"We joke and say it's the world's second oldest profession," said Ike Birdsall, owner of Birdsall's Hotshoe, a farrier based in Sag Harbor.
Farriers, who tend to horse hooves, are an essential but unheralded segment of the $122 billion horse industry. The job hasn't changed substantially since 400 B.C. when the earliest horseshoes, a combination of rawhide and leather, were made.
Well, maybe it's changed a little. The Hampton Classic, the annual weeklong horse show that begins Sunday in Bridgehampton, wasn't a thing back then. And horseshoes weren't mass-produced until 1835.
Mr. Birdsall was born into the profession; his father, Dave, was a farrier and his uncle was a farrier at the Saratoga Racetrack. His father started the business in 1969. Ike took it over in 2006.
"I like the animals. Even when you get beat up," he said.
"We did the Classic for 24 years, 12 hours a day," said Mr. Birdsall. "Every horse that stepped up was a horse we didn't know. I watched my father get stomped by a horse named Surf there. I never looked forward to it. It's horses you're going to work on once and never see again."
While plenty of farriers "follow the horses," Mr. Birdsall, and his partner, Craig Berkoski, are perhaps the only farriers still living full time on the South Fork. "We know guys who fly in from France and do 50 to 60 horses and then leave," he said. "But that's not our business. There's more guys following the horses now than there were in the '80s or '90s."
One of Mr. Birdsall's oldest accounts is the Swan Creek Horse Farm in Bridgehampton, where about 40 horses reside. His family has been shoeing horses there since 1971. On a recent day, he and Mr. Berkoski, who has worked with Mr. Birdsall for over 20 years, were shoeing horses ahead of the Classic. In the summer, Mr. Birdsall says horses need a trimming and shoe refitting every four to five weeks.
"I got into horses through baseball," said Mr. Berkoski. "Ike's father was my baseball coach."
The closest analogy to a horse's hooves are our nails. They grow continuously and require maintenance. Farriers assess the length of each hoof and decide whether it needs trimming. However, unlike our nails, hooves need to be balanced and shoes leveled, so the horse's gait is correct. There is a lot of hidden expertise in what farriers do.
"We watch a horse before we shoe it to see how they're moving, or if they're landing in an area too hard," said Mr. Birdsall.
Trimming horse hooves puts the farrier in contact with the flank of the horse. It's dangerous work.
Gaining a horse's trust sometimes takes years. "The best way to bond with your horse is to rub him, walk him in the field," said Mr. Birdsall. Sometimes while one man works on the shoes, the other is forced to stroke the head of the horse, "to quiet the situation down," said Mr. Berkoski. "We make it pretty nice for them," he said, as a fan blew fresh air toward a horse held in a stall by two cross ties, strands of leather attached to its halter.
Mr. Berkoski barely took notice as the horse lightly mouthed the top of his head. From outside the barn window, a song sparrow sang. As peaceful as it felt, a bite from a black fly could have upended everything. A farrier learns that the first step to shoeing a horse is applying fly spray.
Next, the farrier removes the old shoes. They walk to the side of the horse, facing its rear, shoulders roughly in line with the horse's shoulder. They bend the horse's leg at the knee and place the hoof between their thighs, which are protected by a heavy apron that has pockets for tools and nails.
It's not an easy position to hold. Try it. Bend at your knees, and then bring your chest over your kneecaps so you can see your ankles. Now, imagine a 700-pound horse pushing against your shoulder while you hold its hoof between your thighs.
It takes them less than a minute to remove each shoe, which allows them to measure the hooves, to see how much needs to be trimmed. The foot is cleaned and exfoliated with a hoof knife.
Working in two adjacent stalls, the men don't say much. The sounds of their labor take precedence.
A horse named Gatsby looked on impassively as Mr. Berkoski ran a rasp, a large metallic file, across the rounded surface of its hoof. "Shush, shush, shush," was the sound, as shreds of hoof sprinkled to the dusty floor of the stall like Parmesan cheese. Taking a caliper out of his apron, Mr. Berkoski remeasured the hoof. In the next stall, Mr. Birdsall was nailing shoes on another horse. "Tink, tink, tink, TONK, TONK."
Parked just outside of the stall was Mr. Birdsall's farrier truck, which contains racks of horseshoes, drawers of nails, an anvil and forge that swing out from the rear, and a grinder.
The men, operating at different speeds, go from the stalls to the truck. Once the hooves are trimmed, they grind and level the shoes that can be reused. This is called "safe-ing" the shoe. After, they are placed in the forge until they are quite literally red hot. The smoking shoes are removed, placed on the anvil, scraped with a wire brush, and then put back in the forge.
Once they're hot enough, Mr. Birdsall removes the hot shoe with tongs and presses it to the hoof, which sizzles and releases a quick cloud of acrid smoke. This is called the "hot set." No, the horse doesn't feel a thing.
The shoe is placed in a metal bucket of water ("Sissss!") to cool.
"You always know what someone is doing by the sounds they're making," said Mr. Birdsall. The water in the bucket can sometimes get so hot, it boils.
After the shoe is cool, the men drill threaded holes into it. This gives the groom the option of adding traction, by way of a type of threaded bolt, for jumping. "Most horses at the Classic need traction," said Mr. Berkoski. Finally, they nail the shoe back on, putty the holes, and paint on a sealant called Farrier Barrier, a product created by Ike's father years ago.
The horse is then walked back to its stall. In a corner of the barn, Mr. Birdsall's dog, Remington Ruger, chewed a bit of discarded hoof. "It's like eating a pig ear," said Mr. Birdsall.
While the world changes around them, the stall feels timeless.
"You're not worried about artificial intelligence taking over," he said. "I don't think that's going to work."