City’s farriers — galloping towards extinction
Before vehicles became common and when Rawalpindi was the headquarter of the British forces, there was a lot of business for the farriers of the city as all the horses and donkeys had to be fixed with shoes before they set out for Kashmir and the adjoining hilly areas.
Till the recent past, even after wagons and cars began to be used for transport, horse drawn carriages could still be seen on the roads of the city as they were the cheaper mode of transportation.
However, recently, business for the farriers of the city has been limited to fitting shoes on the hooves of racing horses, ponies and donkeys. Only two or three farriers’ shops remain open in the city, where the masters can be seen fitting horses with shoes within an hour.
Depending on what they are used for, a horse will outgrow its shoe in between 10 to 30 days, after which the animal cannot walk properly as a gap develops between the hoof and the shoe.