Explore the intricate world of farriery with Seth Noble and Sarah Caples Noble, focusing on their innovative approaches to horse movement and hoof care. Discover how they are transforming the equine industry by fostering better relationships between vets, farriers, and horse owners.
Key Takeaways:
- Holistic Hoof Care: Learn about the Nobles’ method of ensuring all a horse’s feet are in balance for optimal movement and comfort.
- Educational Initiatives: Discover the two curricula being developed for horse owners and professionals to bridge the gap in equine care.
- Industry Challenges: Understand the ethical dilemmas and cultural shifts needed to prioritize the well-being of horses and improve standards in the industry.
Guests:
Seth Noble: Farrier and expert in assessing horse movement. Sarah Caples Noble: Co-founder of Noble Farriery and advocate for improved horse care standards.
Resources Mentioned:
- Organization: Noble Farriery
- Noble Farriery: Blog, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram
- Blog: Noble Farriery
- LinkedIn: Seth Noble and Sarah Caples Noble
Quotes:
-“The reason that work’s good and…we should be reverent and want to work, is that it’s our chance to…learn ourselves and have conflict and learn how we are in conflict; and become better at it and become better people by having to interact with other people in a situation…” – Seth Noble
-“The interconnectedness of work, family, and social life is essential. Redeeming work lies in balancing all aspects of life.” – Sarah Caples Noble
Listener Challenge:
This week, try to observe and understand the movement and behavior of horses around you. Share your insights and experiences with us on social media using #BEATSWORKINGShow.
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Transcript
The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.
[00:00:00] Mark Wright: Seth Noble and Sarah Caples Noble. Welcome to the BEATS WORKING podcast. Great to have you here.
[00:00:04] Sarah & Seth: Thanks for having us. Thank you.
[00:00:06] Mark Wright: Well, I checked our records and it’s safe to say we have not had farriers.
[00:00:12] Mark Wright: On the podcast so far for, people listening, I probably gave it away in the introduction, but if someone has never heard of a farrier before, Seth, describe what you do for a living
[00:00:22] Sarah & Seth: a farrier takes care of horses feet, basically. We put shoes on horses feet.
[00:00:28] Mark Wright: That’s awesome. So we’re going to cover a lot of ground over the next 45 minutes or so. I’d love to start though, with your love of horses. You both Obviously love horses, but Seth, when you were a kid, you kind of fell in love with horses, at a camp., take me back to that time. And what was it about horses that you actually fell in love with?
[00:00:48] Sarah & Seth: Wow, well, I, I remember pretty well, and so does my mom. And it’s a funny story. She, for some reason, they decided to send me to horse camp in Cle Elum, Washington, when I was little. And I was 10 years [00:01:00] old. Never been away from home that long. And I was crying, did not want to get on the bus to go to school, to the camp.
[00:01:08] Sarah & Seth: And, I got on and, by the time camp was over, I did not want to come home. I did not remember anything about my past life. As far as I was concerned, I was a, I was a cowboy. I rode every day. I just loved it. So I, I think I love the relationship with the horses and the partnership and the being outside and up early.
[00:01:28] Sarah & Seth: Every day, everything about it I love, but what I really started to love, I think, and look forward to was my relationship with them and seeing what we could do together.
[00:01:38] Mark Wright: It seems like with horses., it’s an animal that you really do need to have a relationship with because they’re a lot bigger than we are and you can’t just push a horse around., talk about the negotiation and just, it’s, kind of a collaboration if you want to do anything with a horse, right?
[00:01:54] Sarah & Seth: Absolutely, they, they have their own needs and wants and desires and dreams and hopes, [00:02:00] inspirations and fears. Insecurities just exactly like we do. And they, uh, in a sense, don’t know that they’re bigger than us in a lot of ways. But, but since they are, since they don’t know that they’re bigger than us, their reactions can seem over the top to us, but to them, it’s not, it’s like a matter of life and death.
[00:02:19] Sarah & Seth: So when we come from different points of view, horses and humans, obviously. So we need to negotiate or build a trust so that we can have a safe relationship for both of us. Based on mutual agreed, uh, rules is not the right word. Expectations. Yeah, expectations and, uh, right, morals, ethics, culture. Yeah, they have a code.
[00:02:45] Sarah & Seth: Code, right, a moral code. That’s a good way to put it, right, For everybody’s safety, we have to learn each other’s moral code and agree on what it is.
[00:02:53] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:02:54] Sarah & Seth: That’s where everything goes wrong is we don’t bother to learn theirs and we force ours on them [00:03:00] And they don’t agree, and we don’t realize they haven’t agreed.
[00:03:02] Mark Wright: So, Sarah, the company is called Noble Ferrierie, and I’d love to know just the backstory of how you got to this place, and I’d love to hear a little bit more about your work history as well.
[00:03:14] Sarah & Seth: Yeah, so when Seth and I first met and started dating he had just started working as the a horseshoer basically to subsidize his cowboy life. Cowboys don’t really make any money and he was working for some ranches and that sort of thing and he figured out that if he worked on horses feet he could make some money, pretty good money.
[00:03:35] Sarah & Seth: And I was, a community person. I was a sheriff’s deputy and I was also a clothing boutique owner. And I was working on building a nonprofit for a festival that I wanted to do. So I was, I had my hand in town and, very active in like chamber of commerce and that sort of thing. So that was where we were when we started dating.
