Talmadge Green IV

Instead of following in his father’s footsteps, Talmadge Green IV found his own shoes to fill.
 

If not for a family tragedy 11 years back, Talmadge Green IV (“T” to his friends), might never have become a farrier. Now he’s making a name as a Western performance horseshoer, helping his clients win award after award in the last year. 

And he’s just getting started.

Growing up in the shadow of a champion

When T was just two weeks old, his parents took him to the Barrel Futurities of America (BFA) World Championships in Oklahoma City, where his dad competed as a barrel racer—and won. 

“My dad tells me, ‘Everybody thought you were a good luck charm and wanted to rub your head,’” says T.

That win was more than just good luck though. T’s father is the legendary barrel horse racer Talmadge Green III, one of the most successful racers and trainers of his kind. Needless to say, T was raised on horses—but, by age nine, he’d shifted his focus to baseball and basketball instead, eventually heading out to play college ball. 

"I wanted to make a name for myself differently than what my dad had done,” says T. “He had done it with barrel horse racing, and I want to do something different."

A sudden return to horsemanship. 

T’s plans changed suddenly during his senior year of college when, three weeks after his father’s fiance, Megan Stockstill, gave birth to T’s new baby brother, she died tragically. 

It was an unspeakable loss that rippled throughout the barrel horse racing community. 

Talmadge and Megan, both accomplished barrel racers, had been running a renowned training facility together, Team Talmadge. They’d helped countless young riders build their skills and win awards.

Overwhelmed by the loss and the responsibilities, T’s father called him at school: Would T come help run Team Talmadge?

“I told my dad to give me a few months to get everything situated, and I’ll be down there,” says T, who was 15 credits shy of a marketing/business degree at the time.  Little did he know this would change the trajectory of his life—and his career.

Getting back in the saddle. 

Just weeks after Megan’s death, T watched his grief-stricken father compete at the National Barrel Horse Association (NBHA) World Championships and, in one of the most emotional showings of his career, win. 

It affected T deeply. “I thought, “Maybe this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” he says. “Maybe I'm supposed to be here helping him.’”

For the next few years, T worked long hours with his father. He worked nights and days and weekends. He returned to competitions. And he fell in love with horses again.

T knew he’d been given a special opportunity, to get to train and ride with his father. “It would be like getting to play with Tiger Woods,” he said.

His path to becoming a farrier was long and winding.

During those years at Team Talmadge, T would get up early to watch his dad’s farrier, David Bush, shoe the horses. “I just liked trying to learn new things,” says T. 

He found himself drawn to the craft. At shows, he’d watch other farriers do their work, skilled horseshoers like J.O. Duke, Bob Loosenort, Lee Olsen, and Blane Chapman. “I’d think, man, that kinda looks like something I want to do,” says T. 

Eventually, David suggested farrier school. “He’d say, ‘You seem like you like this enough—why don't you give it a try?”

It took a few more years for the idea to germinate. 

Finally, after T started dating Grace Ann, a rodeo standout who’s now his wife, T was convinced. “She’d tell me, ‘You keep talking about it. You need to go try it.’”

It was never T’s dream to become a world-champion barrel rider like his dad. “I wanted to have my own thing.”

He took the leap. 

On August 1, 2019, T spent the day running barrel races in Amite, Louisiana, took sixth place, and hopped into his pickup to drive to Oklahoma Horseshoe School. 

He arrived in Purcell, Oklahoma, at 4 a.m., and started school the next day. 

The learning was intense but, T says, “It seemed kinda natural.” His years of training, riding, and competing had prepared him.
 

“I would do anything to learn more.”

Once he was back from farrier school, T dove in head first, working side by side with David on the horses at Team Talmadge. 

“I would finish or I would just watch, hold horses, pull shoes—just anything to try to learn,” says T. 

Within a year, David said it was time to start shoeing the horses in his father’s barn, on his own. T protested. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“You’re ready,” David told him. “Your dad trusts you, and I trust you. You can do this.”

"I'm not just a horseshoer, I'm a horseman. I love the animals. I love horses. I love learning all I can, in every discipline."

An unbelievable year

Looking back, T sees how much he still had to learn when he started. “I definitely was nowhere near the horseshoer I am now,” he says, “and I'm still nowhere near where I want to be.” 

Yet, even as a novice, T and his clients were achieving record-breaking success. 

