It was a different world when Clayton Wilber started his career.

Like many who broke into the hoof-care industry before 2000, the Oxford, Fla., farrier struggled to gain a foothold in his chosen trade. Comraderie and communication were foreign.

“Farriers didn’t talk,” Wilber recalls. “They didn’t share their knowledge. If a farrier were at a barn and you walked in, he would ask you to go to the other end of the barn or one would leave.”