[00:03:56] Sarah & Seth: And then, you know, my interest took me in one [00:04:00] direction and he stayed. Very focused on farriery and he got better and better and better. And his horses got, higher end and the work that they do, the, the level of horse that he, was able to take care of got higher in the competition sense. So, you know, fast forward 20 something years of me in fashion and community and nonprofit and, that stuff, pandemic happened.
[00:04:27] Sarah & Seth: And when the pandemic happened, all, everything I was doing just came to a screeching halt. Like none of my projects made any sense because they’re all event oriented. And Seth was at a point where he was getting really burnt out and really exhausted for a number of reasons. And mostly just, sadness of seeing horses over and over and over again in bad situations, feeling like he’s just this one person trying to do, make these big changes that it’s very hard to get people to buy into and just the culture of the industry.
[00:04:57] Sarah & Seth: It was very hard on him emotionally. And then it’s a grind and you’re [00:05:00] out there alone all day long. And all that was just building up. And here I was with, nothing to do, sitting on a project manager certification and. This kind of mind that, I’m good at seeing systems. I’m good at building the scaffolding around teams.
[00:05:16] Sarah & Seth: I’m good at, mission statements and, you know, the, big picture goals and the processes and the procedures and the operations. And he was just, you know, sole proprietor guy. And I said, you know, you have this methodology of trimming horse’s feet that’s consistently always really good. So what if we took that and made it a thing and made it a standard And built a company around being able to guarantee a standard of health.
[00:05:44] Sarah & Seth: And also he’s just really good with horses with their minds. So horses who’ve been traumatized and other farriers couldn’t deal with it because they’re, dangerous or need to be sedated or have all these other issues, Seth was really good at helping horses work through that. [00:06:00] And so his reputation was, is big for that.
[00:06:03] Sarah & Seth: So I saw the whole picture. I saw, you know, what if we could. Guarantee these things and we could say, you know, we could hire other people to do what Seth does the way Seth does it.
[00:06:13] Sarah & Seth: So then we started a whole nother conversation and that was in 2020. So I wrote the business plan for that using some of Seth’s, well all of Seth’s ideas.
[00:06:24] Sarah & Seth: His methodology on trimming and forge work and his billing. He was the first farrier to have a subscription model and, Also, the pathway that we had for people who could move up a chain, you start here as an assistant, work up to an apprentice and then junior and senior, there just aren’t those models.
[00:06:46] Sarah & Seth: So, you know, we had points where people could advance to the next, make more salary, have more benefits, have a pathway where they could turn around and educate other people. And we saw this is really a comprehensive business that no one’s [00:07:00] doing. The mission statement, of course, our favorite part of the whole thing is horse first.
[00:07:06] Sarah & Seth: So we’ve sort of let our hearts lead the way, and if it’s not good for the horse, it’s not good. We implemented a lot of safety standards and, just values that, you know, everybody who works for us has to love horses and care that every little thing they do from beginning to end is the best thing for the horse, mentally and physically.
[00:07:24] Mark Wright: I’d love to talk more about the business model in just a sec, but I think I need to back up a little bit and just talk about the importance of, the hooves, on a horse. Seth, why is hoof care so important when it comes to a horse’s overall health?
[00:07:39] Sarah & Seth: Well, in a nutshell, it’s because they walk on their fingernails. And their hooves are their fingernails. So if their hooves are improperly balanced or too short or too long in the wrong way, it affects dramatically how they’re able to move or how comfortably they’re able to move. So for their overall comfort in their entire life, we’re [00:08:00] really important professionals to help them be comfortable.
[00:08:04] Mark Wright: Yeah. How often do you have to trim a horse’s hooves?
[00:08:07] Sarah & Seth: It varies a ton, but basically we need to trim them however often that we need to in order to keep them in a certain state, which a state of balance in a sense, which can be only four weeks in between each, appointment with me or eight weeks or sometimes 12 weeks. It varies a lot.
[00:08:25] Sarah & Seth: Mostly for me, it’s four to six weeks.
[00:08:28] Mark Wright: Okay. Uh, well, this makes total sense when you say fingernails because, I remember vividly being in the seventh grade and I wasn’t very good at trimming my own nails. And I cut my nails way too short one time and at basketball practice, my fingers started bleeding and I’m thinking that was not very skilled.
[00:08:46] Mark Wright: So it, that analogy makes complete sense to me now., Sarah, I’d love to ask you about the industry itself. You talked about. Kind of creating some standards in an industry that really has sort of a rogue [00:09:00] reputation. Give me some ideas. Why is, is the farrier business, sort of a renegade business in some sense, uh, unregulated is what I think you said when we spoke last.
[00:09:11] Sarah & Seth: Yeah, well, it is just simply that. It’s unregulated. Anyone can decide they want to shoe horses or trim their feet and just go do it. There’s no rule saying that you have to have an education or a special certification. And there are schools and there are certifications, but you don’t have to have one to do it and make money at it and charge money for it.
[00:09:30] Sarah & Seth: And there’s no, accountability in terms of the standard. So there’s no one that’s going to come in behind you and say, Oh, you didn’t do this. According to X standard and therefore you can’t practice. So that doesn’t exist., the history of farriery, you know, it goes way back. And, you know, we had a time when horses did everything for us.