T was shoeing for Riley Webb, who proceeded to land a string of wins that culminated in being named World Champion Calf Roper at the 2023 National Finals Rodeo (NFR). By the end of 2023, Webb had won the most amount of money ever in a single year of calf roping and Pro Rodeo. (“I think he ended up winning $448,000,” says T.)

“This past year was a dream year for somebody that shoes horses like I do in the Western world.”

Meanwhile, T was also shoeing for Reilly’s girlfriend, Josie Conner, one of the best breakaway ropers in the world, as she racked up win after win as well. He was shoeing for his father, who had a strong year in barrel racing. He was working with Grace Ann’s little sister, Camille Hanley,  who, as a freshman, qualified for the High School National Finals. He was helping over 25 horse-and-rider teams qualify for the American Million Dollar Rodeo—in everything from barrel racing to breakaway and calf roping. And he was shoeing the horses of Team Talmadge kids who were qualifying for the Junior NFR in roping and barrel races. 

To top off that amazing year, he and Grace Ann welcomed their first little boy, who was born in June. 

“I don't know if I'll ever have another year like that,” says T. “Hopefully it happens again, but if it doesn't, I'm fortunate it happened once.”

“I couldn’t repay a horse enough. God truly blessed us in so many ways from this animal. That’s why I love what I do so much. It's been so rewarding.”

“A blessing out of a tragedy”

T credits horses for all the best things in his life—his work, his wife, his business, even his relationship with his father. And he understands that the immense loss of his stepmother eleven years ago is what led him back to horses.  

To honor Megan Stockstill, T and Grace Ann named their son Stockton.

“That tragedy brought me to my wife, who I could never imagine living without, my little boy, this business,” says T. “Nobody would have known it at the time, but God brought a lot of beauty out of tragedy.”

Q&A with T Green

You’ve had an amazing year. How is that feeling?

You look back and think, “I can’t believe that actually happened.” It’s a team thing, though. It really is. It takes a whole group of people—vet, rider, groomer—it takes everybody to get to do what we did last year. 
 

You and your wife, Grace Ann Green, run a business. Tell us about that. 

From the moment we got married in 2020, we said, “Hey, we're a team in this. We're gonna do this together.” We created my brand, which is GoingGreen. Both of us rode and competed, so now, on top of shoeing horses, we train barrel horses and compete in that world.

On our property, people haul in for shoeing and we’re taking horses to ride and we’re training horses. We have a fully covered freestyle exerciser, where we can saddle horses, bit horses up, and work horses on it to keep them in shape. Grace Ann also does cold laser therapy when we have horses come in with injuries.

Right now I’m building a shop so I can have more people haul in to shoe. I've been doing that once a week, where people haul in from Texas and I get to shoe at my barn and be at home more. 
 

Does that have anything to with your new baby, Stockton?

It does. When Little Man was born, I said, “Okay, I'm not gonna work past four o'clock. I'm gonna be home.” I always start at probably 5:30 In the morning, but I'm not gonna be going till eight, nine o'clock at night. There's some days where, yeah, I'm gonna have to do that, but I'm not going to do it every day like I did for four years.
 

You’ve had a lot of wins. Have you had any hard things in the last year?

We lost our horse, Judy Twistin Bug, last September. I was heartbroken. I mean, it crushed me and Grace Ann. Looking back, I'm like, man, that horse did more for us than she even knew. She was super special. 

Tell us about Judy. What made her so special to you?

We actually bought Judy in August 2017, when Grace Ann and I had only been together for two months. So that mare had been with us from the start of our relationship. 

She opened so many doors for us. Grace Ann qualified for the American four times with that mare—and that's the biggest stage you can get in open barrel racing. There's only 200 head of horses that qualify for it every year, and thousands and thousands try—and she had qualified for it four times. She’d also won a lot of college rodeo, and she had arena records around here.

She’s why we have Proverbs 20:31 on our hats and shirts. It's a prayer we always prayed before we ran with her: "This horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory is the Lord's."

She also taught me so much about farriery, because—go figure—a great horse like that has got some of the worst feet in the world. 

What are some of the doors she opened for you?

She’s the reason I met some farriers I looked up to— like Clint Loomis, who’s an amazing therapeutic horseshoer, and Gary Gullo Jr., who everybody in the race world knows. 

