Featured Artist: Dennis Manning
Dennis Manning inherited an anvil from his grandfather and taught himself to shoe horses by pounding cold, machine-made shoes on the anvil until they fit. He eventually built a forge and learned to fashion horseshoes from straight bars of red-hot steel.
Mormon Puzzle Hobbles
Training horses to accept hobbles used to be a common practice among ranchers, and braided hobbles for short-term use are still popular today. Ranchers work where there are no fences, so they use hobbles to prevent the horses from running off when not being ridden. Additionally, horses who are used to hobbles are less likely to panic if they become entangled in rope or wire.
Mormon* blacksmiths developed iron Puzzle Hobbles to discourage theft because those unfamiliar with how they worked would find them impossible to take off. Interested in their history and unique form, blacksmith Dennis Manning of Roosevelt, studied old texts to learn how to recreate this piece of equipment. Although mostly used as art, Manning still crafts each pair to be functional for use on horses.
*"Mormon" colloquially refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members.