David Farmilo has 50 years of practical experience gathered as a competitor, colt breaker, farrier and problem solver, and in that time has shod well over 100,000 horses.

David Farmilo has spent the last 5 years teaching around Australia. Each year the number of courses has doubled from referrals and demand for annual courses. He is now reducing his traveling and promoting live-in courses from his workshop in Adelaide. He also teaches in America, and has been invited to speak at the 2008 International Hoof Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio. He writes regular articles for equine magazines, has published his first book which is a light hearted look at his life and horseshoeing exploits and as a result of public demand is now working on a second. He also consults on his website, receiving calls for help from horse owners around the world.

David Farmilo shod his first horse in 1954 as a skinny 14 year old jackeroo on Angorichina Station in the Flinders Ranges, Outback Australia. Understanding the horse's hoof has been a passion if not an obsession since the day David Farmilo shod his first horse. In the 1980s, after being head hunted as Head Farrier for the famed Lindsay Park Stud at Angaston, David’s first year at Lindsay Park saw C S Hayes break all of his previous 30 year training records.

At the age of twenty he was appointed overseer for Oraparinna Station also in the Flinders Ranges. He worked on a number of other stations, and then ran a general farriery practice in the Adelaide Hills until 1981 and from then until 1987 in Townsville, Queensland.

Returning to South Australia to resume his general farriery practice, one of his clients was the late Peter Hayes, who pressured him continually to work for his father, the late Colin Hayes at the renowned Lindsay Park Stud at Angaston. David's first year at Lindsay Park saw C S Hayes break all of his previous thirty year training records. David was Head Farrier at Lindsay Park for eight years until he retired in 1998.

In April 2002 David ran the first of his outback shoeing courses and was received with such acclaim that he now spends most of the time on the road running hoof care courses for horse owners, trainers and farriers.

David’s sole concern is for the horse. “Sadly, I find that 90% of lameness in horses is hoof related, and this is totally unnecessary. Most gait and back strain problems stem from incorrect trimming and incorrect shoeing that should have been corrected simply by correctly balancing the hoof.  If a horse isn’t trimmed and balanced properly barefoot, then no one has any business putting shoes on it. I believe that every one who trims a horse’s hoof has a duty of care to balance that hoof correctly. The horse has to be comfortable, to be able to perform to its optimum ability, and if the horse is not happy it will tell you”, he says.

His mission is to put back into the industry what he has gained out of it as his concern is that the simple basic principles of horseshoeing are being lost. He believes much of the information available today is too technical, and also too complicated to apply when under a horse where theoretical knowledge needs to be easily transposed to working knowledge.

Over the next forty-nine years he has steadily built up a vast understanding of the horse's hoof while encompassing a range of workplaces, all involving horses. In that time he was also a very successful competitor in all forms of equitation.

David Farmilo's website receives ever-increasing queries worldwide, and he is regarded as a definitive expert on hoof related lameness in horses.