When they started letting Arabs run at Sam Houston, an Arab trainer who was not a regular
client called and asked me to come plate some of his raghead runners.  I was pretty surprised,
but I knew his regular farrier couldn't spell race plate, so I inflated my prices, told him I didn't
plate runners without a holder, and said I'd be at his barn about daylight.  He allowed he had
some stuff to do, but that he'd leave a list of horses that needed plating, and have somebody
there to hold horses.  I lasted exactly one day.  When he got to the barn, I'd already plated six or
seven on the list.

The trainer took one look at their feet and threw a wall-eyed shitfit right there on the shed row.
"What'n hell have you done to their feet?", he screamed.

"The same thing I do when I plate any race horse:  trimmed the feet as short as practicable,
balanced and aligned the levers, ground the grabs off the front shoes - usual stuff, nothing
remarkable," I said, semi-preplexed.

"You stupid, no-shoeing, sonofabitch, you've ruined their feet!", says the trainer.  About then,
reality set in, and he got to thinking that maybe it wasn't in his best interests using the term,
"no-shoeing" to describe somebody who takes an inordinate amount of pride in their work,
so he explained through clinched teeth that if they didn't show much run, he planned to put
'em right back into the show ring - but thanks to my stupidly cutting their feet down so short,
his plans were ruined.  I tried to tell him that a 4 1/2" foot was not the most efficient setup for
any runner, but he knew a helluva lot more'n me about biomechanical efficiency and told me,
at the top of his voice, to leave my fucking bill and get the hell off his place.

Always the gentleman, I told him I was going to save him the cost of a stamp by letting him
pay his bill before I left his shed row.  I also quietly explained that it was, without question,
in his best interest to pay the bill without further comment on either my antecedents or
abilities.  He didn't like it, but he paid up.  I wonder if he ever figured out why a couple of
the horses I didn't get to "ruin" managed to bow the first time the boy asked them to run?

Probably not.