TERRY Gill has been a farrier for 35 years.

He says: “I love all horses, but especially thoroughbreds. But I never took to riding – didn’t like all that mucking out. Funnily enough, the majority of farriers don’t ride.”

Terry was brought up in Salisbury, where his parents, Vic and Jean, ran a vegetable stall in the market, which Terry helped out with during weekends and holidays.

He was a pupil at Westwood St Thomas’s School in Salisbury.

Vic owned a horse, which is how Terry first discovered his love of the animal and, when he finished school and having decided to become a farrier, he successfully applied for an apprenticeship with the farrier his father used, Jerry Baker, who lived near Marlborough.

Terry has spent most of his working life in the Lambourne Valley – the “Valley of the Racehorse” – so-called because of its association with the training of some of the world’s finest racehorses.

There are more than 2,000 horses in training in the valley, with more than 50 racing yards. He moved to trainer Nicky Henderson’s stable in 1980, where many champion horses were trained and the many winners included successes at Cheltenham.

Terry shoed the Queen Mother’s horse Nearco Bay on May Day 1994, the day the stallion went out at Uttoxeter, ridden by Johnny Kavanagh, and gave the QM her 400th winner Terry spent a year shoeing horses in Japan, on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Of his time there he said: “I loved it - lovely people, lovely country. I helped with the breeding and pre-training of the horses before they went to the tracks in Tokyo.”

In 2009, he joined racehorse trainer Stan Moore at Berkeley House Stables near Lambourne. This was just prior to the beginning of the stables’ best ever run of winners on the all-weather to date, not that he attributes this success to his arrival!

The day Terry spoke to the Journal at Salisbury was the day after the Queen made her Diamond Jubilee visit to the city. He said: “I remember the Queen’s first visit to Salisbury in 1974 – it must have been a Tuesday, because we were on the market stall.”

Terry still loves his job. He shoes on average eight horses a day, each taking him about 40 minutes.

He said: “Racehorses need shoeing twice a month. They run in lighter shoes with aluminium plates which don’t last long.

“Showjumpers are shoed with steel shoes around every five weeks and pet ponies, every six weeks.”

Terry is married to Joanne, who now works in Reading CID but who started out as a stable girl, working her way up to head girl. She is a very experienced rider and has ridden showjumping winners. It was only through injury that she was forced to abandon riding.

Once a week, Terry shoes showjumpers at Lisa Lodge’s stables at Castleford Farm in Ford, near Salisbury.

He can be contacted on 07769 971333 or email joanne.waites@virginmedia.com.