Daniel Watson, CJF, ASF, TE

Daniel Watson is an almost contradictory mix of humility and ambition. His ambition is simple and powerful: “I want to be the best farrier in the room.” It is also deeply respectful:  “No matter how good you are, there’s always someone better. There’s always someone you can learn from.”

Choosing a different path.

When you meet Watson, you’re struck by his thirst for knowledge and his love of craft. So it’s not surprising that being a farrier is a path he very deliberately followed. His family were not farriers and, in fact, “They thought I was crazy. Then they saw the opportunities.”

 

Daniel Watson securing a Mustad LiBero shoe with Mustad Concave nails.

Watson has spent his career pursuing those opportunities. After being exposed to farriering when he was a ranch hand in high school, he attended the Heartland Horseshoeing School in Missouri. There, he worked with Chris Gregory and others. After setting up a successful practice in Nashville, he got a chance to attend the Virginia Maryland Veterinary School where he studied with Travis Burns, one of the most accredited farriers in the world. He supplemented his technical skills with an understanding of anatomy and physiology. “Before, I knew how to fix things, but now I know why it works.”

His experience with the veterinary students—"they taught me about veterinary medicine and I taught them about horseshoeing”—also allowed him to speak easily to veterinarians. It’s a skill he’s especially thankful for now that he has established a practice with sport horses in Northern Virginia. Because these horses are in competition, they have a team of skilled and often credentialed horse people—veterinarians, trainers, barn managers, farriers, riders, and owners—who need to communicate. The more he can speak their common language, the more effective he is as a team member.

Daniel relies on Mustad’s David York.

At work, Daniel uses a wide range of Mustad products. His favorites are the Mustad Equi-Librium and Delta Challenger TS8s because they “fit fantastically.” He often combines them with the LiBero hinds. For nails, his drawer is full of MX 55s, MX 60s, and 65s and well as Delta E5s, E4s, and Combos because “they fit the shoes better than any on the market.  While he was at first skeptical of the Heller eXceL Original rasp, he quickly appreciated “the ingenuity in making it 10% wider than the typical rasp. You don’t appreciate the difference it makes until you use one.” Because of the importance his customers put on aesthetics, he uses the blue tang because it allows him to create a neat, smooth finish.

He admires Mustad Rep David York because he “goes into the field and rides with different farriers. He wants to know what we want and need on a daily basis. He watches how we work, talks to our customers, and looks at our horses. He’s not just peddling a product.”

Mustad Equi-Librium shoes with side and toe clips.
 

Always challenging himself.

At the age of 28, he has established two practices, hired assistants, developed skills that range from blacksmithing to therapeutics, and earned several important certifications. When asked what he wants to do next, the ambition and humility he exhibited from the start resurfaces: he envisions building a multi-farrier practice. The biggest benefit he sees is the ability to collaborate. “It’s more fun. You get a second set of eyes. You can check each other’s work.’’

True to his thirst for knowledge, he wants to achieve the Associate of the Worshipful Society and, ultimately, the Fellowship of the Worshipful Society which fewer than ten American farriers currently hold.