[00:09:50] Sarah & Seth: Our wars, our infrastructure, building our infrastructure with us, our farming, everything. And then it turned into, well, now we have cars and vehicles to do all this. So [00:10:00] horses became a hobby. And, I guess they’ve always been commoditized to a certain extent, What it’s mostly in sport or in a legacy sense, an old family that has always had horses.
[00:10:13] Sarah & Seth: So we just have horses. Um, there’s a lot of sports around that in the Western world. You know, we see the rodeo sports that replicate the things that you would see a horse doing on a farm. And in the English disciplines, you see the sports that you would see hunters and jumpers, and dressage horses, which are the war moves.
[00:10:31] Sarah & Seth: That’s where we’ve been. But now we’re in a world where people just have horses for hobbies and play and, you know, who cares about regulating an environment? It’s not top of mind. There’s just no, nobody holding it accountable because horses are just hobbies. So I think that’s a lot of it. And the other part is that the standard that does exist is largely aesthetic.
[00:10:59] Sarah & Seth: So when [00:11:00] people go to school, they’re learning. to, they’re looking at a form, the hoof, and they’re trimming to that. And they’re usually getting a pre made shoe that’s made in a factory. That’s already a designated size. And that foot has to fit that shoe. A lot of times they’re too big or too small. So they’ll make the foot fit the shoe.
[00:11:21] Sarah & Seth: And I’ve learned this just from listening to Seth, because he went through a process where he thought the aesthetic doesn’t necessarily support the shoe. the actual function of the hoof. There’s internal structures that have to be maintained and supported so that the functionality will be there. But if we’re constantly showing, trimming to an aesthetic, oftentimes there’s just too much invasive cutting and, what’s the word?
[00:11:47] Sarah & Seth: Exfoliation going on that doesn’t really take into consideration the environment, the right of way, the sport. all these other conditions and so he started thinking about that like how do I preserve that and [00:12:00] started thinking more about the form that we see on the outside should be indicative of what’s happening on the inside and that’s not something I mean people will say that you can’t look at the outside of a hoof and tell you what it looks like on the inside that’s impossible you need an x ray everyone agrees with that but Seth can tell you what the inside of the hoof looks like before he sees the x ray because He’s developed a method where he’s measuring everything.
[00:12:24] Sarah & Seth: And he’s actually critiquing and evaluating the thickness and the depth and the relationships that the external structures have to each other. And he can look at that and say, I’ve been taking notes for 15 plus years on the same horses over and over and over again, and there’s a consistent pattern there, and if it looks like this, it’s either moving away from soundness or toward soundness, and he can see.
[00:12:49] Sarah & Seth: what that x ray is going to look like. And once he started talking like that, because he was just, you know, sharing with his wife, gee, golly, gosh, who am I? Nothing special. And I’m over here, wheels turning, thinking, [00:13:00] excuse me, this is huge. This is huge. If we can write this in some form of curriculum, collect the data and start seeing, you know, charts and graphs that show that this is real, like we’re onto something.
[00:13:12] Sarah & Seth: So that’s where I really got ambitious to not let him quit. Because, you know, 25 plus years doing something and developing what he’s developed that there’s no, no one doing it because you don’t have to. Yeah, it just was really special to me and I thought we have to do something with this just because we love horses.
[00:13:31] They deserve something after everything they put in for humanity. At least they have healthy
[00:13:36] Mark Wright: yeah, that’s, that’s such a great sentiment., so Seth, do you make, custom make the actual shoes yourself as well?
[00:13:43] Sarah & Seth: A lot of them. I custom made all of them for about 15 years. Every single shoe. Yeah, now I make, I still make quite a few, but not all of them.
[00:13:53] Mark Wright: So take me through the process, Seth. When, when you a horse, explain how that process [00:14:00] works.
[00:14:00] Sarah & Seth: Well, we get the horse out of its stall and watch it walk so we can see how it’s moving and what its current comfort level is. Then we pull the shoes off and test for any soreness in the foot, in any of the feet. And we take notes and I trim the feet, the hooves, the toenails, see how they relate to each other.
[00:14:21] Sarah & Seth: And then We take measurements and build shoes to fit exactly what we need to fit at that time. Each individual foot. And by taking those measurements for a long time I started to see how they related to each other, when the horses were most comfortable. And so I started moving in my trimming, I started trying to, my goal was to get them in that certain relationship where most horses were most comfortable and it started to work really well.
[00:14:48] Sarah & Seth: So I started to realize that there needed to be a relationship between all the feet in a certain way. There was another component too that, guess we discovered it together. He did a, he was asked to do a presentation for a group of [00:15:00] horse owners and trainers, about 10 years ago now. And it was the elite of the dressage community all gathered in one place to ask questions of Seth.
[00:15:11] Sarah & Seth: And the one thing that he explained and that they were just understanding. No one had ever asked this of them, but he said, I need to hear when I walk up to you and ask you, how is your horse moving? A lot of times they would say, fine, but that it wasn’t true. There’d be all of these details that they were leaving out or didn’t think he needed to know.
[00:15:31] Sarah & Seth: And, when he started to break down all of the things that were really helpful to him, it was like the first time these trainers had understood that if they report. that this situation they don’t see as related to farriery at all or the feat at all is actually something that he can do something about, they would get better results in their performances and in their competitions.
