UK Farriery - the Best in the World
Over the 7th – 11th July the two most prestigious farriery competitions, and most sought after titles, took place on either side of the Atlantic.
In the UK, the British Farriers and Blacksmiths Association hosted the PROFEET Royal Show and National Show Championships at the Royal Festival of the Horse. Farriers and farriery apprentices from across the UK took part in a gruelling four days of competition, in extremely warm conditions, to compete in a series of forging and shoeing tests for the title of Royal Show Champion and National Champion.
Gary Darlow (left), from Over Peover in Cheshire, accumulated the most points over the first three days of competition to be crowned Royal Show Champion. Reserve Royal Show Champion was David Smith from Over Norton in Oxfordshire. The PROFEET National Championships held on the Sunday is a single class consisting of competitors making and fitting a concave ‘hunter style’ shoe to a foot and making two specimen shoes to the judge’s specifications – a fully fullered deep seated bar shoe and a double calkin all in just 75 minutes. The standard was exceptionally high across the class with 3rd, 4th and 5th place being decided on a tie-break and just 1.8 marks separating 1st
and 8th place! Victorious, and going one better than the day before, David Smith (right) came out on top to be crowned 2010 National Champion, receiving the Mustad New Century Cup, a Gold Medal and a cheque for £1,000 from sponsors PROFEET. David’s striker, Andy Martin, from Chipping Norton, was Reserve Champion.On Sunday, across the Atlantic in Calgary, the inaugural World Championship Blacksmiths Competition at the Calgary Stampede had reached it’s final day of competition with just ten out of 56 competitors from 12 countries qualifying for the final shoeing rounds. UK representatives gained four of those places – Steven Beane (Northallerton, Yorkshire), Ian Gajczak (East Lothian), David Varini (By Dalry, Ayrshire) and Derek Gardner (Penrith, Cumbria).
Yorkshire’s Steven Beane, in second place going into the final ten, executed a fine display of forging and shoeing to secure the title of World Champion Blacksmith for the second year running, beating America’s Jake Engler by 32 points in the final competition rounds. The first back to back winner since the mid-nineties, Steven was delighted with his results, “It’s unbelievably hard to do that. Really, really hard,” said Beane, 31. “You’ve got so many good guys competing here . . . you’ve got to be on the top of your game, and I’m lucky I was on top of my game today.” Derek Gardner finished third and David Varini (current European Champion) fourth overall.
A tremendously exciting few days of competition which represent the pinnacle of the farriery competition calendar and unquestionably demonstrate that UK farriers truly are the best in the world!
