Victorian female farrier Rachael Kane one of the best in the world

SHOEING horses as a career came late in life for Rachael Kane but but now she is one of the world’s best.

Star Farrier Rachael Kane thinks it’s important for young girls to know that the job is not just for men. PIC Zoe Phillips

“I BELIEVE people are drawn to horses in order that they learn a particular lesson,” says Rachael Kane, who makes her living as farrier in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.

“In my case it was patience — to learn that things take time.”

Indeed Rachael found her calling — making and fitting shoes for horses — relatively late in life. After travelling during her 20s, she turned to Australia aged 30 and a horse carriage business.

“Then my farrier at the time broke his back,” says Rachael, now 42. “And I found that other farriers weren’t so good and so I thought I’d better learn to do it myself.”

It has indeed been a long, patient process but today Rachael is one of Australia’s leading farriers in a field traditionally dominated by men.

Earlier this year she was the only candidate in her class to pass the infamous Certified Journeyman Certificate exam at the Heartland Horseshoeing School in the US state of Missouri (her second stint studying under the US master Chris Gregory). Less than one per cent of the world’s practising farriers hold Certified Journeyman qualification.

Unsurprisingly Rachael takes her work extremely seriously. “Horses are standing on their shoes 24/7, so it’s not like it matters if you’re riding them or not,” she says. “If you get it wrong, it’s wrong for them every minute of the day.”

Although the idea of putting a set of shoes on a horse sounds like a straightforward proposition, it’s not. “There’s quite a complicated understanding of biomechanics and physics and anatomy and all sorts of other things that are attached to that,” Rachael explains. “You’ve got 500 kilos riding on 10 centimetre square little feet and if you don’t get it right; if you don’t get the balance right, there’s a lot that can go wrong and the horse suffers.”

Since the vast majority of farriers in Australia are men, Rachael sees herself as a role model for women wishing to enter the trade. “When I was training there were no female role models in Australia,” she says. “It was really important for me to be to see that a woman could do this and there wasn’t in Australia. That was one of the good things about going overseas is that I did meet women and see they were at the top of their field.

“It’s not like I want to just be better than the guys and all that, I’m an example to show that it’s possible to have more women here benefiting young girls who want to get into this wonderful trade.”

CommBank has partnered with News Corp Australia to champion the Australian of the Day initiative which celebrates people in our neighbourhoods and communities who really make a difference to how we live and who we are. You can read all their stories at australianoftheday.com.au, where you can also nominate someone you know.