Serving Horses, Serving Community

Photography credit: Pamela J. Peters

Leander Guy Thomas is reviving farrier services across the Navajo and Hopi Nations

For three years, Leander Guy Thomas has been driving dirt roads across the Navajo Nation and the Hopi reservation, seeing new sites, meeting new people and helping hundreds of horses. These are the perks of his farrier business.

Thomas started Guy’s Farrier Service in 2021 to meet the needs of the horse owner community who needed farrier services after many of the older farrier’s retired. The business specializes in trimming horse hooves as well as horseshoeing.

”I see a lot of horse owners who don’t have horse trailers so that’s why I have Guy’s Farrier Service, I take my service to them to do the proper footwork, the proper trims,” he said.

Thomas, Diné, is from Steamboat, Az, and grew up around horses. Not only did his family use them to help herd cattle but the responsibility of having horses taught Thomas the importance of hoof maintenance.

“Horses have to have their feet trimmed every six to eight weeks and getting them on a regular schedule is essential,” he said. “If you don’t get them trimmed within the right time, the horses’ hooves will get long and a lot of distortion will happen, which leads to a lot of discomfort in horses which can also lead to overgrowth of hooves.”

When there is overgrowth then there is a lot of tension build up which can impact a horses’ joints and ligaments.

“Later on it could lead to serious problems of lameness where the horse won’t be able to perform,” he said.

Thomas said the challenging part of the job is doing corrections on horses who have never had proper trims. He said it’s important for owners to at least pick up the horses’ feet and make that a regular practice so the horse isn’t scared to be worked on.

“I like to have the horse owners work with their horses and have them pick up their feet regularly. There’s some horses out there who have never had their feet picked up, they don’t have the proper manners, they don’t have the proper training,” he said.

Thomas said it’s good to start getting hooves cleaned when the horse is young.

“Go in there with a hoof pick and clean it out, get all the rocks and that debris out of there,” he said, comparing rocks in the hooves to a human with rocks in their shoe. It’s uncomfortable.

Before Thomas started his farrier business, he attended Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School in Ardmore, Oklahoma to hone his shoeing skills. Later his participation with Change Labs would help him build his business.

“When I joined Change Labs that really helped me accelerate my business to where I got my business registered and I even have an accountant, I have a bookkeeper, and I have my own business account,” he said. “It’s been a great opportunity.”

Thomas said he is booked out for two weeks at a time and has people calling him from all over the Navajo Nation, Hopi reservation and Northern Arizona.

“Being a farrier, it’s a demanding job, it’s a lot of hard work, it’s a dying skill that no one wants to do but if we get the right people in there with the right passion and who want to learn then it’s a great business,” he said.

Photography Credit: Pamela J. Peters