UQ Skills Master Farrier and Farriery Trainer, Craig Jones, has been announced as a regional Darling Downs South West finalist for a 2023 Queensland Training Award.
Mr Jones was selected in the category of VET Teacher or Trainer of the Year – recognising innovation and excellence by a teacher or trainer in a registered training organisation.
The farrier – a specialist in horse hoof care and horseshoe maintenance – has been practicing farriery for over 35 years, and said that farriery is both a science and an art.
“Farriery has so much to offer young people,” Mr Jones said.
“Horseshoe forging and fitting is a highly technical profession requiring a wide range of skills, allowing you to learn everything from hand-making tools to animal biomechanics.
“It’s a vocation where you’ll never stop learning – new research is constantly developed and there are always new ways to practically apply new knowledge.”
The enthusiastic farrier specialises in shoeing high level competition horses and working with specialist veterinarians on lame horses.
But Mr Jones’ true passion is teaching.
“I love being able to find new and innovative ways to pass on skills and knowledge to the next generation of farriers,” he said.
“And I like seeing confidence and competence develop in the farriery students throughout their apprenticeships, and their enthusiasm in attending their classes, watching their theoretical knowledge and practical skills develop.”
Mr Jones’ innovative teaching techniques are without parallel, including 3D modelling and using specialist metals to better teach practical skills online.
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The farrier cohort doesn’t always prefer traditional lecture settings, so I created anatomical models from wood and other polymers to assist his students in understanding equine anatomy, functions, movement and locomotion,” he said.
“I’ve also incorporated into the program 3D-printed, paintable anatomical models, allowing my students to better visualise the anatomy and tissue attachments.”
The COVID-19 pandemic also placed challenges on Mr Jones’ hands-on teaching.
“Videos don’t always do farriery justice – the changes in colour that occur when you heat steel can make it difficult to see the fine details of what’s happening in fast-paced practical demonstrations and PowerPoints,” Mr Jones said.
“So, I experimented with other metal types to overcome these challenges, using aluminium in all new forging training videos, as it doesn’t change colour when heated, so doesn’t interfere with video quality, and cools much slower allowing for slower paced demonstrations.
“Aluminium can also be marked with a permanent marker to show the positioning of hammer blows and other fine detail.”
Now Mr Jones – and the UQ Skills team – await the announcement of the winners on 14 July.
The win would be one more to add to a long list of successes, including winning Australia’s most prestigious Open Horseshoeing Competition seven times, Queensland’s Heavy Horseshoeing Competition five times, Australian Open High Point twice and representing Australia twice at the World Championships at the Calgary Stampede in Canada.
Mr Jones would like to acknowledge and thank UQ Skills Programmes and Operations Manager Di Palmer and UQ Skills Director Dane Ivicevic for their support.
More information about UQ Skills programs can be found online.
Media: Faculty of Science Media, science.media@uq.edu.au, +61 438 162 687.
