calshoer wrote:Which was my point .WRONG, because unions (of any kind ) IMO(tend to protect the members despite those members shortfalls. Pay your dues, your in, and then no one can challenge you. It removes the free market and fair competition for the best skills .
The California test was a joke. The track plater inspector wanted me to take it and "get legal" (I told you they knew about my and my ex's plating there,and I shod his personal horses at his home) ) and he gave me all the information and study guides.The information I needed involved about a hundredth of the knowledge that a good farrier should posess,and some of it was mechanically wrong for the horse. Oh common, how many TB platers ever actually need to get into the forge? If they can make a simple bar shoe or pull clips that's all they need in that environment. Like i said the test is a joke anyway. It only tests knowledge of what plates are which win the parts that involve the mechanics of the foot and leg, it's is wrong in many areas and the track shoeing guidelines often perpetuates detrimental shoeing.
Licencing farriers on the track IMO is primarily to insure no cheating (setting up someones horse with bad shoeing deliberately to fix a race for example) , to control financial responsibility, and drug use. Horse owners and trainers should not have to be limited in whatever way they want to shoe their own horses, as long as the shoeing adheres to the incorrect and and harmful shoeing rules imposed upon them.

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Union has totally changed in the 21st Century.
Union test you have to use forging skills!!!
Union test is not a joke; although other tests in the past have been a joke; including today the NO shoeing test to be PC.
Union testing made sure you could shoe a racehorse propertly, and in any shoeing......in the classical way of shoeing a racehorse ....
*****Which- if you look at "Smitty88" shoeing of the racehorse; you will see a beautiful classical way of shoeing the racehorse; PLUS a wonderful and classical way of shoeing most horses. He is wonderful testament to this forum and to others here, including myself.
Plus, there are others on this forum that doing extrodinary work; which we can all learn from.