Flip-Flop Hoof-Stand

A farrier’s hoof-stand has been on my wish list for a couple of months and the wild, wet and windy weather this week meant no surfing, but plenty of workshop hours for Brad.  We had been planning just a fixed height pedestal which the horse rests its hoof on for having the hoof-walls shaped. This is what the farrier uses and the horses are quite comfortable with it.  Without a stand, you have to rest the hoof on your thigh as you rasp it and Flash in particular is prone to leaning or snatching his foot away.   When we looked at the range of stands/jacks available, a number were adjustable in height and others had a cradle that you could rest the leg in so it was easier to shape the sole of the hoof as well (normally you just have the hoof between your legs).    On Google we found a number of patents for farrier stands going back to 1880 and the one we liked was a reversible stand which had both the cradle and the pedestal.  This would be much easier to use as you could easily flip between the stand and the cradle.  We decided to make an adjustable height one with a soft sling rather than a metal cradle.  The basic frame was made up from some second-hand metal pipe we had been given, and in another monument to recycling, the adjustable posts were the legs of a bed frame that we used to frame up the compost bins.  The sling is an off-cut of rubber flooring from the shop we used to run.   I took it for a test run with Auspicious before using it with Flash and it worked a treat for both.