[00:15:53] Sarah & Seth: And that was the first time I had ever heard any conversation about that. So that’s one of our procedures. Like every guy that works [00:16:00] for us, every farrier that works for us has to ask. The trainers and the riders, how is this horse moving under saddle? What do you notice? And there’s very specific questions that we’re learning to ask so we get more than just fine.
[00:16:12] Mark Wright: That’s fascinating because when we spoke last, Seth, you were in your truck and just finishing up a job. And the last part of it was, they wanted you to take a look at the horse walking by. And I find that just fascinating that you can look at a horse walking and tell whether the It’s feet are healthy, whether the shoes fit, whether the trim worked.
[00:16:34] Mark Wright: I mean, when you’re looking at the walk, like, what are you looking for?
[00:16:39] Sarah & Seth: Kind of the same thing that we would look for in ourselves, just a nice easy flow, a slow easy cadence, smoothness. So anything that gets short or choppy or, stiff looking is just an indicator of Some discomfort somewhere or tightness basically. Tripping, [00:17:00] dragging., so it’s just a lot of looking at thousands and thousands of horses. And some things are so subtle that I, I couldn’t tell you. Like what the farriers can see, I can’t see. I just see a horse walking and if they say, oh no, he’s a little stiff on the left hind. I don’t see it. Right, right. Yeah.
[00:17:19] Mark Wright: So you guys decided to. Partner and to create a curriculum and to start to document what Seth has developed in terms of this method over the years because it works so well., Sarah, what does this look like? I mean, is this going to turn into a curriculum that you can sell or, you can consult others or what, what’s the end game for this?
[00:17:41] Mark Wright: Because it sounds like you’re onto something that is really reliable and really valuable as well.
[00:17:48] Sarah & Seth: Yeah, so we’re creating two specific curricula. I don’t know if that’s the right grammar. One for specifically for horse owners. Who really don’t intend to [00:18:00] shoe their own horses, but maybe they might trim or they might want to just, be able to take a shoe off, that sort of thing., that curriculum is really base knowledge so that when they’re speaking with other farriers and veterinarians, and when they’re doing whatever work they’re doing with their horses, they understand more about, the role of hoof care.
[00:18:20] Sarah & Seth: The second curriculum is specifically made for veterinarians and farriers. And there’s two goals. One is to train veterinarians and farriers on our methodology so that they can then execute it themselves completely from beginning to end. The other goal is to bridge the culture gap professionally between vets and farriers.
[00:18:42] Sarah & Seth: Right now the methods that farriers learn at school and what veterinarians learn at school are not telling the same story. So It’s terrible, culturally., there’s a lot of arguing and just not, it’s very difficult for vets and farriers to build healthy relationships with each [00:19:00] other. And we feel like if there was one touchstone of, academic knowledge that they shared, it would further the relationships in a positive way.
[00:19:09] Sarah & Seth: And of course the horses win and the clients win because the clients are often In the middle, or the trainers are in the middle, the vet says one thing, the fairy says another, they’re fighting, they’re not agreeing. The fairy walked out, won’t do it. The vet doesn’t know how to do it, but has an idea of what should happen.
[00:19:24] Sarah & Seth: The fairy says, well, that goes against everything, you know, all of that. And Seth’s been so successful in his career because he’s, comes from a background where he’s just learned to, be curious and interested and curious about things that maybe aren’t even what he believes to be true, but just. Okay, well I’m going to suspend my ideas and beliefs just to hear this out.
[00:19:48] Sarah & Seth: Because he’s that way, he’s managed to have very, very good relationships with veterinarians. And he has relationships now where veterinarians ask for his advice and use his advice. You know, they’ll [00:20:00] text him and say, what do you think I should do? And Seth will text back exactly. And they’ll use his exact words.
[00:20:05] Sarah & Seth: And that’s kind of unheard of, in our world. So the fact that he has respect from, and I’m not talking about just. Random veterinarians. I’m talking about the best, the really, really good ones that are highly respected, are differing to him a lot of times, and he’s learned, he’s willing to learn from them.
[00:20:22] Sarah & Seth: He’s willing to listen and understand and grow. So that part of the curriculum is really important to me personally, because at my professional goals, you know, I like the idea of being an innovator. I like the idea of changing culture for the better. And I think that if we can come out of this and say we have a downloadable curriculum online that people can participate in, have a cohort and a community of people that they can talk with who are speaking the same language, have access to farriers and veterinarians that will help them through their problems as a result of taking our classes, and that can be an [00:21:00] ongoing journey for them, I feel like the horses are only going to win.
[00:21:04] Sarah & Seth: And. Maybe some of the problems, in the culture will get worked out.
[00:21:08] Mark Wright: Sounds like, Egos can cause a lot of problems in the industry. And I’m, just thinking of the medical industry that, you know, sometimes, doctors can be difficult when they don’t, you know, act with curiosity. We have another podcast called Fat Science with Dr. Emily Cooper, and she’s a metabolic expert, one of the top in the world.
[00:21:30] Mark Wright: And she’s been fighting an uphill battle for 20 years to try to get the mainstream medical establishment to stop saying it’s calories in, calories out, because scientifically that’s absolutely not the case, especially if you have metabolic syndrome. And, it’s a very, very slow, thing to try to change a culture.
