Me ’n’ Clint

By Rick Donahoe

Called “One of the best horse stories you’ll read in a long time,” Me ’n’ Clint is less a “how to” than about the trade one young fellow unexpectedly fell into, fell in love with and bounced around in over much of a lifetime. Written with an authentic voice and wonderful balance of humor and expertise, this unusual telling, straight from the horseshoer’s mouth, offers the reader a window into the everyday trials and tribulations of a farrier that you will find both interesting and hard to put down whether you’ve ever had a horse or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638295747

Rick Donahoe

The day after graduating from high school, Rick went west to fight forest fires, work on ranches, file on an Alaskan homestead, and earn a degree in resource conservation. Following several years in agriculture and wildlife management with the Peace Corps in East Africa, he wasn’t looking forward to an indoor job with the government when he saw a guy about his same age shoeing a horse. Horseshoeing school in Texas led to Rick spending much of his life as a farrier that included raising a family along with cattle and commercial peppermint on Central Oregon’s high desert.

Book preview

Me ’n’ Clint

Rick Donahoe

Austin Macauley Publishers

Me ’n’ Clint

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgment

About the Author

The day after graduating from high school, Rick went west to fight forest fires, work on ranches, file on an Alaskan homestead, and earn a degree in resource conservation. Following several years in agriculture and wildlife management with the Peace Corps in East Africa, he wasn’t looking forward to an indoor job with the government when he saw a guy about his same age shoeing a horse.

Horseshoeing school in Texas led to Rick spending much of his life as a farrier that included raising a family along with cattle and commercial peppermint on Central Oregon’s high desert.

Dedication

To Mary, my best friend and lovely wife for fifty years.

Copyright Information ©

Rick Donahoe 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Donahoe, Rick

Me ‘n’ Clint

ISBN 9781638295723 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781638295747 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781638295730 (Audiobook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021948677

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2021

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

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Acknowledgment

Many thanks to friends Amy Harper and Evelyn LaMers for reading and commenting on my manuscript, to my farrier pal, Ralph Jones, for his interest and always valuable feedback, and to Faye Choo for her technical support. Rebecca Didier’s professional evaluation and kind words gave this project a timely and much needed boost.

Clint’s owners, Paulette and Doug Rhinehart have been wonderful to share Clint with me all these years. Most of all, none of this would have been undertaken or followed through with if not for the steadfast enthusiasm and encouragement of my daughter and avid horsewoman, Sheri Anne Donahoe.

It’s a late fall morning and I’m in my pickup, headed down the road to see my old pal Clint. Clint’s a horse, an old horse, and I’m a horseshoer, an old farrier. Started in my twenties and by now well into my seventies, so I’ve been in and around it awhile. I don’t recall the first horse I ever worked on in Texas those many years ago but Clint here will be my last. When he’s gone I’m done; that is, unless I go first.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand all I know about horses and horseshoeing. A lot of shoers have been under more horses and know more about this business than I do. But with thousands of horses under my belt, probably tens of thousands—Thoroughbreds, Quarter horses, Arabs, racehorses, Walking horses, mules, drafts, donkeys, minnies and many in between—I’m thinking I might have a few thoughts and observations worth passing along. This one old blacksmith liked to say he never watched anyone shoe a horse that he didn’t learn something, whether they’d been shoeing fifty years or were fresh out of horseshoeing school; maybe some new tool they were using, the way they had their shoeing box or their rig set up. So, I’m hoping there might be something here for almost anyone, whether you’ve ever had a horse or not.

Not a formal ‘how-to’, there being better sources for that, this is more about the trade one young fellow fell in love with and bounced around in over the years. The same old fellow who just pulled in, is right now coming down the driveway and sees Clint still out in the pasture behind the barn. This would never do back when I was shoeing for a living, when I expected whatever I’d be working on to be caught up, tied up and ready to go. A horseshoer is only making money when he or she (from here on I’ll go with ‘he’ for convenience only) is bent over with their nose pointed at the ground, not behind the wheel, drinking coffee or chasing horses around. But this is Clint; after all these years we have our own special arrangement. He sees me and comes running, his head out his stall door when I get out of my truck.

No matter how many times I’ve been to a place, be it a high-end stable, cow barn or somebody’s back yard, the first thing I do is look for whatever might go wrong—a rake or pitchfork leaned against a wall, anything up on shelves or otherwise off the ground that could come down, a door or window a gust of wind might slam shut. By now, I’m convinced that Murphy of Murphy’s Law (Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, at the worst possible time) was a farrier. Last time out, I was leading Clint from his stall when he reached over and yanked at a bale of hay in a wheelbarrow that came tipping over with a crash, a