Blue Ridge Horse Talkers

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It doesn't happen often, but once in a while I am questioned about my rates. Rarely out of curiosity, mostly out of shock. Here's some explanation:

Client: "Hi, while you're here trimming So&So's horses, do you have time to trim mine?"
Me: "Sure!"
*In the middle of trimming their pony*
Client: "Oh by the way, how much do you charge?"
Me: "It'll be $$"
Client: "Oh my goodness! Why do you charge SO much for ponies?!"

The tools I purchase are priced to get the job done I need to. The $$$$ worth of tools will dull, wear, or break all the same and won't change in value according the the size of hooves it's taking care of.

Possible client: "Hi I've got {a lot} of horses that need trims, what do you charge?"
Me: "Hi, I charge $$ per horse."
Them: "Do you do herd discounts?"
Me: "I don't, sorry."
Them: "REALLY? My last farrier only charged me $30 a horse."
Me: "Well, that's how they choose to run their business. That's not how I run mine."

Working on horses is a VERY physically demanding task. If I'm going to a clients place where they have a large number of horses I am taking more time and putting in a lot more energy in however many hours to get that job done, it doesn't make sense to me at all why I would charge any less. ADDITIONALLY, if you ask your veterinarian to come vaccinate, float teeth, geld, and take x-rays... and ask them for a multiple horse discount- they'd probably laugh.

*Client's horse is misbehaving*
Me: "So, there's going to be an additional charge of $50 if we continue"
Client: "Why!?!"
Me: "Your horse is misbehaving, you don't want me to lunge him and won't do it yourself, it's taking me almost a half hour longer to get anything done, it's harder on me physically and I'm at a higher risk of getting hurt. So we can continue, or I can leave with one hoof trimmed."

This one sounds a bit rude, but sometimes uncaring owners need to be "hit with reality", and sugar coating get farriers kicked. If it's taking me longer to get a horse finished because of behavior problems that go unaddressed, I'm either going to charge more, or walk and not accept this client again. One good kick could end my career or life, something $40-$75 isn't worth. Nowadays, I do end the session and request the horse be worked with a trainer.

Client: "hi I need to get my horses trimmed. How much do you charge?"
Me: "Hi, I charge $$."
Client: "would you do it for $10 less?"
Me: "No, I'm sorry but that doesn't work for me."
Client: "Let me know If you change your mind, I'm looking for a good quality farrier!"

Usually when I am contacted by a client, the first thing they mention is what matters to them most, the most common "how much do you charge?" This is usually a red flag to me that the owner is mostly concerned about me being cheap. Sometimes when I mention my rates I get a rare response of "Oh wow that's very affordable! When's you're next opening?" But usually it goes "Oh okay thanks anyway" and we part our merry ways. No, I'm not disappointed in losing these potential clients because they wouldn't see the value in my work, or straight up tell me my work is worth less to them. 🤷

SO! Why do I run my business this way? Why don't I just put up with these things and make the money?

I LOVE this career, I love my clients and their fur babies. I want to be doing this until I can retire. I want to retire at retirement age! If I accepted and put up with these issues I would become short tempered, lower patience, broken-bodied, unable to maintain good equipment, have nothing to retire with and ultimately become "the last farrier we had out hit her with the rasp". That is a person I couldn't be proud of and cannot allow myself to become.

At clinics, rarely do I get to help people with advanced work (even if they think they are ready for it) because usually the basics are “ok”. When you try to build advanced movements out of “ok” basics you end up with trouble in that movement.

Basics are hard, mostly because they can seem ok, but it’s the details that matter.

I was recently chatting with a friend who is an Olympic showjumping coach. He has competed at 3 Olympic Games and has coached his National team at 3 others.

I said to him “ you do lots of clinics around the world, do you ever run into people that can jump say, a metre, but want to jump higher, but in order to jump higher you have to take them back to the start, back to ground rails ?”

“All the time”, he said. “I rarely encounter anyone who wants to jump higher and is ready for it.”

Once you get the basics really good, the “hard” things are actually easy. It sounds completely backwards to most people, but once you get your head around it, the game changes completely.