Judy ended up getting white line, and I knew I had to resect some wall and Dremel it out, and I was thinking, “I'm not confident enough to make the call myself.” I’d always wanted to talk to those guys, so I reached out on Facebook, and they were super helpful. I told them what I was thinking and they told me exactly how to do it. I ended up resecting the mare’s hoof wall, packing it with copper sulfate and hoof wax, casting the foot, making a bar shoe, putting the shoe on, and then a week later we ran a barrel race, and the mare won. 

I told both of them, “I could never thank y'all enough.”

I'll tell you, in the horseshoeing world, if you're willing to reach out and ask, everybody will help you.
 

What are some of the best things you learned from your mentors?

David Bush taught me that simple is better. Don’t try to overcomplicate things in shoeing horses. Do the basics, and then if you have to get creative, you can.
 

How about your father. What did you learn from him?

I’ve told him, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. It’s kind of like a kid getting to go work out with Tiger Woods if they played golf, or LeBron James if they play basketball, or Barry Bonds in baseball.

He opened so many doors for me. I got to be around trainers that I consider some of the best horsemen in the country and just learn and kind of take it in. I also got to be around guys who are really good horseshoers.
 

How did you feel when you started shoeing for your dad?

I was nervous. I mean, I was under $200,000 barrel horses. Two or three have won world titles, two or three have won close to $400,000. I'm thinking, “Man, I don't really want to be up under these things right now. I don't think I'm ready.” 

But Dad believed in me and Bush said, “Hey, go at it.” 

I've been shoeing for Dad ever since. And we've won two world titles since then, he’s won the Senior World Championship at NBHA Worlds, he's qualified for the American Million Dollar Barrel Race four times. 

That’s probably the coolest thing. I like just trying to be as good as you possibly can be. And this was my way of doing that.
 

Are there any farriers you learned the most from?

When I was first starting, I worked with Casey Plauche. We’d shoe 20-24 horses a day, and I’d go shoe my own horses after that. 

Working with him got my body adapted to getting in uncomfortable situations in order to make a horse comfortable. Sometimes yearlings don't like you to be under them in the front end, and he taught me all kinds of tricks to be able to trim and use my nippers with one hand, while my other hand is holding the foot. It keeps the horse comfortable, you're not in a fight, you're not getting hurt, and you're also not causing an issue with the horse. I still use those tricks all the time.
 

What tips do you have for new farriers starting out?

Early on, I just showed up and I was dependable. I might not have been that good, but I was trying. And I think that's what made the difference at first. Also, I still learn something every day crawling up under a horse. If you don't, you probably aren't doing it right. Or you're not gonna get better.
 

What Mustad products do you use?

I'll switch things up. I’m not stuck on one shoe because it’s not gonna work on every horse. Every horse is different, just like a person is.

I think the Delta Challenger TS8s work better on a rope horse that doesn’t need sliders. One horse might be small-footed, so it might ride better in the simple St. Croix Forge Surefit rim shoes, nothing fancy. But hey, this horse might be a little lower footed and the heels might need a little more support, so I'm gonna go with an Advantage. 

Or if you've got a ranch horse out there, I'm gonna go with a TS8—they don't need a rim shoe, you got a lot more steel, you can do what you want to with it, you’ve got reset value. I just try to be open-minded. 

What products did you use on Riley’s horse? 

I had really wanted to try the St. Croix Forge EZ Plus shoes, so when I got a pair from my Mustad rep, David York,  I decided to put them on Rudy, the horse Riley rode in the last seven rounds of the NFR. I guess it was a gutsy move, but I thought, “I think it'll work. I'm gonna drive Mustad Race Nails in his foot (just the Mustad race four-and-a-half nail), so it’ll be like a rodeo hind where there's no nailhead. There's not a cleat for the shoe, it sits flush, he can slide and do what he needs to but still have enough traction to not get too far up under himself with calf force.”

I love the Mustad Slider Nail—it’s the best thing in the world—but I started using the MX50s on calf horses.

And that's what I used on Rudy when he went to the finals—Advantages on the front and EZs on the back.
 

And he did pretty well?

Yeah. I'd have to say he had a pretty good finals. He ended up winning $180,000, and that was where he clinched the World Championship and was second in average.

If you’d like to learn more about Talmadge Green IV, you can find him on Facebook or Instagram.