School Spotlight: Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School

If you ever need some hoofs trimmed on an elephant or a giraffe, Bob Smith might be the one to call. He’s been maintaining hooves at the San Francisco Zoo for over 20 years, trimming feet and repairing injuries on everything from rhinos to zebras. 

But Bob’s true passion is shoeing horses. 

When he founded Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School in 1991, he intended to hire an instructor to run the school, so he could keep focusing on the horseshoeing business he loved—but he soon realized he loved teaching just as much.

“I never get tired of watching somebody that doesn't even know how to hold a pair of tongs at the beginning of the program be able to forge a welded bar shoe to a foot, and a square toe and trailer with quarter clips to a foot—in just eight weeks,” he says. “It’s pretty amazing. I just love it.”

These days, Bob brings his students along to help trim hooves at the zoo—which is just one thing that makes Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School unique. We sat down with Bob to learn more about what PCHS has to offer. Here’s what he had to say. 

What would you say is unique about Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School, compared to other farrier schools?

I think the fact that we teach people how to be a professional farrier, not just nail shoes on, has set us apart—and that's why we get students from all over the world. I've got a class starting on Monday with students coming from Israel, New Zealand, Eastern Canada. We get students who are in their late 20s, early 30s and they’re looking to support their families—and the focus of our program is exactly that. 

All of our instructors are professional farriers and have been for a long time. We don't hire anyone who's never supported themselves shoeing horses. That ties into what we're trying to accomplish here, which is to help each student be a functional farrier when they leave. 

We’re very, very heavy on running a business, how to market yourself, and how to maintain client relationships, veterinary relationships, and trainer relationships. 

How does that look day-to-day at PCHS?

From the very beginning, every shoe that we make, we talk about how to justify the costs and when we would use that shoe. We discuss constantly what we would charge and how we would approach the clients, how we would explain to the clients about what we want to do with the horse, and why it may be an increase in costs. The entire program includes the business aspect. We require our students to perform in business. 

We also train them on how to maintain their books. Not only is that required by law, but it’s going to tell you how much it costs you to shoe a horse. If you don't know how much it costs, you don't know what your profit is—and those are the guys that don't last.
 

How did you decide to make your program eight weeks long?

Well, we started out with a 12-week program and the biggest complaint from people coming in was there's no way they can be away from home and family with no income for three months. So we went to ten weeks, and that was the same thing. It ended up just evolving into an eight-week program. 

What do your students learn in those eight weeks?

Our program has to be aggressive enough that when our students get out of school, they’re able to go back to their own homes and begin a farrier practice, within the limitations of just an eight-week program. So we really, really stress the basics. 

When they leave, they’ve got to be able to do basic trims and basic shoeings. That's a prerequisite for graduation. And then we automatically sign up every student for a two-year membership with the International Association of Professional Farriers (IAPF) so they can receive continuing education. 

I tell our students that we just take them to the edge of the cliff and push them into the lake, and the only thing they’ve learned is to doggy paddle. They've gotta become active in associations and participate in clinics and continued education in order to be successful.

Farriery can be a difficult profession. What attracts people to pursue it as a career?

Well, it's not as difficult if you take control of your practice and take control of your business. That's one of the things we work at constantly: You can't have the business run you. You have to take control: What is it that you want horseshoeing to do for you? What kind of life do you want to have? You need to have a vision of what you want your life to be, and then have horseshoeing provide that for you. 

As for what draws people to horseshoeing, I think it's the freedom. It’s outdoors. It’s the idea that you are actually in control of your own life. Some of our students have been successful at other careers, but they just hated their lifestyle, and so they're changing. I mean, shoeing horses is one of the last vestiges of free enterprise left in America. 
 

You have students from all over the world. How do they find your school?

This is our 34th year, and we don't do a lot of advertising. Most of our students find us through word of mouth. It’s just like shoeing horses—you can advertise till the cows come home, but the word-of-mouth referral is what's going to make your practice thrive. 
 

Your program isn’t long enough to include a mentorship. What do you tell your students about finding a mentor or an apprenticeship after they graduate? 

Finding an apprenticeship is the ideal next step but, unfortunately, we don't have any formal apprenticeship programs in this country—that’s why we tell our students to hit the continuing education and increase their knowledge and skills.

As for a mentor, the first thing I tell students is to find somebody who is still enthusiastic and happy about shoeing. You can't get into a truck with somebody who's constantly having arguments with veterinarians and other farriers and trainers. Find the people that are still enthusiastic about shoeing and that are successful in their business.

According to your website, you offer a 100% refund to any student who withdraws from the program for any reason before the end of the first week of training. Tell us about that. 

Well, shoeing horses is something that you can't really know if you’re going to like until you do it. If you like it, it's the greatest job in the world. I love it. I've raised my five kids doing it. I've been doing it over 50 years. But if you don't like shoeing, it's a miserable way to make a living. 

So the first week at our school is kind of like a hell week. We push our students under horses, in the classroom, in the forge, and at the end of the day Friday, if they think this isn’t for them—or if we think we’re incapable of training them in eight weeks to get them where they need to be—then we give a full refund. 
 

Has that policy paid off?

It has. I find that people who are unhappy being here are kind of like a cancer in the program. They just kind of eat away at everybody else. So we want to get rid of any negativity, or anyone who’s maybe just here because grandma sent them and they don’t really want to be here. 

We push our students really aggressively in the first week so they understand that this is hard, physical work, and if this is not what you're committed to, then you need to take your money and try something else.

What’s one of the areas where you get to really see students grow in their eight weeks with you?
Horsemanship is one. If you can't control a horse, you can't make a living shoeing horses—and we get a lot of people that, unfortunately, don't have a lot of horsemanship skills. 

One of our instructors, Amanda Smith (CF, IAPF-1, CEBMS), has a degree in equine behavior, and she is amazing at being able to teach our students how horses react, why they react, how they think. Some of our students start out with virtually every horse they touch being a problem, pulling the foot away and not standing still, and by the end of the program, they're sliding through these horses—maybe the same horse they saw in the beginning of the program—and now that horse is no problem.
 

What are you most proud of at the school? 

I get a big rush out of these letters that we get back from students talking about what shoeing has made possible for them. I’ve got one here from a student who was 36 years old and had spent all his adult life in jail. He’s now been shoeing for 15 years. He's got two kids and a beautiful wife. He owns a home. Those types of things, when students come back and tell you that shoeing horses and coming through my school completely changed their lives, it’s really gratifying.