COVER STORY F Mission
by Karen Plumlee and Catherine Madera
“I
f you can aspire to become a good horseman, you can’t help but become a better farrier.”
So says Mark Plumlee, founder and instructor of Mission Farrier
School in Snohomish, WA. Now in its 17th year, Mission Farrier School has become known for cutting edge science and the high quality of farriers it graduates—over 400 worldwide. Guided by Plumlee’s mantra that horse shoeing and barefoot trimming should always be something done for a horse rather than to a horse, 90% of the school’s graduates are still in the industry three years after gradua- tion. This is astonishing as the national average of farriers retained after three years is below 10%. To understand what makes Mission Farrier School a cut above the rest, one must look more closely at owners, Mark and Karen Plumlee. “Mark’s life could read like a string of country songs,” says Karen,
“from ‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys’ to ‘Big Iron on His Hip.’” Unlike many farriers, Mark has a true cowboy background,
growing up around the rodeo arena and ranch cowboys in Selah, WA. As a teenager he competed in calf roping, team roping, bull riding and saddle bronc riding. What remained constant was the need for good, sound horses as part of any day’s success. Mark intuitively understood, prior to his farrier education, the truth in “no hoof, no horse.”
Following in his father’s footsteps as a horse shoer and profes-
sional horseman, Mark shod his fi rst horse at the ripe old age of 14. He became a Certifi ed Journeyman farrier at age 34 and has added several certifi cations from three national farrier associations since that time. Still learning, Mark’s latest was received just a few years ago: a lameness specialist certifi cation through the Equine Lame- ness Prevention Organization based in Penrose, Colorado. Mark met an important
mentor in the early 1990s, Colorado based farrier/ researcher Gene Ovnicek. “Ovnicek’s research lead us to reevaluate what we thought we knew about farrier science”, says Plumlee. And while critics hold to “the way we’ve always done it,” Mark maintains that Gene’s studies have done more for horses and hoof science than any other researcher in the last 2000
years. “Gene hasn’t reinvented the hoof, he has simply discovered the way it was designed to function.” Both men share a passion for “doing right” by a horse and Gene encouraged Mark to start Mission Farrier School in the mid 1990s. The fi rst class had just one student. “I haven’t always done it right — in my personal life, horseman-
ship, or farrier career,” says Mark, who would add the song “Praise the Lord I Saw the Light,” to his life’s “album.” Karen Godwin Plumlee was raised in the Tonasket/Oroville area to an apple farming family with a strong work ethic. She began working at a young age, driving tractor for her dad before the age of six. When she isn’t helping in the farrier school or running the business end of things, you are likely to find her on her tractor, doing the daily ranch work at Faith Equestrian, the couple’s Snohomish facility. A retired Alaska Airlines flight attendant and former University of Washington and Seattle Sea Hawks cheerleader, Karen is now living every little girl’s dream of spending her days around horses.
6 February 2013 The Northwest Horse Source
www.nwhorsesource.com arrier School
One Horseman’s Journey to Farrier Science
Mark and Karen Plumlee
PHOTO: SIBBEA BROWNING
PHOTO: NWHS
PHOTO: SIBBEA BROWNING
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