Farrier Program: The Old Smithy

Article reproduced from the Cornell University Veterinary Magazine, Fall 2003

Farriery at Cornell is not what it used to be. This is not due to any shortcomings on the part of Mike Wildenstein, who is, after all, one of the world's most respected farriers. No, the problem is that the automobile got invented and mass-produced, and just about everybody bought one. Hayburners ended up taking a back seat.

Back in the days when everyone needed a horse, Cornell's first farrier, Henry Asmus, was a high-ranking member of the faculty. The State of New York built an entire building for his program, which was started in 1913 and soon recognized as a premier training course. The building still stands on Garden Avenue, the leftmost of the three brick buildings lined up to the right of Barton Hall, but it no longer belongs to the College of Veterinary Medicine. It got left behind in the move up Tower Road and is now occupied by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

While Mike Wildenstein can only squeeze three students and two horses into his smithy out behind the equine performance treadmill, Asmus's students had the use of the entire second floor of his building, which was then a single room. An article in the Horseshoers' Journal, circa 1920, gushed that the room contained 14 windows, a half-dozen forges "of the very latest and most perfect type," and "abundant floor room for a number of horses" in addition to every tool and amenity imaginable to a farriery student. It was, the article proclaimed, "the very finest place of its kind to be found in the country."

And as if that weren't enough, the article also advertised that it cost about $8.00 per week for good room and board in Ithaca. Imagine that.