David Farmilo – Master Farrier

Up till 2007 we’d heard many positive comments regarding David Farmilo, Accredited Master Farrier, who for the last 6 years has travelled to Outback cattle stations conducting 2 day farrier schools. We sometimes arrived at a station to the news that David Farmilo had just left. So, when we pulled up at Moolooloo in May 2007, we heard the welcome news, “David Farmilo is here”.

Lyle was particularly keen to meet David, and was able to witness the skill and enthusiasm of the farrier in caring for horses’s feet, and sharing his knowledge with others.

With a gift for storytelling and communication, his teaching sessions are entertaining and informative, with opportunity for the students to put into practice what they’ve learned.

David shod his first horse in 1954 as a skinny 15 year old jackeroo on an Outback cattle station in South Australia. With 50 plus years of horseshoeing experience and over 100 000 horses shod, David’s vast understanding of the horses’s hoof has accumulated through station work, general farrier practice, and successful competition in all forms of equitation.

His sole concern is for the horse, and he maintains that 90% of lameness in horses is hoof related, and totally unnecessary. Correct trimming, shoeing and balancing the hoof is the key to horse comfort through the alleviation of gall and back strain problems, and is the duty of care of horse owners. It is David’s mission to encourage horse owners to take more of an interest in understanding the horse’s hoof as an essential part of it’s well being.

To assist students in transposing complicated theoretical and anatomical knowledge into working knowledge, he has invented “David Familo’s HOOF-LINE” which is a simple calibrated ruler which checks the balance of the hoof and takes the guess work out of trimming or shoeing.

David Familo is one of the 40 speakers at the 2008 International Hoof Care Summit in Cincinnati USA. He writes regular articles in Australian equine magazines, and is the author of a book titled, “Horses, Shoes and Tales”.

We are impressed with his passion to share his knowledge with others, so that basic shoeing skills can be passed on to future generations of horse owners and handlers.
David Farmilo conducting a farrier school at Moolooloo Station, NT

You can visit David’s website http://www.horsefarrier.com.au or contact him by email [email protected].

Image captions:

1) David Farmilo

2) David Farmilo conducting a farrier school at Moolooloo Station, NT