The Isle of Wight Farriery Competition

This past weekend I was about as far south in Great Britain as it is possible to go.  Thursday, Jonathan, Josh and I brought a trailer full of forges and anvils that belong to the Staffordshire Farriers down to the Isle of Wight for the September 1st competition. All of this equipment is used for Staffordshire's own contest, but it gets rented out to other competitions throughout the year as well.  Jonathan says that this had enabled a number of organizations to hold contests that wouldn't have been able to otherwise, not to mention that it helps pay for the equipment over the long term.

The western side of the Isle as seen from the Ferry out of Portsmouth.

For me the best part of the weekend was the clinic on Friday with Grant Moon.  Grant was there to judge the Open division (Nigel Fennell judged the apprentice shoe making classes), and both his shoeing and shoe making left us all with a lot to think about.

Making and fitting bar shoes.  Grant made two for the same foot, one egg bar (on top) and one inverted bar (nailed to the foot) so we could see how it took the same amount of steel to do both.  He also wanted to impress upon us that a working bar shoe should be a three heat shoe.  I think it took him not more than fifteen minutes to make both of those, and he wasn't going fast because he was talking us through the process.

The contest itself was only on the Saturday, but what an excellent day it was!  Simon Legge, who organized the thing, really did it well, right down to having a DJ who set up the music so that everyone knew how much time they had left in the class.  The venue, Brickfield's Horse Country, was great because it had everything we needed for a contest all in one place.  I think the party that night is going to become legendary.

Brickfield's Horse Country

The main gate.  Straight ahead is the stable yard, to the left is the foyer with tack shop, etc. and to the right is the big parking lot.

Big parking lots are a great place to have apprentice shoe making contests.  The apprentices had to supply their own gear.  I cannot believe the quality of the shoes that some of them made.

The indoor was a great place for the Open guys.  Very conveniently, the cobs only had to walk over from the stable yard.  I didn't get it in the picture, but the wall on the left had a huge projected time clock on it.  The Staffordshire trailer is parked at the far end of the ring, opposite that were two fires set up for the speed forging so that they guys could go and do that class any time.

Restaurant and bar on premisses.  They did a lot of business over the weekend.  It was pretty funny to watch ourselves walking round and round on Sunday morning, before everything got going, trying to figure out how to get in the one door that was unlocked.

Lodging space also provided.  My only complaint was that the showers didn't get warm.  Actually, camping at contests is very common over here.  This is only about a third of the tents set up.

My only complaint- this is the only part of the Isle of Wight, except the Ferry Port of course, that I have gotten to see!