[00:21:48] Mark Wright: And I’m kind of hearing that that’s,
[00:21:50] Sarah & Seth: as
[00:21:51] Mark Wright: at play in that industry. I’m kind of surprised though, that, that Veterinarians aren’t trained as farriers because, I mean, we have [00:22:00] podiatrists for humans. I mean, that’s an entire specialty that takes just as much training for any other sort of physician.
[00:22:07] Mark Wright:, why?
[00:22:08] Sarah & Seth: We have podiatrists as well, but it’s, you know, you go to vet school and then you go to failure school. Now you get to be a podiatrist. So we’re definitely working on developing that. We do have a veterinarian who works for us. It’s not right yet. Um, And so the veterinarian who works for us, we’re talking a lot about developing a podiatry department and getting our curriculum into some vet schools and, creating some kind of pipeline where veterinarians can come and train with us and walk away with farrier training and.
[00:22:41] Sarah & Seth: really come into their work and be able to do more. The reason why the veterinarian that works for us came to us, he came to us and asked if he could learn farriery from Seth because he felt there were a lot of horses that, he was limited in his education and his background. It helped them all the way.
[00:22:56] Sarah & Seth: And it hurt his heart. It really bothered him and frustrated [00:23:00] him. And he said, I can’t do everything I need to be able to do. And, He’s just such a wonderful person that he wasn’t willing to just leave it there. And he was humble enough to recognize Seth’s talents. And he said, I want to learn from you.
[00:23:15] Sarah & Seth: You’re the best., I want to know what you know. And so he’s been under Seth in that sense, which is not an easy thing for a veterinarian to do, to come be, a farrier is a big demotion. I’m a veterinarian in the horse world, in the hoof care world. So for him to be humble and be willing to have our brand on his shirt, on, on his vehicle, Dr.
[00:23:36] Sarah & Seth: King, with our name on his stuff is a huge, it’s just been very encouraging to us because we keep thinking, you know, if we can find people whose hearts are in the right place, and it’s not about all these other things, we can do some great things for horses. So it’s been slow. It’s been very difficult.
[00:23:53] Sarah & Seth: Nothing about it has been easy, but little by little we have found some really wonderful people who just [00:24:00] care and just love the animals and just want to do the best that they can, so we’re hopeful.
[00:24:07] Mark Wright: Yeah. It sounds like building community is a big part of what you’re trying to do with the business, right? Getting good people all to work in the same, direction. Seth, I’d like to ask about the emotional spiritual connection with horses., can you talk about that?, it seems like, I mean, we’ve all heard the term horse whisperer before, and I’m sure that’s because some people just have a way with horses and have for many years.
[00:24:31] Mark Wright: But when you approach these animals what are you thinking about and how do you, connect with them at that level
[00:24:38] Sarah & Seth: well, in a sense it’s really simple because you connect with them like you’d want to be connected to, so regarded, so realizing that they have They’re in the middle of their day too and they have a plan for their day and it may not involve what I wanted to do to them. So especially if they’re about to get fed or ridden or just were ridden or about to get turned out with their [00:25:00] friends, they have a whole social life.
[00:25:03] Sarah & Seth: So basically the spiritual connection is looking at them as I would look at myself or treating them as I would want to be treated. So it really comes down to looking, uh, I don’t know what the best way to say it is. I think like And the last, last time we talked, I talked a lot about how I learned about myself through them.
[00:25:24] Sarah & Seth: And a part of that is by looking at them in the same way that I would look at myself. In a spiritual sense, they’re my reflection. They reflect me to myself so that I can see myself more clearly.
[00:25:38] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:25:38] Sarah & Seth: The same way that we all do to each other.
[00:25:41] Mark Wright: And when you come up to an animal, can you tell if it’s been mistreated or had a bad experience with a farrier in the past?
[00:25:49] Sarah & Seth: Pretty much. It might take a few minutes to figure out if, because they’re just like us in that they have personalities and so I have to learn their personality [00:26:00] and some of us are a little bit more nervous and skittish and scared and some of us are more confident and cocky and aggressive and the horses are the same way so and they can express their trauma from the past in both those ways through fear I’m being nervous or too aggressive.
[00:26:18] Sarah & Seth: Action. So, after a little while, you can, you have a pretty good idea. Although, I’ve worked on plenty of horses that had no trauma, but they were still acting traumatized, but it doesn’t matter really, because we meet them where they’re at. So we, wherever they are as humans, and as they’re, we’re tasked with the responsibility of caring for them, and I’m one of those people.
[00:26:42] Sarah & Seth: We have to understand their situation from their point of view, and work within the framework that they’re. that they will allow. And it’s amazing how much they will allow once they feel understood. That is a huge thing for me, and it’s no different than us, but because [00:27:00] they’re sentient beings and have their own mind.
[00:27:03] Sarah & Seth: When they feel understood and connected with and regarded, they’ll try. They want the connections. Almost all of them will. It’s amazing. They want the friendship and the partnership. You know, and what that really, the reflection part is, you know, that we see each other and the conflicts between ourselves.
[00:27:23] Sarah & Seth: In the same superficial light a lot of times, but if we take the time to regard and make sure everyone’s understood or feels understood, we can maybe get past that to the real core stuff and have a real relationship, which is kind of like being married.
