Virgil Conde

“I’m working for the horses”

Out of all Virgil Conde’s memories with his farrier father, Paul Conde, one stands out. While helping his dad at a public stable near their home in South Texas, he noticed a horse with severely overgrown feet.

“Jump the fence and trim that horse, Virgil,” his dad said.

A young teen at the time, Virgil replied, “Sure, Dad—but who's gonna pay me for it?”

“Nobody,” his dad replied. “You're going to do it for free.” When Virgil questioned this, his dad’s answer was simple: “If that horse had a wallet, he’d pay you to trim his feet.”

“That always kind of stuck,” Virgil says. “I'm working for the horses—people are the middlemen.”

Virgil has traveled to veterinary colleges across the country and into Canada as one of the presenting farriers for the American Association of Equine Practitioners Veterinarian/Farrier Short Courses. He believes that helping veterinary students learn some of the fundamentals of shoeing will help veterinarians and farriers work together in the future, both always having a horse’s soundness in mind.

“A good farrier can't do his work without a good vet,” says Virgil, “and if you're a vet, you're going to need a farrier at some point. So it's been really good to be able to pass on some of this knowledge, and also bridge the gap—because we need each other.”

Born to shoe

As a second-generation farrier, Virgil has been handling rasps since he was a toddler. By the time his dad taught him to trim the family’s Shetland pony, at 12 years old, Virgil was hooked.

“I bet I trimmed that horse once a week, because I was just so infatuated with it,” says Virgil. “That poor horse. My dad would catch me out there rasping away at his feet.” 

That fascination never left. “There are times I have a hard time going to sleep at night because I'm so wound up just wanting to go shoe horses the next day. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living.”

This kind of focus gets Virgil up early and keeps him running hard, but it’s also where he finds his peace.
“My tranquility is being around the horse. Showing up to a barn at 5:30 in the morning, all you hear is the horses eating their breakfast. I'm like, man, I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this.”

Building a booming business

Virgil honed his craft under his father’s watchful eye. He credits Paul’s exacting standards for shaping his own work ethic, as well as his precise craftsmanship.

“My dad wasn’t handing out a participation award for just showing up,” says Virgil. “He wanted it to be just right. He didn't want me to do mediocre stuff.”

Q&A with Virgil Conde

Today, Virgil employs two skilled farriers and runs two fully equipped trailers. Together they shoe over 450 horses on a strict schedule. We sat down to ask him more about his business. Here’s what he had to say:
 

It’s clear you haven’t had trouble getting business over the years. What do you think draws clients to you?I think one of the things I bring to the table is my customer service. If you’ve got a horse that's lame, we’ll be there that day. And I keep a tight schedule. I think this area was craving that kind of consistency when I started. My business has been about showing up when you say you're going to show up, and getting the horses done. I do good, solid horseshoeing, I bring everything down to basics, nothing radical, and I’m consistent with it. I think that's what's built my reputation and my business.

What advice would you give a farrier who’s struggling to grow their business?
Show up…show up to your client's barn when you say you’re going to. Show up to your association farrier meets. Show up in other farrier’s trucks and ride along with them. Show up! Shoe the lesson ponies as if they were Grand Prix horses and soon you’ll shoe Grand Prix horses. 

What’s drives you to care for horses?
I love what I do, and I’m really passionate about it. I think farrier Blane Chapman said it best with, “My life I owe to God, family, and the horse. They give me all; they owe me nothing.”

What Mustad products do you use?
Endura-Coated Mustad Combo 5 Slim Nails are my go-to nails and the endura-coating makes them the smoothest drivers in my nail drawer.

I really love the Heller eXceL Original Rasp. I’d been a Save Edge guy for a long time, but I started using the eXceL and they're a little bit wider, and they just stay sharp longer. I'm able to use them all week for my trimming, and then they'll get handed down as a finish rasp afterwards—and even then they're super sharp. You just don't have to work as hard to push them around. Where I'm at in South Texas, it rains like three times a year and the feet are just really hard. So, it really makes a difference.

We use dental impression material (DIM) a lot with our therapeutic work, and Mustad's Comfort Mix Hoof Cushion Supersoft A15 has the best DIM out there. We were using some other kind of product that hardened a little bit more than it should have, and it was causing more pressure. I've had more consistency out of the Mustad orange DIM—with how soft it is. It's able to fill the voids and maintain pressure. It stays consistently soft throughout the shoeing cycle. I don't come back to it hardening up and maybe putting more pressure on the horse than it shouldn't.

We’re big fans of Mustad Equi-Librium Shoes. The leading edge is so far back that it gives the horse a choice on where he wants to stand. These horses stand around for 23 hours a day, and then they work for an hour. So I like that a horse is actually able to stand more comfortably. This shoe also has a lot of mechanics built into it that I don't have to worry about—I don't have to worry about sole pressure. I don't have to worry about nail pitch. I don't have to worry about boxing or safing* those shoes. It’s already built into it. The time savings I get out of that is priceless.

On a Saturday morning, where will we find you?

My girlfriend and I get up early and sit on the couch, sipping coffee and talking about our work week. It’s our time to kick back and relax.

*  “Safing is when you rasp or grind the inside branch of the ground side of the shoe to take any sharp edges off that may scrape the horse's leg or catch the hoof side of the other shoe. Boxing is when you do the same but on the hoof side of the shoe.” - Virgil Conde
 

Want to see more of Virgil and his business? Follow him on Facebook and TikTok (@virgilconde).