Fads
If you deal with a farrier or read material put out by farriers or farrier organizations, you may have come across the word "fad." What does that mean? Well, in this context, it basically means anything coming from outside the world of traditional farriery. Recent developments in understanding the hoof and how it functions have called into question many of the practices of traditional farriery (that is, traditional horseshoeing), and many farriers have reacted not by adjusting to new understandings but by becoming defensive. Unfortunately, advances in hoof understanding have been seen as threats to the traditions of the traditional farriery establishment.
Farriers have various organizations to promote their interests, and the word "fad" began to be used by these organizations as sort of a "talking point" or "spin" when referring to anything originating outside the world of traditional farriery. In other words, to exaggerate a little, anything developed later than around 1500 A. D. is a "fad" to the world of traditional farriery. Farriers themselves have picked up on this, so if you read an article by a traditional farrier in a horse magazine, for example, you may well see the word "fad" used. And if you ask your farrier about something you heard about hooves that came from outside traditional farriery, he may caution you about getting caught up in "fads." Or if you look at the website of a traditional farrier, you may see a whole section entitled "Fads."
