Wales Transplant to Texas Makes Championship Sparks Fly : Smiths Go Hammer and Tongs for World Title in Calgary

They came from 10 nations--54 brawny blacksmiths all in their 20s, 30s and 40s except one, Jay Sharp, 68, of Salmon, Ida., the “grand old man of horseshoeing,” to compete in the 10th-annual World Championship Blacksmiths’ Competition.

They pulled red-hot steel from coal-fired forges that spiraled dense clouds of smoke under a big tent at the Calgary Stampede. They shaped the glowing steel into horseshoes with tongs and hammers.

The sound of hammers clanged against anvils as farriers spent four days competing with one another in a dozen different events earlier this month.

They had come from Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and Wales for this Super Bowl, World Series and Wimbledon of smiths. One Californian, Lee Green, 28, of Yucaipa, was among the contestants.

And then there was Sharp, a living legend among farriers throughout the world, three-time winner of the World Champion Forging Award, reputed to be the best manufacturer of blacksmith tools on Earth.

“They ought to give me a senior citizen bonus,” chortled Sharp between puffs on his pipe. “Everyone I’m competing against is young enough to be my son, grandson or great-grandson.”

After all the fires in the portable forges were extinguished, after the smoke cleared and the clanging ceased, Grant Moon, 26, a native of Wales, who emigrated to Peaster, Tex., three years ago, was declared 1989 World Champion Blacksmith and winner too of this year’s World Champion forging award.

The World Champion Blacksmith title was for forging and shoeing, the World Champion Forging Award strictly for specific forging competition. Allan Ferrie, 32, of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, was barely nosed out by Moon.

As World Champion Blacksmith, Moon won $1,000 and the coveted silver horseshoe nail presented by Mustad, a 157-year-old Swedish firm, the world’s largest producer of horseshoe nails, sponsor of the competition. He won another $1,000 and a hand-crafted Jay Sharp striking hammer for being the World Forging Champion.

Sharp Understudies

Sharp also presented a punch used for clipping toes of horses to the top blacksmiths from each of the 10 competing countries. “The grand old man of horseshoeing” handcrafted the toe clips at his back-yard blacksmith shop.

Many of the farriers in the competition have understudied the old master at his school for advanced forging. Shayne Carter, now 28, from Draper, Utah, the 1984 World Champion Blacksmith, was a Sharp prodigy.

“I came to the United States in 1986 to spend three weeks with Jay at his place in Idaho solely to enhance my chances of winning the World Championship Blacksmith title,” said Magne Delebekk, 28, of Kvastebyen, Norway. This was the fifth time Delebekk has flown to the Calgary Stampede from Norway for the blacksmith competition.

Ninety percent of the blacksmith tools used by the smiths in the World Championship were hand-crafted by Sharp in his one-man shop in the tiny Idaho town.

Sharp makes pritchels to punch holes in horseshoes, fullering hammers to make creases in the shoes, fire tongs, toe clips, rounding hammers and various other tools used in shoeing horses.

He has been a farrier since he was 13, shoeing his first horse on a ranch in the Whitetank Mountains of Arizona. He rodeoed. He cowboyed. He spent four years in the Navy in World War II. But most of his life has been devoted to forging tools and shoeing horses.

He has a year of back orders for his tools from farriers throughout the United States and 27 foreign countries.

‘Stubborn as a Mule’

“Jay is stubborn as a mule. He refuses to hire any help. He bangs away on his anvil seven days a week from sunup to sundown,” said Rachel Sharp, his wife of 15 years. “I got him chained to his anvil. I let him off for lunch and dinner,” she said, laughing.

She is Sharp’s sixth wife and has outlasted the other five, his longest previous marriage being seven years. Sharp said he never leaves his blacksmith shop except for the four days each year he comes to the Calgary Stampede for the championship competition.

Of about 40,000 farriers in the United States, 18 were entered in the World Championship this year, with a like number from Canada. Bob Marshall of Mission, British Columbia, has won the World Champion blacksmith title five times; Dave Duckett and now Grant Moon, both Americans, have each won it twice.

For the spectators the variety of competitive events were fascinating to watch. The “Eagle Eye,” for example, saw all 54 contestants allowed 10 seconds each to study the same hoof of the same horse, then required from memory to make a shoe to fit that hoof within a 15-minute time limit. Judging was based on accuracy and fit of the shoe.

Wide Selection of Shoes

The international competition used a wide range of horseshoes in the various events, including German lateral, Welsh mining, mule shoes, Belgian hind, cow hocked, Swiss side weight and French trotting horse.

The total prize money amounted to $7,800. Only Grant Moon, who won a total of $3,000 for the two top titles and in other competition, made enough to pay expenses.

Blacksmithing is an art dating back to when man first used steel and rode horses. Competition among blacksmiths possibly has been going on since then. A famous Norman Rockwell cover on the Saturday Evening Post in the 1930s showed blacksmiths competing at a county fair.

But the competition at the Calgary Stampede, the Great Western outdoor show, matches the top smiths from around the world, including, in particular, “the grand old man of horseshoeing.”