[00:27:41] Mark Wright: That’s awesome.
[00:27:42] Mark Wright: When I was a kid, we had a donkey. We grew up on a farm. So we moved up from the city when I was in kindergarten to the family property up in Ferndale that had been settled by my great grandparents in 1903.
[00:27:56] Mark Wright: So my parents thought it would be fun to just, you know, live the country life. So we got [00:28:00] chickens. We started raising our own steers. And someone had a donkey named Jezebel that they didn’t really want as a pet anymore. And so my mother. We got Jezebel and brought her home. Jezebel had, I think she had some challenges in life because she could be super ornery.
[00:28:22] Mark Wright: We tried to bridle train her and, uh, she would run to the nearest low branch in the woods with us on her back. And she knew where every low branch was in the woods and she would rub us off on the branch. And then, one day I remember going out into the field and Jezebel was lying on her side and she was.
[00:28:43] Mark Wright: And I, we ran back in, we called the vet and the vet said, Oh, she’s foundering. And, uh, and I didn’t quite understand fully what that meant., Seth, what is foundering, as it relates to what was happening to Jezebel there?
[00:28:56] Sarah & Seth: Well, what season was it? Spring,
[00:28:59] Sarah & Seth: summer,
[00:28:59] Sarah & Seth: fall?
[00:28:59] Mark Wright: [00:29:00] I think it was spring, early summer. Nice green, she had been eating a ton of green grass. Yeah,
[00:29:06] Sarah & Seth: Basically, the sugars in the grass were at a really high level, most likely, and her body couldn’t take it. And similar to diabetes, the causes are in that the older they get, the less tolerant they are of high levels. So when she was younger, she could probably take more green grass, but as they got older, basically, they’re at Digestion can’t handle that much sugar at one time or the carbohydrates in it causes an allergic reaction that causes swelling in the limbs which bursts the blood vessels and detaches the bone from the inside of the hoof. Yeah, it’s very painful.,
[00:29:42] Mark Wright: She ultimately recovered., she was, it was kind of a love hate relationship. I’m not going to lie to you, but I think she had had some trauma earlier in her life, but we used to put gunny sacks over her back and go up and down, the roadway and collect, you know, bottles and cans and, put them there.
[00:29:57] Mark Wright: So she, she did help us in, in many [00:30:00] ways.
[00:30:00] Sarah & Seth: Problem is that monkeys are too smart. Monkeys are like that. They’re very smart. The smartness causes the onerous.
[00:30:09] Mark Wright: Yeah. She would, she would fake like she was going to try to bite you when we were writing her and it would just scare the daylights out of
[00:30:15] Sarah & Seth: Yeah,
[00:30:15] Mark Wright: she, I think she really enjoyed that.
[00:30:17] Sarah & Seth: yeah.
[00:30:18] Mark Wright: Sarah, you know, our podcast is, is dedicated to redeeming work, and that is to show people a better way of both employing people and also showing up in the workplace that we really believe that work can be good for everyone if everyone’s treated with honor.
[00:30:35] Mark Wright: And, uh, I hear it in both of your voices that you want, you want to do a better thing for this industry. You want to show up a better way. You want to teach a better way of doing this business. I’d love your thoughts on the idea of what redeemed work looks like in your lives and in your industry.
[00:30:53] Sarah & Seth: Well, first my, my personal philosophical belief is you can’t compartmentalize [00:31:00] your life and behave or believe or, show up differently in different situations. I think wherever you go, there you are, who you are in your character and your belief system and your values is going to be in every part of your life where you show up.
[00:31:20] Sarah & Seth: And I don’t think that we can expect. an environment where the values and the culture are a certain way because of the people because of what they believe and how they approach work and how they approach life if we expect something there to be other than what it is We’re doing something crazy.
[00:31:40] Sarah & Seth: And I think, you know, you have to be the change that you want to see in the world. So as individuals, it’s on us if we want a great life, if we want a great work environment, if we want great relationships, we have to hold ourselves personally accountable for how we show up. And we have to be willing to constantly ask the [00:32:00] question, if something isn’t going well, what part is my part?
[00:32:05] Sarah & Seth: And if you know that you’re living up to all of your values and you’re being who you say you are and you’re acting with integrity and you’re still not in a good place, then you either have to take a leadership role to make a change within that space and be willing to fight the good fight in that way, or you have to leave and find somewhere where you can show up in a way that’s consistent with your values.
[00:32:30] Sarah & Seth: So Seth and I both are of this mind and we feel that way as individuals. Our very first date that we ever had, what, 25, 30 years ago, was talking about our spiritual beliefs and how we both think this way. We’re both self improvement people, growth mindset people., we both love Eastern philosophy and we also, um, are kind of churchy and God people.
[00:32:55] Sarah & Seth: So we’re always talking that way. We’ve been talking that way from the beginning. And That’s one of the best [00:33:00] parts of our relationship. And then parenting that way, and we don’t do everything perfectly by any means. We’ve made a ton of mistakes. There’s folly in so many things that we set out with good intentions.
[00:33:12] Sarah & Seth: But, the one thing that’s consistent is that when you work on yourself, there’s always improvement. And there’s always, forgiveness, and there’s always reconciliation and compassion. And, All I ever wanted was to create that for myself, my family, and for anyone I work with. And any business or project I ever worked on with teams of people, that was always in my heart.
