epiphany, please be kind enough to let the rest of us in on your secret.
The point being made here is this.... The AFA had and has its good points, (I am still member #178) but the fact that it has never promoted honest research by its members, makes the AFA's true intrinsic value questionable.
The late Burney Chapman was both a TPFA and an AFA member. I can't think of any individual in recent history who contributed more to farriery's body of knowledge than he did: Can you?
In the midst of my heavy research days, I requested if there was any AFA money to assist in underwriting equipment. My request was never even answered. So I moved on and took care of 100% of the $$$ myself. At the same time, the AFA has funneled a relatively small amount of $$ to research done at the academia level. So it would seem to me that the relevance of research for the AFA is not directly with the farriers, but with academia.
Why should the AFA underwrite your research? Or, mine? Or, anyone's?
To sum it up, I personally feel that the AFA kept me from learning faster than I did, as "Big Brother" was telling me (through unproven standards) that all I had to do was follow the pattern and all would be fine.
Your attempt at scapegoating aside, the AFA didn't "tell" you anything, it didn't mandate a model - you evidently attempted to use the AFA's testing standard as a model for your personal farriery instead of applying whatever knowledge of anatomy and physics you have to each individual.
It was only after I shed those ideals that I grew like crazy.
Someone less charitable than myself might point out that it took you a helluva long time to find out that every horse is an individual - what works for one won't always work for another - and now you're trying to blame your personal failure to do so on the AFA instead of yourself.
So I stand by my earlier statement... along with a clarification. I do not feel the AFA is relevant to the working farrier of 2009. (to the working farrier of 2009.... being the clarification here.)
I still do a few trims and consultations and I'm not a pimple on a working farrier's butt. On the other hand, the AFA - and its certification process - is unarguably relevant to myself and every farrier in the country, primarily due to the dissemination of information through the AFA's present and former membership.