Jordan\u00a0Skeith probably \u2014 no, definitely \u2014 saved a few layers of skin on the bottom of my left foot after warning me of the horseshoe I was getting dangerously close to stepping on. The horseshoe had recently been taken out of a forge \u2014 a small furnace attached to the back door of the trailer out of which Jordan\u00a0operates\u00a0that \u201cgets hotter than the blazes of hell and damnation itself.\u201d So, the\u00a0shoe\u2019s\u00a0temperature was running at well over 700 degrees,\u00a0plenty hot\u00a0to quickly burn through the thin rubber soles of my Chuck Taylors.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jordan, a professional farrier who owns and\u00a0operates\u00a0Skeith Equine Services, was tending to one of his many clients in the area, which includes some of the top people in the cutting horse industry, when we happened upon his impressive horseshoeing operation.\u00a0He\u2019d\u00a0trimmed a hoof with what they call nippers, then shaped and smoothed it with what they call a rasp \u2014\u00a0essentially a\u00a0large, metal nail file \u2014 and cleaned the hoof with what they call a pick. In some ways,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the equivalent of giving the horse a pedicure, except this\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0done merely for aesthetic purposes. No, sir. This is about\u00a0comfort, balance, and overall health of the horse.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHorses don\u2019t all need the same thing,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cI mean, there are\u00a0basic fundamentals\u00a0that still apply to every horse, but every horse grows\u00a0different, moves\u00a0different, some have different training styles. I work for quite a few different trainers, so we\u00a0have to\u00a0make sure what\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0doing with their feet matches what a trainer is doing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When competing, a cutting horse without the\u00a0healthiest of\u00a0hooves and great fitting shoes is\u00a0immediately\u00a0at a disadvantage. Jordan is their personal Nike outfitter, giving his clients\u2019 horses an edge. Which does, after all, align with Jordan\u2019s namesake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have older brothers, and when I was born, Michael Jordan was the GOAT,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cThey wanted to name me Michael, but my mom\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0let \u2019em\u00a0name me Michael, so they named me Jordan. So,\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0why I tell guys, \u2018We got to get the Jordans on your horses.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing up in Seattle \u2014 not what one normally expects of a farrier\u2019s place of origin \u2014 Jordan\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0spend his formative years around equines but managed to catch the horse bug around the age of 10, when he first started riding. \u201cEveryone thought I\u2019d get over it,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I never did.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fresh out of high school, Jordan would go to horse college in Oregon \u2014 yes,\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0a real thing \u2014 where he would get introduced to the sport of cutting.\u00a0He\u2019d\u00a0then leave home to work for his first cutting horse trainer in California and \u201chadn\u2019t looked back since.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, of course, if\u00a0you\u2019re doing\u00a0cutting, it leads you [to the Fort Worth area],\u201d I say. \u201cOf course, of course,\u201d Jordan responds. \u201c[In this area] you can\u2019t throw a stick without hitting a horse.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jordan, who started Skeith Equine Services five years ago, has about 300 horses (all cutting) that he regularly shoes over the course of five to six weeks \u2014 this being the time when a horse is\u00a0likely due\u00a0for a new fitting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like a traveling doctor with a black bag, he arrives at horse ranches towing his trailer, which is stocked with all necessary tools and rows and rows \u2014 hundreds \u2014 of horseshoes, each different in shape and size according to a horse\u2019s needs and whether he\u2019s fitting a front or back hoof. These shoes will go into Jordan\u2019s forge before he expertly pounds the shoe\u2019s hot metal with a hammer on an anvil, getting the U-shaped shoe into the right shape.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before nailing the shoe into place, Jordan places the still-hot-as-the-bejesus shoe on the horse\u2019s hoof, imprinting its outline as a thick cloud of smoke engulfs the air. This,\u00a0I\u2019ll\u00a0note, does not hurt the horse, as it has no nerves on the bottoms of its hooves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The smell of the smoke is distinct and unlike anything\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0smelled before \u2014 sulfuric but also sweet. I comment on the smell to Jordan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSmells like money,\u201d he says. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan\u00a0Skeith probably \u2014 no, definitely \u2014 saved a few layers of skin on the bottom of my left…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":417459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,29751,139119,45216,7371,36789,7372,29625,57329,3546,27088,5921,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-417458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brian-kendall","10":"tag-cutting-horses","11":"tag-entrepreneur","12":"tag-fort-worth","13":"tag-fort-worthian","14":"tag-fortworth","15":"tag-horses","16":"tag-livestock","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-profession","19":"tag-style","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-top-story","22":"tag-tx","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}