[00:33:37] Sarah & Seth: And so, seeing Seth all by himself, For a long time, I had a lot of respect for it because it’s in and of itself a Buddhist exercise, you know, grinding and, being isolated and only having a horse to relate to and kind of becoming this meditative person, being very technical and, having these long days by himself.
[00:33:58] Sarah & Seth:, he did a lot of work [00:34:00] on himself and I watched that and I saw the way he grew into that, but then he hit a wall where he needed community and he needed. People to share, his milestones with. And I thought, you know, this must be rough, to be all by yourself in these things. And so it was kind of in my mind, like the perfect combination of what I was learning out in the community and what he was doing on his own to come together and create a community within our workspace that anyone who comes through this business and works for us is going to have, should they want it, They don’t want it.
[00:34:33] Sarah & Seth: It’s not going to work. They usually, something happens. It doesn’t work out. But if they’re here to grow and learn and, bring that generosity of heart to their coworkers, to keep their relationships honest and have integrity in their character, there’s tons of challenges, right? Like the horse will challenge you, the hardness of the work, the grueling nature of the work, and just getting along with people.
[00:34:59] Sarah & Seth: So [00:35:00] I think that we’ve managed to get one of the best teams of people I’ve ever worked with. Really beautiful human beings who impress me, um, when we have conflict, I can’t even believe how well we work through it. People lead in and they want to understand, and grow. And it’s just really exciting to get to do this.
[00:35:18] Sarah & Seth: And hopefully we’ll get to be role models and get to share with other people that work can be a beautiful thing and it can be, a place of learning and growing and building really quality relationships with the people that you’re doing important things with in the world.
[00:35:34] Mark Wright: Seth, when you were starting to burn out earlier in your career, what was at the heart of that? And how are you designing? The business that you have now so that, you know, people don’t burn out.
[00:35:46] Sarah & Seth: Well, there’s a number of inherent problems when you work alone and for yourself as a sole proprietor. And so all those were A big factor, meaning that there’s, you don’t have any backup, you’re your own backup. And so when [00:36:00] you’re, when there’s a problem with you, the whole business stops and income stops.
[00:36:05] Sarah & Seth: And then the high demand, which is a good thing, but it’s hard to keep up with, and you feel like you owe it to everybody to say yes, or I did anyway. And then when you’re dealing with a creature that has its own spirit, then you really feel like you owe it to that creature to give them what they need to be happy, in essence.
[00:36:26] Sarah & Seth: And so when that wasn’t always possible, or, because I’m only in charge of one small part of their life, And I wasn’t able to, I don’t know, am I saying that right? Yeah, I mean, you can’t change the way the barn manager runs the barn. And maybe some of the things going on aren’t the best thing and it’s heartbreaking.
[00:36:48] Sarah & Seth: Heartbreaking. You know, some horses that don’t get turned out for exercise. They’re in a filthy stall that’s full of ammonia because they never get clean. And they’re being treated some way and [00:37:00] the pressure to be the one good thing in their life. Being isolated and alone in that journey and not even having the buy in from the owners or the trainers can be, it was very demoralizing.
[00:37:11] Sarah & Seth: when he was going through his burnout, he’d had a lot of those experiences.
[00:37:14] Mark Wright: I’m guessing too, Seth, the work itself can be very dangerous, right? And that probably can give some stress as well. Right.
[00:37:22] Sarah & Seth: Yeah, you bet. The hours are long and it’s physically dangerous because of the Horses, nervousness, their Size. Right, their size, their reactivity, you know, the misperceptions and misunderstandings between us. So the danger part sometimes, along with, I didn’t feel like I was doing all that much good for, and if, if I was gone, someone else would just come along and do it the same.
[00:37:48] Sarah & Seth: So, What’s the point? Or worse, and no one would notice. Right, no one knows the difference. No one knows the difference. No one knows the difference between the good job and the not so good job, I guess. So what was the point of doing a good job?
[00:37:59] Mark Wright: And I’m [00:38:00] guessing the stakes are really high for some of these animals. Give me an example of like, what, what is the worth of some of, the animals that you guys work on? It’s gotta be crazy expensive, right?
[00:38:11] Sarah & Seth: Well, the worth of the horses, like if the selling price, the market price of some of them, yeah, is in the millions. So right, it’s a big deal. And there’s a, I guess that is part of the problem in terms of burnout, because the worth. Puts a lot of pressure on the horse from the human’s perspective, if that makes sense.
[00:38:31] Sarah & Seth: So they, because they’re worth so much, we’re, humans are under a lot of pressure to deal with them as more of a commodity. And to make sure they deliver whatever they were bought to do.
[00:38:43] Mark Wright: Right. Return on investment, right?
[00:38:45] Sarah & Seth: competing, you know, if they’re Right, rather than a soul and a horse, with a soul. So weird things will happen to sometimes patchwork things.
[00:38:53] Sarah & Seth: So the farrier can feel like there’s no room for error on their end. A hot nail, oops, [00:39:00] a bad day, your knife slips, anything. You can’t have those mistakes on those kind of horses. And you don’t want to anyway, but it’s even more stressful. And then you have Sometimes you have the perspective that we’ll, we’re not really doing what’s best for the horse.
