Genuine Blacksmith

About the Book

                  What I accomplished in my life was almost impossible, but the fact that I loved horses so much, sure helped. I loved the way they looked. I loved the way they smelled. I even loved the way their feet smelled.

                All odds were against me, and my father told me that fooling with horses was a waste of time. He said that I would never be worth a hill of beans.

                When I started riding horses I learned very well, and I had a lot of talent. When I got my first job in Lexington, Kentucky, my boss couldn’t believe that I could ride so good, since I had only been riding races at the county fairs. I guess that is where the talent come in.

                As I went on working, I would talk to people about wanting to be a blacksmith. Everyone I talked to told me the same thing. “You don’t want to be a blacksmith.”

                I spent ten years learning how to shoe a horse before I went to the race track, and the extra time sure did pay off. When I first started shoeing horses at Churchill Downs, I run into a lot of horses with foot problems.

                Some of the trainers doubted that I could fix their horses’ feet, so I would bet them, double or nothing, that I could. After I took several of the trainers’ money, they quit betting with me.

                That was the way that I got a lot of my business. It was never easy, but there is one thing that I know for sure. I had five apprentices that I helped get started, and they all turned out to be super blacksmiths.
                                                                                                                                 David Wilson

About the Author

David was born in the little town of Bradfordsville, Kentucky. When he was young, he used to watch his grandfather shoe the horses on the farm. At a young age, he had already decided what he wanted to do in his life, but it seemed like it might take a million years to accomplish a trade like being a blacksmith. He had to get through school, and the thing that helped him the most back then was having access to horses, and learning how to ride. When David got old enough to quit school, he went to Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, Kentucky, and went to work exercising horses. He worked there until he turned eighteen years old, and Norma was seventeen. They got married, and stared their journey in life. While he galloped horses to make a living, he learned everything that he could about shoeing horses. There were things that he knew, though, about being a blacksmith, before he ever did them. Once he conquered the blacksmith trade, he worked at it for the better part of fifty years. At the end of his career, he had to quit work because of his health. He was in bad shape for a while. One of his daughters gave him a paint set, and it was a life saver. That and the YMCA.