[00:39:16] Sarah & Seth: We’re doing what’s best for the syndicate that owns the horse that wants the horse to be out there in the arena that night doing whatever it’s supposed to do. So that’s a hard, where’s the line, you know, ethically for the farrier to say, no, I don’t want to play along with this idea. It’s not good.
[00:39:34] Sarah & Seth: So that’s one of those things where it comes down to doing. Like what Sarah said, wherever you go, there you are. Is it worth it to be a different kind of person to satisfy the human need? Or to be who you are to satisfy the horse’s health need?
[00:39:49] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:39:50] Sarah & Seth: That’s all.
[00:39:51] Mark Wright: What’s interesting is more and more people who come on this podcast, sound very much like the two of you. And that is alignment [00:40:00] is really everything, right? If you’re not aligned with your values and your spirit and your work, something is getting shortchanged
[00:40:10] Sarah & Seth: You know what?
[00:40:10] Mark Wright: you’re selling out something, right?
[00:40:13] Sarah & Seth: You bet. My most recent assistant told me, I’d rather get paid a little less than be in a culture and a company that I love doing work I love. And being regarded than getting paid more and not have all that. So of course we want to pay her more.
[00:40:28] Mark Wright: I think most good companies do, you know, most of the really great companies realize that that’s just one, you know, data point. In a very complex, dance. Seth, when you’re driving into the driveway at the end of a day, I’d love to know, what does a great day feel like for you? What’s, what has happened to make you say, man, this has been a great day.
[00:40:52] Sarah & Seth: Well, mostly, I mean, only really only doing good work and knowing that the work was good and the horses look comfortable [00:41:00] and, and that’s it. And that everybody in my company is happy. That’s a big one. Yeah. So if I feel like I didn’t do the best job I could have done on any, in any particular situation, or one of my employees is not happy or having a problem for whatever reason, that’s I dwell on that stuff a ton, so we try to design everything so that doesn’t happen.
[00:41:23] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:41:23] Sarah & Seth: That’s my job. I’m always dealing a lot with people to mitigate problems before they even start. My, my priority is always making sure that the communication is super easy and comfortable and that hard talks don’t feel hard because I feel like if everyone can just in real time Communicate their needs, clear up misunderstandings, voice there where they need support or where they’re feeling insecure, instead of feeling like they have to hide it or play it off.
[00:41:57] Sarah & Seth: All of these things, if I do my [00:42:00] job, then they will be set up to feel And like, they have an arena to operate, in a healthy way. And then he can then not have a super big chunk of stress. I’m not going to have a good day.
[00:42:16] Mark Wright: And I’m guessing, you know, the, the higher the food chain, you go up, I mean, we’re talking about multimillion dollar animals. I’m guessing there can be a lot of fear and a lot of reactions based on the fear of this massive investment. I just love how you both are approaching this. Sarah, what do you hope for this business?
[00:42:38] Mark Wright: Like 5, 10 years from now? And you look back, what do you hope the business will have turned into?
[00:42:44] Sarah & Seth: I hope that our business is in enough places with our curriculum and our brand, our, our culture, where we can say in 10 years that because we did what we did. Horses get to have a whole nother [00:43:00] baseline of what’s considered healthy and normal in terms of their mental health, their physical environment, and their hoof care.
[00:43:07] Mark Wright: Yeah, and the whole horse first strategy, I don’t know how you can go wrong when you put the most important part of the equation first. Well, Seth and Sarah, this has been so much fun. Anything that I didn’t touch on that you’d like to leave us with?
[00:43:23] Sarah & Seth: guess to come back to what you asked Sarah about work and Raising work again in everybody’s eyes, maybe in slightly different words. It’d just be, because Sarah uses them a lot, and she touched on it briefly, but the Buddhist exercise of, learning yourself. And I’ve heard that from a couple of your guests on your other podcast, that it not really struck me that they all said it.
[00:43:44] Sarah & Seth: And, uh, So that it doesn’t, the reason that works good and important and should be, we should be reverent and want to work is that it’s our chance to be in that [00:44:00] situation and learn ourselves and have conflict and learn how we are in conflict and become better at it and become better people by having to interact with other people in a situation, in a particular situation.
[00:44:13] Sarah & Seth: Good job, honey. I love that. Yes, that’s where you, it’s the arena to learn about yourself and the way that nothing else will show you. Right, it shows you, yourself in a way that you can’t get anywhere else.
[00:44:25] Mark Wright: Kind of like being a parent, you know, brings out parts of you that are good and bad parts that need working on.
[00:44:31] Sarah & Seth: Absolutely.
[00:44:32] Mark Wright: you know, as I hear you talk about that, I think, I would buy a book that had that at its premise, you know, the intersection of. Buddhism, Farriery, and uh, you know, just the, uh, what you’ve learned, and what you continue to learn, which is so inspiring.
[00:44:48] Mark Wright: Well, Seth and Sarah, this has been so much fun. I really appreciate it. Keep us posted on how the business is going, and I’d love to come out and see what you guys do firsthand sometime. It just sounds like it would be fascinating to see
[00:44:58] Sarah & Seth: Yeah, you should come for a ride along. We love [00:45:00] that. Yeah.
[00:45:00] Mark Wright: would be fun. Well, so much for your time, both of you.
[00:45:02] Mark Wright: Take care.
[00:45:03] Sarah & Seth: Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark.