Historic Gems for Veterans Day

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, World War I ended. It was November 11, 1918.

Here we are almost 100 years later, and the original "Armistice Day" has become "Veterans Day". A lot of people will hardly blink.

Looking back to World War I, I found this very interesting poster that I thought I'd share with you. Someone designed a horse-drawn horse ambulance that made a lot of sense. The ambulance was rear-entry and front-exit, so that an injured horse never had to back up. I think that is brilliant. When the ambulance arrived at the stable or hospital, the pulling horse was unhitched and the injured horse led forward through the traces.

But in the heat of battle, how many of these ambulances would be needed for all the injured horses?

Here's an Army enlistment poster you won't see anymore. The US Army in World War I needed thousands of men to care for the horses...and they were willing to train them how to do it.

Going back a little further, to the Civil War, here's a rare photo of a forge wagon and also a sketch of the design; this was no doubt the Stonewell truck body of its day. 

Today's not a day to glorify war but to honor those who served, whether a century ago or a year ago. Think about them as you go about your routine today.

Images in today's post are from the collection of the Library of Congress.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

AQHA: Uniform Medication, Welfare Rules for Western Performance Across Breed and Sport Lines May Be Possible

9 November 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

The American Quarter Horse Association reported today that western breed and sport industry alliance partners reached a general consensus involving humane treatment and equine welfare during a meeting October 20 and 21 at the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum in Amarillo, Texas.

Attendees included representatives from the American Quarter Horse Association, United States Equestrian Federation, American Association of Equine Practitioners, National Cutting Horse Association, National Snaffle Bit Association, National Reining Horse Association, National Reined Cow Horse Association, United States Team Penning Association, American Paint Horse Association and Equine Canada.

“Never before have so many leaders in the performance-horse disciplines gotten together to seriously discuss medication and animal welfare in relation to our events,” said Gary Carpenter, AQHA's executive director of breed integrity and animal welfare. “In-depth discussions led to a good, overall agreement on these vital subjects and the direction we need to go in the future.”

Meeting participants discussed the merits of developing a uniform therapeutic medications program and humane treatment policies that could be adopted by all of the groups involved. Executive directors from these associations scheduled a follow-up meeting for January 2010.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Breeders Cup Lowlight Video: Quality Road-eo Gate Panic Delays the Classic

8 November 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoofblog at Hoofcare.com



All hail the supermare Zenyatta for her amazing, gutsy win of the Breeders Cup Classic yesterday. While her race will be replayed again and again for years to come, if you missed the race on television you didn't see the starting gate mishap that lead to Quality Road being scratched. Here's a YouTube.com clip of that portion of the race from the Partymanners racing archive. This footage would otherwise be lost to history, and includes an update from AAEP Veterinarian-on-Call Dr. Larry Blamlage of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.

I hate to see a horse in such distress anytime, let alone on national television. The gate crew are well-schooled in handling these situations but this horse--whom many of you will remember for his famous quarter cracks--narrowly avoided hurting himself, his rider and people on the ground. I know he is a very big horse and I was happy to hear that he is ok today.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Patchwork Network: Rip Van Winkle's Engineered Hooves Will Carry Him a Long Way from Tipperary to Breeders Cup on Saturday

Irish champion Rip Van Winkle may be a bionic horse. He will run in Saturday's Breeder Cup Classic in spite of a history of hoof problems that would have sidelined many. His trip to California from Aidan O'Brien's training center in Ireland is the culmination of a stellar performance record in recent months...and the result of a concentrated focus at managing hoof problems so that the horse can have a chance to prove his worth.

Traveling at the side of Rip Van Winkle is Ballydoyle training center farrier Michael O'Riordan. Eight horses made the trip from Tipperary, but it is Rip Van Winkle who occupies much of the farrier's time and concerns.

In an interview this week, O'Riordan described the process of monitoring the hoof health of the Ballydoyle group. He provided more details about the horse's problems in the past, which he believes are related to some sort of structural deficiency in the horse's hoof walls.

"He's a beautiful horse," O'Riordan told me. "He has near perfect conformation and is very free moving. He doesn't pound the ground when he runs so that's not it.

"His hoof walls are so thin. I believe it must be a mineral imbalance of some kind that has weakened the wall."

Rip Van Winkle's problems had O'Riordan on the problem-solving mission much earlier this year when he began using Yasha glue-on shoes on the horse for the quarter crack problems. When a wall separation compromised a hind foot, Ballydoyle brought in the Yasha shoe developer and quarter crack repair specialist Ian McKinlay, who traveled to Ireland to work on the hoof.

Wearing Yasha shoes on his patched feet, Rip Van Winkle was able to race this summer and win major stakes races. This fall, a quarter crack in the fourth foot was a shock as the Breeders Cup approached.

Over the past year, Rip Van Winkle has had his feet resected and rebuilt, his cracks laced. His feet have grown out and his hooves are now reinforced with acrylic. The new hind foot problem has been laced.

How will Rip Van Winkle like the Pro-Ride surface? O'Riordan said that training on it has gone well. At home, the horse canters on wood chips and works on grass, and his stakes races have been on grass.

Rip Van Winkle's Yasha shoes are cushioned Victory racing plates without toe grabs. O'Riordan said that most of O'Brien's horses had been switched to small toe grabs on their hind feet, but not Rip Van Winkle or Mastercraftsman. All the Yasha shoes have toe clips, front and hind. Rip Van Winkle has a normal size foot, a size 6 Victory plate.

Mastercraftsman is also wearing the Yasha shoes glued to all four feet, but O'Riordan said that the shoes were put on that horse for comfort and that the horse has no problems and is a nice mover. He feels that the soft heels on the Yasha shoes are kinder to the foot and don't wear down the heels.

O'Riordan's job this week is to keep an eye on the hooves of eight horses. He won't blink until Saturday's races are over. He'll head straight back to Ireland on Tuesday, but will hope that his trip includes the scenery of the winning circle at the culmination of the Breeders Cup Classic.

"We wouldn't be here without the Yasha shoes and Ian McKinlay's lacing technique," O'Riordan stressed.

"If you see paramedics in the winner's circle, you'll know they're reviving me," he joked.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.


Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Conference Will Present "2009 Spot Courage Award" to Molly the Pony's Caregiver Team for Exemplary Awareness and Prevention of Support-Limb Laminitis

5 November 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

Molly the Pony will be an honored guest at the Laminitis Conference in Florida this weekend. Her caregiving and medical team will receive the Spot Courage Award for their diligent care of Molly with a goal of preventing laminitis in her "good" front leg. (Pam Kaster photo)

There's a saying that goes something like this: "There are two kinds of ponies. Those that have laminitis and those that will have laminitis." Add in a complex weightbearing overload and what would be the odds that laminitis would not cripple, if not kill, a three-legged hurricane-survivor pony? Well, read on! The following text is edited from a press release received today:

The Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot is pleased to announce that Molly the Pony will be receiving the Spot Courage Award at this year's event. Molly the Pony was rescued by Kaye and Glenn Harris after Hurricane Katrina, and is one of the world's only prosthesis-wearing ponies. The conference will be held November 6-8, 2009, at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, FL.

"One of the first questions I am usually asked is how is it possible that Molly does not have laminitis," said Kaye Harris, Molly the Pony's owner. "Laminitis was the major fear and the reason the doctors originally did not want to perform the operation, so I think it is very important that there is a conference that researches ways to treat and cure this disease. I'm very excited to be accepting this award on behalf of the team of people that have taken care of Molly, as well as on the behalf of Molly. Molly is a very courageous pony and I'm thrilled to be coming here and meeting this group of people."

Molly the Pony will be receiving the Spot Courage Award on Friday, November 6, at 1 p.m. during the Conference. Dr. Rustin Moore will present the award to Molly and her owner, Kaye Harris. Following the presentation of the award Harris will speak briefly until 2 p.m. about her experiences with Molly.

This photo shows what was left of Molly's right front leg after a pit bull attack and before Dr. Moore's surgical intervention. (Kay Harris photo)

Following Hurricane Katrina, Molly was abandoned by her owners and taken to a rescue shelter. During her time at the shelter a pit bull terrier attacked her and it caused severe damage to her right front leg. Harris was taking care of Molly at the time, and turned to the equine hospital at Louisiana State University (LSU) for help. Dr. Moore performed the rare and difficult surgery involving amputation and a prosthesis to offer Molly a new chance at life.

After her traumatic experience, Molly has gone on to be a symbol of hope for those in difficult situations. Molly the Pony is a children's book about the pony and her experience, providing inspiration for thousands. The book will be available for purchase during the Conference, and Molly the Pony will be making other appearances at local children's hospitals during her visit in Florida to spread her message.

The goals of the Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot are the better understanding, prevention, and treatment of laminitis and other diseases of the equine foot. The format includes scientific and practical tracks with topical sessions, followed by small group practical workshops providing information that attendees can incorporate into their daily routines.

When I visited Molly in New Orleans in June, I noticed lots of things. In particular: she lives on fine sand, as you can see here, and her good leg is judiciously supported by a sportsmedicine "suspensory" boot. She also wears a donated Soft Ride boot at times. I'd like to see what the bottom of her good foot looks like. She also spends time in a sling, especially when her hooves are being trimmed. (Fran Jurga photo)

The Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Disease of the Foot brings together the world's experts and visionaries on laminitis to create an innovative, educational, and entertaining program for conference attendees to help educate the public and further the fight against laminitis. The Laminitis Conference is led by its Director, Dr. James A. Orsini, DVM, DACVS, a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and Associate Professor of Surgery in the School of Veterinary Medicine.

For more about information about the Fifth International Equine Conference, please visit: http://www.laminitisconference.com.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Do You Speak Farrier? The 2010 New Dictionary of Farrier Terms Will Help!

3 November 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog from Hoofcare.com

To order your copy, call 978 281 3222 or email books@hoofcare.com

Cost is $19 plus $4 postage in USA; $8 elsewhere.

This little slide show from author David Millwater gives a preview of the new edition of the outstanding reference, New Dictionary of Farrier Terms. We have always tried to make this book available over the years, but the book is now all grown up, with a spine, glossy cover and expanded listings.

I hope this book will become the accepted reference for defining farrier words so that authors and editors can all speak the same language. I don't always agree with Dave, but he is such a good writer and a diligent compiler of the lexicon of his profession that I don't mind losing out to him (sometimes).

Farriers will (or should) know all the terms in the book, but may be stuck sometimes to define what a London pattern anvil is or what "interdigitate" really means in the laminar bond. This book will help.

For everyone else, this book helps de-mystify the language of the back of that truck and the furthest corners of the smithy. It won't cure your horse or keep your shoes on, but it will help you sound like you might know what you're talking about. How you string the words together is up to you!

The New DFT belongs on the shelves of authors, editors, translators, veterinary hospitals, educators, lawyers, insurance companies, breeders, trainers, horseowners, merchants and, of course, libraries. Did I forget anyone?

I hope the sales from this spiffy new edition will encourage David Millwater to continue his calling as a word detective and delve more into the origins of farrier terms (one more time: why do they call it canker?) and that this project will flourish and my arguments with him never end.

Take my word for it: if we all agreed, Hoofcare's world would be a much less interesting place.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in b

ox at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Dressage Hoofcare: Rob Renirie at Global Dressage Forum

3 November 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Dutch team farrier Rob Renirie at the Athens Olympics (photo courtesy Anky.nl)

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.

The Forum, in this case, would be the Ninth Global Dressage Forum, held last week at the Academy Bartels training center in Hooge Mierde, the Netherlands. And the funny thing was that a farrier was a speaker at this event for the first time, and no one thought that unusual at all. What's more, they paid extremely close attention to his advice.

The farrier? I can only think of a few who can hold the attention of an arena full of dressage experts, many of whom would be testing their own opinions against the farrier/speaker's.

But no one can argue with this farrier's results. Horses from many countries shod and/or trimmed by Rob Renirie have won an amazingly consistent stream of Olympic, World, and European medals for the past ten years. He jokes about it, pokes fun at his clients, but has taken care of the horses they've asked him to keep in tune with the ground.

No, Hoofcare & Lameness was not lucky enough to be in Holland for Rob's lecture, but we have friends all over the world and some of them were very helpful at this event. Astrid Appels of EuroDressage.com has written an excellent summary of Rob's presentation on her web site, and I would encourage you to go there and read the entire article (and see the photos).

While Rob is best known for his Olympic gold medalist client Anky Van Grunsven, he cares for the hooves of many of Europe's top horses and travels with the Dutch team to international events. He also works with veterinarians on a regular basis, both on sport horse injuries and special clinical cases.

Here are some key points from Rob, as passed along by Astrid. Remember, English is not Rob's native language, although he speaks it very well:

"The frog is important for the blood supply and to absorb shocks. You have to leave it as big as possible and leave the bars in. The sole is as thick on the toe as on the heel. You have to leave the toe as thick as possible."

"The coronet band determines the shape of the shoe."

(Referring to Adelinde Cornelissen's successful European Championships dressage horse) "Parzival had flat underrun heels and the wrong shoes. He is wide in front and narrow in the heel. We worked on him a few times and the horse had a tremendous recover in his feet."

Rob restated his sentiment from lectures in 2007 at the laminitis conference in Palm Beach that side clips are undesirable and can distort the wall. "They get too tight on the feet."

"Do not correct the feet, but protect the feet."

"We keep our horses as prisoners in a stable, which is not good for the blood supply."

Rob restated that his own horses are not shod and that he feels that is the best way for a horse to be, qualifying that advice for horses that don't have hoof problems and are not moved between radically different surfaces.

After the lecture, a group of attendees had a special opportunity to enter the stables of Dutch team rider Imke Schellekens-Bartels, and review the hooves of some of the horses at hand.

Note: Rob has a web site, though there's not much on it. There is some nice music and some images of his work and especially his fabulous shoeing van and some scenes from his worldwide travels. Click here to go to Rob's web site; just click on the photos at the lower left and they should begin to change.

Thank you to Eurodressage.com

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Here Lies the Farrier...And There Goes Tam O'Shanter

by Fran Jurga | 31 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Lichen covers this fascinating old gravestone in the Alloway kirkyard near Ayr, Scotland. Surely a farrier lies here. Was he the farrier who inspired the lines in the poem: "That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on"? (Tam and the smith had a drink for every shoe that was nailed on.) Or did he die earlier so it was part of this scene: "Coffins stood round like open presses / That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses /And by some devilish cantraip slight / Each in its cauld hand held a light."

Happy Halloween! Here's the third installment of Celtic-themed Halloween blog posts.

There are many farrier headstones in cemeteries around the world. Grand anvils and headstones sporting horseshoes decorate churchyards and forgotten family plots. But I think this one is suitable for Halloween!

You'll find this stone in the churchyard at Alloway, near Ayr in Scotland. Surely this farrier was also a pirate (note the skull and crossbones) and someone with royal ties (note the crown).

This graveyard is not far from Closeburn, the home town of the late famed farrier Edward Martin, and I must assume that Edward knew of this stone, though I don't recall him showing it to me when we went to Alloway.

And of course Edward would make sure you would go to Alloway, as it is the town of Robert Burns's birth as well as his famous poem, Tam O'Shanter. This is the universal tale of a man who simply stayed too late at the pub one night, drinking with the smith and his other pals, and had to count on his good mare Meg to get him home in foul weather. It is interpreted many ways when it comes to people's views on alcohol, witchcraft and lewd behavior. But there is never any doubt about the character of the horse involved.

Tam gives his mare Meg her head to find her way home and probably snoozed in the saddle. Passing through Alloway, he's startled to see the church ablaze, with witches dancing in every window as the devil plays the bagpipes and the graveyard's coffins open wide.

Tam was shocked to see half-dressed women from the village cavorting with the devil. But in his drunken state he called out in admiration to one attractive woman in a "cutty sark", which set them all in pursuit after him.

The Brig o'Doon, or bridge over the River Doon in Alloway. Apparently, a witch can't cross a running stream so Tam spurred his mare on. Once across, Tam O'Shanter would be safe from the witches, though he would still have to answer to his wife. But his horse would never be the same again.

I won't spoil the story for you. You can read the interpretation here. But let it be known that Meg the Mare takes care of her Tam that night...though she spends the rest of her life as testimony that something did happen that night, even if it was the most elaborate and world-famous tale a husband ever made up for why he was late coming home from the pub. The poem is actually a patchwork of bits from several local crimes and witch sightings, including one that did happen at the Alloway graveyard. The place really was believed to be haunted. And still is!

Spooky enough for Halloween, don't you think?

The Original Jack with His Lantern Was a Blacksmith

by Fran Jurga | 31 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog


So here's the way the story goes...I''ll tell the short version because it's an Irish story and you know how long they can get.

There once was an Irish blacksmith named Jack. He was a miserable man, and he spent his nights in the pub trying to make everyone around him miserable, too. One night he made a deal for a last drink with the devil, who demanded to be paid back, but Jack tricked the devil, who promised him he'd take his soul.

When Jack died, he was refused admission to heaven for all his evil, selfish deeds, and sent to the gates of hell. The devil met him there and recognized him as the Irishman who had cheated him and refused to even let Jack into hell.

Where would Jack go? The devil didn't care, but Jack had better get going. Jack pleaded for a coal so he might see his way as he wandered through the darkness.

The devil granted his wish and squashed a glowing coal into a half-eaten turnip. Jack wandered off and wandered forevermore. It's said his coal and turnip could be seen across the countryside of Ireland at night as he wandered aimlessly, the ultimate ghost. And of course as a smith, he had the skill to keep the ember going and made the most of the devil's generosity.

Irish children imitated Jack's lantern and Irish-American children switched from turnips to pumpkins. They placed the glowing vegetables on doorsteps on Halloween to scare away the haunted souls like Jack.

She Strolls Through the Horse Fair on Halloween...

by Fran Jurga | 31 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

I've been saving this picture for today. It's from a portfolio of images, mainly farriers, taken at the Smithfield Horse Market in Dublin, Ireland, one of the last urban horse sales in western Europe. The travelers bring horses and ponies and donkeys into the city the first Sunday of each month to sell or trade them. They've been doing it exactly this way, in the shadow of the Jameson's whiskey distillery, since 1665, as much as the city has tried to stop this chaotic manure-producing festivity. Dublin is one of the last cities where horses are kept within the city by private owners, many by young boys who tether them on any available greenspace.

One Dublin photographer, Teresa O'Brien, is especially taken with the farriers who skip church and show up to shoe the horses at the market before they are sold. But she only photographs their hands. I've never seen the rest of these men. Later, she moves through the crowd and her lens finds a hand on rusty hames or in this case the hand of a traveler (gypsy) matriarch's multi-ringed fingers.

Imagine this woman draped in her long dark hooded coat and leaning on her cane. She is walking among the horses on a chilly October morning. She speaks to no one. Is she buying or selling or is there something spooky going on here? Is she the ghost of horse markets past?



Click here to read a little more about and see a little more about Smithfield Horse Market.

Smithfield Horse Market and the gypsy horse fairs of Ireland and England are some of the last horse fairs. I grew up staring at a print of the painting The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur (above; the original painting is 16 feet long and hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City). It is still one of my favorite paintings because there is so much going on and the horses are so well-formed.

But if you think about it, what will go on this Sunday morning at Smithfield hasn't changed much from Bonheur's basic scene, which shows the horse market in Paris in the 1800s. Someone should document the few horse fairs that still exist. I know there are still big ones in India and Mongolia--where else are they still held?

From Sim to Mo-Cap to Slo-Mo: Have Another Look at the Horse in Motion

by Fran Jurga | 28 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Today I hurt my eye and it made the world a different place. Depth perception was different, some things don't quite line up, and this computer screen is a little blurry so this post will be a media-rich one. I'll let the videos tell the story.

And the story is exactly what I have been experiencing: how do we look at things? You read research reports and case studies and observations on this blog all the time, but they are from the viewpoints of different original sources. Here are some examples of the sources the Hoof Blog uses.



This is a computer-generated leg model from the University of California at Davis. The model lives in a perfect world. Someone designed a limb with arbitrary (or perhaps intentional) conformation and measured the resulting tendon, ligament and muscle forces if this ideal limb was moving over a perfectly smooth, non-deforming surface.



This is what we now call "traditional" two-dimensional video analysis, often used for before-and-after shoeing and trimming evaluation.



This very brief clip is 3-D analysis. You might want to use the play button to start and stop it and see more detail.



Finally, here's high-speed video, or what you might call high-quality slow motion. This polo pony is exhibiting the same stride characteristic as the computer model at the top but wow! he is influenced by the weight and lean of his rider and the variable deformability of the field as well as, no doubt, probably some conformational traits that offset his limb alignment. This is the real world.

There are plenty of other ways to capture horses and model their movement to study and analyze them; the idea here is that when you read an article, the authors may be extrapolating data from a computer model or from subjective observation with no data collection. You have to read the fine print and always take into consideration how a study was conducted and how many horses were in a study.

Does the moving horse interest you? Cornell University will host a veritable festival of motion capture, slo-mo and gait analysis at the 26th Farriers Conference November 14-15 in Ithaca, New York at the College of Veterinary Medicine. The early registration deadline is Friday so get organized and save $50 over the on-site fees.

Speakers at Cornell include farriers Scott Lampert of OnTrack Equine in Minnesota and Mark Aikens from Anglia Equine in England, both of whom are leaders in using videography in analyzing how shoeing and trimming effect horses' movement. Dr. Jeremy Rawlinson of Cornell will demonstrate the use of Cornell's force plate system and de-mystify the concept of ground reaction forces.

Hoofcare & Lameness is thrilled to be a part of this event. For a full schedule and list of speakers, and to register online, click here or go directly to http://www.vet.cornell.edu/education/conferences/farriers/


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

A Tribute to Bracy Clark: It's the 200th Anniversary of Natural Hoofcare

by Fran Jurga | 26 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

What year is it?

Patrick Ryan was, according to this slip of paper, a doctor (?) of horseshoeing in Baltimore, Maryland in the late 1800s.

You might have to double-click on the image to read the fine print, but across the top of the bill head, Mr Ryan promises "Horses Shod According to the Natural Formation of the Hoof. Satisfaction Guaranteed."

There's nothing new about the new school of thought on natural hoofcare. In the 1800s, a legion of learned professors and prickly posers preached any number of plausible and implausible theories about the so-called natural function of the hoof, as they interpreted it to be at that time. Most of the theories involved employing the frog by using a thin shoe or even a three-quarter shoe that exposed the heels and base of the frog to concussion, in the belief that that would stimulate the pumping action of the frog.

Professor Bracy Clark in England was the leading proponent of truly natural hoofcare, and his writings are quite interesting and worth a read. Just the reverse of Ryan in Baltimore, he was a veterinary surgeon--in the earliest days of the profession--who left academia behind and chose to shoe horses and study the hoof for the rest of his life.

Professor Clark enjoyed a renaissance about ten years ago when Dr Hiltrud Strasser chose selections from his vast body of writings to defend some of her theories. What many people missed was that he was a highly respected veterinarian and actually has a very broad body of writing on the anatomy and function of the foot and its diseases, far beyond simply expressing displeasure with shoes. In fact, he tried tirelessly to invent horseshoes that would work in harmony with the natural function of the foot and not stifle it.

The author/historian Major-General Sir Frederick Smith writes of Bracy Clark, "No writer in the profession before or since [his] day has brought to bear such a degree of scholarship."

In fact, Bracy Clark's first writings were exactly 200 years ago, in 1809. So let's tip our caps to him today. I recently learned that a packet containing Professor Clark's 1809 manuscript sold at auction for 3,130 British pounds--that's roughly $5,000 for some very frail old farrier papers.

Bracy Clark's forge near London's Regent's Park

To quote from an article by Ian McKay in the October 2009 edition of Book Dealer:

...This little collection opened with an illustrated 1809 account of A Series of Original Experiments on the Foot of the Living Horse. On the back of the frontispiece to this main work is a tipped-in prospectus in which Clark explains that he plans to publish his discoveries from time to time but ‘…must depend upon the intelligent and opulent for support in reimbursing the expenses…’, while bound in at the end is a single explanatory leaf, titled A New Exposition of the Horses Hoof, that refer to a pasteboard model of that equine extremity.

Other tracts in this little volume included Essays… on …the Nature and Cure of the Split-Hoof, Vulgarly Termed Sand-Crack and …the Causes and Cure of Running Frush in Horses’ Feet, both of which are dated 1818, plus another of 1822 …on the Canker and Corns of Horses’ Feet.

Another of the seven items that make up the collection is the advertisement ...., in which Bracy Clark announces that he has retired from all work with horses, ‘except what relates to the feet only’, and has opened a "…forge, in the Edgeware Road, near the Paddington Turnpike, for shoeing Saddle Horses, more especially, upon a New Plan, which admits the natural expansion of his Foot, and is more durable than the common shoe."

I got out my magnifying glass and was able to read some of the tiny print in Professor Clark's ad. I could read that he added at the bottom "Shoes made and sent (for ready money) to any part of the kingdom. No rasping off the natural rind of the hoof, no frog scalping--or notching of the heels allowed. A lecture on shoeing and the nature of the foot is delivered by the inventor the first Monday or every month at 12 o'clock. Admission 5 shillings." He would teach "professional characters" how to shoe according to his method for one price, and the sons of shoeing smiths for a reduced rate.

And now the big question: who bought these precious historic manuscripts? And what will he or she do with them?



Click here for original document: Bracy Clark Expansion Shoe -

Here's Bracy Clark's treatise on his tablet expansion shoe; the images are on the last pages. You can click on "full screen" at top right of the image box to read it easily and print it. The pages may load slowly, depending on the speed of your connection. I hope you will read it and realize how articulate this man was in describing the foot and his theory of hoof expansion. Read the part where he says that this shoe is his gift to horses, and that he is not patenting it so that more horses can benefit from it. In that sense, reading this reminds me of the Steward Clog.

What would I give to go back in time and head to Regent's Park for one of his Monday lunchtime lectures? This fellow's writings are worth a read, a re-read and many good long discussions to see where and how we've changed the way we look at the hoof's function. What would he say if he showed up today?

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Next Stop on the Pub (Art) Crawl: England's Old Smithy Pub

by Fran Jurga | 24 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Old Smithy, originally uploaded by ronclark5329.

Here's the second stop on our tour of the great pub signs of the world that honor the horse's hoof and its culture and craft. I don't know where The Old Smithy is, but perhaps one of the blog's readers from the British Isles will fill me in.

Thanks again to Mr. Ron Clark, the expert and tireless photographer of interesting pub sign art, for capturing another beautiful sign to share with us.

I thought this image was just stunning and if I was driving down the road and saw this hanging from a building I'd probably smash into something (although I usually do that anyway when I drive in Britain).

I think the artist was pretty creative on this one: what do you see in this picture that you probably wouldn't see in real life...on either side of the Atlantic? Click on the word "Comments" below and type in your answers.

Blue Tongue Dressage: Hyperflexion Still a Welfare Issue

by Fran Jurga | 23 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



This video clip was shot at an FEI World Cup Dressage qualifier in Europe last week. Luise and Julie from Epona TV were surprised that a rider at this level schooled this stallion for as long as two hours in a hyperflexion frame.

They grabbed the camera when they noticed that the horse's swollen tongue had turned blue. The horse's lips were curled and apparently even the rider could see it, as he stopped and put the horse's tongue back into its mouth.

Apparently the schooling ring steward did not see anything wrong with this rider's method.

Click here to read the full story about this videotape and about the effects of the curb rein and bit of a double bridle on the horse's tongue.

FEI rules discourage what is called hyperflexion, rollkur or "bite the chest"--riding with the horse in an overbent neck and head position for a prolonged period of time. The practice is the subject of last year's best-selling horse book, Tug of War: Classical vs Modern Dressage by German veterinarian Gerd Heuschmann.

Since last spring, Heuschmann's DVD If Horse's Could Speak has been on sale and goes even further than the book to tie overschooling, disconnected riding and especially overflexion/rollkur to unsoundness and musculoskeletal injuries in dressage horses. But it is very, very hard to prove the dots are connected.

Here's a clip from the If Horses Could Speak DVD (this is a German trailer, even though the actual DVD has an English soundtrack, not subtitles):



The DVD is 75 minutes long and is sold in North American format (NTSC) format. The cost is $60 per DVD plus postage. Click here to read more and order from our secure web page. You can order the book as well.

I thought that by the time the DVD was translated and available here in the USA the subject of rollkur would be forgotten but I guess that is not the case.

In a special interview with Olympics champion Anky Van Grunsven on Epona TV, Anky defends her use of hyperflexion as a training method, saying that she uses it for a few minutes at a time, then lets the horse relax, but that she only uses it on her advanced horses, and horses that are strong enough to do it, and for whom it is easy to go to that frame. She said she varies the time that she stays in the overbent frame from horse to horse, depending on how strong the horse is and how it reacts to being in that frame.

In a riding demonstration, Anky pointed out that her horse was pricking his ears while in the overbent frame.

Julie and Luise's Epona TV is a subscription-based library of equitation-science videos with interviews and demos by Gerd Heuschmann, Hilary Clayton, and many behavior and welfare experts. They are making a tremendous effort to provide a service that is a level above what you will find almost anywhere else on the Internet.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

World Champion Anvil Shooter at Work

by Fran Jurga | 21 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



Our mid-week humor is provided by a demonstration of anvil shooting, which is usually pretty entertaining in itself but the fact that the main character in this YouTube video claims to be the world champion suggest that there is some sort of a competition in anvil shooting.

How on earth would you judge the winning shoot? Are points given for technique or difficulty? I might have to get some ear plugs and a helmet and go check this out. The failures might be entertaining.

I thought anvil shooting was illegal; obviously it is not in the state of Missouri.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Breeders Cup: The Agony of De Feet

by Fran Jurga | 21 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

What kind of horse shoe is this?, originally uploaded by Rock and Racehorses.
Imagine the confused looks when someone spots this horse's hoof print.

The Daily Racing Form announced today that the defections are beginning; the field for next month's Breeders Cup Classic has lost a few interesting entries.

First it was the news that the fast-closing gray Macho Again would not make the trip west to Santa Anita after developing a cough while training at Churchill Downs in Kentucky.

Then it was the withdrawal of California-based Rail Trip, pulled from contention because of bruised frogs. Apparently Rail Trip sloughed his frogs after his last start at Del Mar and his feet are still tender, according to Steve Andersen of the Form.

The race is still three weeks away, so the horse's trainer must be pretty concerned about the horse losing training.

(For Breeders Cup readers: The frog is a fleshy triangle-shaped pad on the bottom of a horse's foot.)

Sloughed and bruised frogs are a common complaint from horsemen in California on the artificial tracks. The problems could be compounded by the heat of the track in summer months. It is normal for real-world horses to shed the outer layer of their frogs, but racehorses are shod and trimmed so often that their frogs are kept neatly manicured.

Horseshoers at the track have a lot of tricks to help a horse with sore frogs. This photo by our friend Sarah K Andrew was taken during Breeders Cup week at Santa Anita last year.

This horse is wearing a frog-protection plate, sometimes called a mushroom shoe. It can either be an aluminum plate that goes between the shoe and the hoof (some of them look like hockey goalie masks and are called spider plates), or it can be a shoe.

Frogs come in all shapes and sizes. This is Visionaire's frog before the 2008 Kentucky Derby. It probably didn't contact the ground. The frog shape and size of winning horses has never been documented. The width of the frog also determines how the shoe is shaped and how the heels are covered. This shoe is almost an oval; it is probably a hind foot. (Dan Burke/FPD photo)

The same type of shoe or plate is used to relieve pressure on sore heels. The horseshoer may medicate the frog and pack felt or foam rubber under it if the goal is to cushion a sore frog.

Conversely, if the frog is healthy and the goal is to relieve sore heels or a quarter crack, the horseshoer will use the plate to "engage" the frog to bear weight while trimming the heels to relieve weight on them.

This perfectly heart-shaped frog belonged to Gayego before the 2008 Kentucky Derby. Compare it to Visionaire's. Gayego is slated to run in the Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Sprint. There's no statistical relevance between frog size or shape to speed or performance. Notice how much space there is between the heels of the shoe. (Dan Burke/FPD photo)

There are many reasons a frog can be sore. Infection from thrush or canker is the most common but abrasion also can cause soreness, particularly if a horse has a bulbous, protruding, or fleshy frog. Frogs can and do bleed if they are aggravated enough.

The type of shoe shown here might have been just for training and the horse was reshod with regular plates before training at speed or racing. Standardbreds will race in frog plates, though.

Since the horse spends most of the day in its stall, the trainer would pack the sore hooves with a favorite packing or wrap Animalintex poultice against the bottom of the foot. Turbo tubbing, salt water soaks and spas, foam-lined boots and changing stall bedding are some other treatments that trainers may try to get the frogs back in racing shape.

Away from the dry California climate, a frog could be sore because of excess moisture. In that case, the trainer might medicate with a hoof product containing ingredients from the formaldehyde family to wick moisture, or paint the feet with iodine.

Exercise, even walking, would be considered therapeutic, unless the horse is lame. Circulation can help feet recover and grow.

Protecting soles and frogs and preventing injury will be on the minds of trainers who ship their horses to California for the Breeders Cup. When the European and East Coast trainers see local horses sporting plates like the one in this picture, they will catch on very quickly.

Video: Breeders Cup Piques Interest in Surfaces; Instrumented Horseshoe for California Racetrack Surface Study at Keeneland

by Fran Jurga | 19 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

UC Davis's instrumented shoe might be one of the most expensive horseshoes ever made. The soundtrack is "Going the Distance" by CAKE.

Are you counting the days to the 2009 Breeders Cup, the international championship of Thoroughbred horse racing? If so, get ready to start counting the ways that Santa Anita's Pro-Ride racing surface will be interpreted as enhancing or handicapping the chances of the top runners.

The running of this year's cup at California's showcase racetrack has inspired a renewal of the debate of just how safe and just how fair to bettors and horsemen the artificial surfaces will be.

Perfect timing, then, for the J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory at the University of California at Davis to release this little video slide show about its use of an instrumented horseshoe in their study of horse racetracks at Kentucky's Keeneland racecourse. This study was conducted on Polytrack, not the Pro Ride used at Santa Anita.

The study is comparing hoof impact on synthetic, dirt and turf surfaces. Three horses were tested. Hoof accelerations and ground reaction forces (GRF) were measured for the front legs with an accelerometer and a dynamometric horseshoe during trot and canter (not the gallop). Maxima, minima, temporal components, and a measure of vibration were extracted from the data. Acceleration and GRF variables were compared statistically among surfaces.

The dynamometric horseshoe contained piezoelectric sensors sandwiched between two aluminium plates.

Results of the study according to the abstract:

1. The synthetic surface often had the lowest peak accelerations, mean vibration, and peak GRFs. Peak acceleration during hoof landing was significantly smaller for the synthetic surface (mean ± SE, 28.5g ± 2.9g) than for the turf surface (42.9g ± 3.8g).

2. Hoof vibrations during hoof landing for the synthetic surface were American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR). Click here to read the abstract as posted by AJVR.

The debate is contentious enough that it will take a lot of studies of many parameters to quiet skeptics. The defection of the USA's top racehorse, champion Rachel Alexandra, has been attributed to her owners' distaste for running on synthetic tracks. Conversely, top European horses are flocking to Santa Anita and defecting from turf to "dirt" races with the belief that their turf races prep them for spectacular results at Santa Anita. Last year's Classic winner Ravens Pass followed that formula. The Bird cousins, Summer and Mine That, have relocated to Santa Anita and trained over the Pro Ride surface on Saturday.

Watch for more reports from Santa Anita as the surface debate is sure to elevate in the next two weeks.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

First Stop on the Hoof Blog's Pub (Art) Crawl: The Farriers Arms

Farrier's Arms, Worcester, originally uploaded by ronclark5329.

Mr Ron Clark is a photographer in Great Britain with a delightful passion for photographing pub signs. Among his archives are quite a few with horse themes and many with horseshoes, farriers, heavy horses (always my favorite) and related namesakes, usually accompanied by interesting or downright beautiful artwork and ornate brackets, signposts and lanterns.

Over the next few months, The Hoof Blog will be showcasing some of these unusual bits of artistry, and we invite you to send in your favorites as well. It is very kind of Mr Clark to open images from his collection to viewing on the blog.

And there are some real beauties, as well as some intriguing titles. They'd make a beautiful book.

I'd love to know who paints the pub signs and if there are rules to follow or if they all just happen to be tastefully done.

The Farriers Arms is quite a modern pub sign and is a reproduction of the famous painting, "Shoeing the Bay Mare"; the well-known image was originally created by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer in 1844 and is probably the most universal farrier image in the world. Landseer's other horse and dog paintings are beautiful, too.

Get ready for a long (artistic) pub crawl around the British Isles and, if we're lucky, other places in the world! Email hoofblog@hoofcare.com with your favorites or leave a comment below.

The Farriers Arms, by the way, is in Worcester, England.

Laminitis Conference Discount Deadline Is Today!

Hoof Blog News Flash!
Your Hoof Blog Discount for Laminitis Conference Registration

REMINDER!

Hoofcare & Lameness subscribers save $50 on registration for the

5th International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot

November 6-8, 2009 West Palm Beach, Florida

Important information: Your registration includes all meals plus the now-famous Saturday night dinner cruise.

But the deadline to contact the conference is today, October 15!

Speakers include (among many) Hoofcare & Lameness authors Chris Pollitt, Paul Goodness, Katy Watts, Scott Morrison, Michael Wildenstein, and many more.

Laminitis researchers from around the world will report on university-based research while a practical program brings the latest and most creative treatment and management information for all types of foot problems from lameness specialist veterinarians and clinic-based farriers.

A special presentation by Dr Pollitt will feature his high-definition videography of wild horse hooves in Australia and his extrapolation of wild horse hoof data as it compares to and contrasts with domestic horses, as well as the normal hoof functions in contrast with laminitis hoof functions.

New to the conference will be Dr Simon Collins of the Animal Health Trust in England, who has worked with Dr Pollitt on using human medicine's "Mimics" software to present CT scans of laminitic hooves as 3-D structures which Dr. Pollitt says he can "dissect on his computer screen". (I want to see that.)

Dr. Mike Steward from Oklahoma will review and update his development of the Steward Clog low-tech support system for laminitis and Dr Amy Rucker of Midwest Equine will focus on venograms and coronary band resection.

On the non-laminitis side of the conference, Pat Reilly, Paul Goodness and a support crew from Forging Ahead, James Gilchrist, and Michael Wildenstein will have farrier expertise to share, along with Dr. Morrison from Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital and Dr Rucker, who many of you will remember from the Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium.

The reduced registration rate of $550 per person to the Hoofcare & Lameness community is even lower when two people register together. Please check the conference web site for details. Conference brochures were sent to all Hoofcare & Lameness subscribers, but if you didn't get one, let the conference registration know that you haven't had reference to the program.

The web-based registration is for convenience. Call the conference with questions or to register by some other means. Hotel information is also on the conference website (www.laminitisconference.com)

The conference admin phone number is 781 697 0469. Email is sponsor@laminitisconference.com. If that doesn't work, call me at 978 281 3222. I probably cannot answer your question, but I can find someone who can.

Thanks for supporting this conference.

Link to conference web site:

http://www.laminitisconference.com

Link to blog post about Dr. Pollitt's hoof imaging tech:

http://hoofcare.blogspot.com/2009/09/pollitts-laminitis-images-have-new-look.html

Link to an article about the conference and the 20th anniversary of Secretariat's death:

http://special.equisearch.com/blog/horsehealth/2009/10/remembering-secretariat-laminitis-is.html.

Equine Obesity: A Criminal Offense for Two Pony Owners in England

by Fran Jurga | 14 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Pony stallion Dale, before (top) and after (lower) his rehabilitation by World Horse Welfare.

A married couple in Lancashire, England have been banned from keeping horses for five years in one of the first court cases in Britain since a new animal welfare law has been enacted. The two were found guilty of causing suffering by not addressing their ponies' obesity and hoofcare issues.

Keith and Lynn Hall pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a 21 year old mare called April and failing to meet the needs of a 12 year old stallion called Dale. They were also given costs of £500 each and a three month curfew was imposed, enforcing them to be resident at their home between the hours of 10pm and 6am. They indicated their immediate intention to appeal their five year ban.

When World Horse Welfare and RSPCA officials visited the couple’s rented field in November 2008, they found that April’s feet had not been trimmed for a very long time and she was lame and in terrible pain. Her companion Dale had been allowed to become grossly overweight.

Both ponies were seized and taken to a World Horse Welfare farm where they immediately received the care they needed. Dale was put on a strict diet and exercise program and has recovered well but sadly April did not respond to treatment and the difficult decision was made to put her to sleep and end her suffering.

World Horse Welfare Field Officer Chris Williamson says: “This is one of the first cases under the new Animal Welfare Act involving an obese horse and I am pleased that the serious welfare implications of allowing a horse to get into this condition were taken into account in the sentence.”

Please visit www.worldhorsewelfare.org for more information. World Horse Welfare provided background and photos for this blog post.

Blogger's comment: Is it possible that the owners were trying to make the ponies look like Thelwell's cartoon characters? Are there people who believe that ponies are supposed to be fat, cresty-necked and lame?

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Video: Sea the Stars Tribute (Play It Loud)

by Fran Jurga | 14 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Click the box second from the right at the bottom of the screen to make this full screen; hit the audio button to increase the volume. Just hit "escape" to exit the full screen mode. Make it big, play it loud. Go ahead and cheer.

A sigh came out of me from some deep place today when I learned that the world's #1 racehorse, Ireland's Sea the Stars, will not be coming to the USA after all. He will not be running in the Breeders Cup at Santa Anita next month.

After winning the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris last week, he'll be transitioned to stud duty.

This nicely edited tribute clip-mash is a great salute to his stellar year at the top of the racing world.

So many years we endure the coming and going of racing stars, the tragedy of injury, the revolving door of media favorites. And this year, we're so lucky to have some (pretty) sound, athletic horses. They are running their hearts out and performing consistently, even on off tracks.

If you have some time, go to YouTube and look up the channel of Partymanners and watch the races he has posted there of Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Summer Bird, Careless Jewel, and so many others. Check out Muscle Hill over in the Standardbred world.

We have a dream team of superstar horses out there, minus one now. But retiring him on top, and presumably uninjured, is pretty special too.

Maybe my sigh was a sigh of relief.

Click here to read an article about Sea the Stars from The Times of London.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Plastinate Anatomical Tools Make Everything Perfectly Clear

by Fran Jurga | 12 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



It's Columbus Day, so you're invited to "discover" a new equine anatomy reference tool that will be a boon to your ability to creatively and constructively communicate with colleagues, clients and students no matter where you are.

Plastination is a tissue preservation process that gained worldwide fame this decade with the Body Worlds museum exhibit. The last I heard, Body Worlds was set to overtake King Tut as the most viewed exhibit in the world. It shows human organs and muscles preserved in various positions or medical conditions. But everyone I know came out of it saying, "Wow, if they could just do that for horses..."

And someone has. Germany's veterinary anatomy expert Dr Christoph von Horst has patented a process for preserving veterinary specimen in this way; he's done birds and rats and ticks and dogs. But thanks to the encouragement of people like Dr. Chris Pollitt and a loud cheer from Hoofcare and Lameness, Dr Von Horst is preparing spectacular hoof and distal limb anatomy specimen, and you end up with a hoof music video slide show on a day of discovery.

I remember for years how I struggled trying to learn anatomy from textbooks. I couldn't get the 3-D part. I believe that 3-D models from HorseScience are the absolute way to learn and study anatomy and that they revolutionized my ability to understand the hoof, to the extent I can say that I do, along with the Glass Horse cd-rom of animated distal limb anatomy.

These plastination models are a step somewhere between anatomy models and an x-ray. They come in different models, designed for more or less portability. Many will slip inside a briefcase or agenda planner...or even a jacket pocket.

I can't wait for you all to see these teaching aids. They are like living x-rays...in equally-living color! They are actual paper-thin slices of tissue vacuum sealed inside layers of crystal clear acrylic resin.

You can keep one in your briefcase, or collect a set to show different conditions like laminitis, a navicular cyst, ringbone, etc. or use them to show where a shoe will sit, where you will trim (or won't trim) or where an injection or surgery site will access a joint or problem.

This specimen illustrates ringbone quite clearly but, like most anatomy models, the medical history of the animal is not available for reference. (Dr. Christoph von Horst image)

The plastinate tissue is very clear and well-defined because it is paper-thin and light passes through, illuminating the details and edges of structures and their relative textures. (Dr. Christoph von Horst image)

The specimen come in two types: flat sheets, which are about 3/8" thick, or the block versions, which are about 3/4" to 1" thick. The blocks are stunning and look fantastic on a desk or bookshelf, particularly if there's a light nearby. They make a beautiful gift or presentation award.

Of course, no two are alike. Hooves are available in sagittal, coronal and transverse sections, with the vast majority being sagittal, since that is the primary view people are accustomed to using for reference.

Right now we even have a foal's limb and a huge draft horse lower limb with what Dr Von Horst labels as lymphangitis-type swelling. There's also a stunning example of pastern ankylosis.

Even a large joint like the hock can be encapsulated into a plastinate specimen. (Dr. Christoph von Horst image)

Also available are laminated posters of several popular types of distal limb and hock plastinates; you can write on the plastic, draw a shoe or cast on, or use the poster for teaching by asking students to fill in labels for specific structures. Plastic casts of the blood supply and plaster casts of hooves are available by special order.

The best news? Prices start at under $100, plus shipping, with the blocks selling for about $200 at the current exchange rate.

Be sure to visit the Hoofcare and Lameness booth at conferences this fall to see these amazing teaching and learning aids, or contact the office to arrange an order to be selected and shipped directly to you.

If you have trouble with my video widget, you can also view the slide show on Hoofcare's slowly-expanding video channel. The widget seems to be skipping over some of the images in favor of text slides.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Friends at Work: Farrier Steve Stanley at the Red Mile

Farrier Steve Stanley -- 2009 Lexington, originally uploaded by USTrotting.

Thanks to the US Trotting Association for this nice photo of Steve Stanley working at the Red Mile harness track in Lexington, Kentucky two weeks ago. Steve wasn't looking up and smiling for the camera because he was working on a shoe for three-year-old filly Southwind Wasabi, who would go on to win the Moni Maker Trot that day.

The filly came from last place to win the race. She is owned and trained by the same connections as the 2009 Hambletonian champion, Muscle Hill.

Good work, Steve, congratulations!

Video: Relieve Discomfort During Hoof Trimming for an Arthritic or Foundered Horse

by Fran Jurga | 11 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



Long-time University of California at Davis farrier Kirk Adkins shares some tips that may be useful when trimming or treating the hooves of older, arthritic horses or horses that have difficulty standing on three legs because of painful laminitis or neurological conditions.

This video may be helpful for some horses out there, and I thank Kirk for taking the time to put it together. I have also seen people stand horses on padding, put padded boots on the feet not being worked on, and keep thick scraps of carpet close at hand for cushioning.

If I had to guess, I'd say the "lean against the wall" option is the one I hear recommended most often, but that's not very safe for the horse or the humans around it.

None of us likes to see a horse go into restraining stocks like those used for a draft horse, but there are some interesting hoist rigs that people are making that, if used safely on horses that are well-trained or sedated, may be useful to just get the horse elevated enough to relieve the pain of standing on the opposite foot.

If you have ideas for solutions to this problem, please share them with Hoofcare and Lameness.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Friends at Work: "Go Over to the Pub and Get Paddy the Farrier..."

Farrier at work, County Kerry, Ireland, originally uploaded by yetiger.

Here's a little humor for a Sunday.

Show me a photo of normal people doing something and I'll try to imagine the relationships between them, and what they were doing and saying before and after the shutter clicked. Just a little mental exercise.

This photo was made to order. All the information I have is that it was taken in the town of Boolteens in County Kerry in the west of Ireland in 2006.

My story is that the owner of the pony gives tourists rides somewhere around the Ring of Kerry and his pony lost a shoe so he went looking for a friend whose uncle's sister-in-law is married to a farrier.

Half a day later, after hunting down and visiting with the uncle and the sister-in-law, and promising to take along a grandchild, they narrowed down the whereabouts of the farrier to the village pub (the building in the background looks like it could be a pub). They went to the forge and got his shoeing box and hoof stand and stormed into the pub, much to the farrier's surprise.

Would he come out on the sidewalk and nail the shoe back on? Since they had all this gear, he couldn't refuse, just merely shrugged and asked, "What took you so long? We heard you been leading that lame pony all round the village half the afternoon?"

And the grandchild is still tagging along because, in Ireland, kids always tag along.

I love the wave of the horse holder, who could be the owner of the pony but his friendly expression makes me think he could be the landlord (bartender).

The intense gaze of the fellow in the white shirt makes me think he's the owner of the pony. He's thinking about all the money he's not making while the pony is unharnessed from the trap. And he's no doubt ready to haggle with the farrier over the price.

What story would you make from this photo?

Video: CNN Finds Out What a Farrier Is

Congratulations to Georgia farriers Doug Workman and Dave Purves for a great job introducing a CNN news crew to the finer points of horseshoeing. Explaining the rocker toe was probably too complex for the minute-and-a-half time slot...but maybe they'll be back!

Thanks to Allison Zeger at Farrier Products Distribution for her help with the ornery html code for this video!

Friends at Rest: Don Davis

If Macy and Woolworth and Bean and Sears are some of the great family names of American retailing industry, you could certainly make a case for "Davis" being one of the great names of the American farrier industry. The Davis family's Ken Davis and Sons in Richwood, Ohio is one of the largest and deepest farrier supply stores in the world. They carry everything...or will get it for you.

So it is with great sadness that we tell you that one of the family icons has passed away.

R. Don Davis was one of the two sons in Ken Davis and Sons when he started working with his father and brother Jon in the 1950s. I'm sure when he was going from farm to farm to sell horse supplies to the Amish back then, Don had no idea what his efforts would turn into, or that after 50 years, it would still be a family business. Don's sons Dean and Scott run Ken Davis and Sons today, and do a great job of it.

In the past ten years or so, many new farrier supply companies have sprouted up and some of the great old ones have passed to new hands. Ken Davis and Sons is one that always seems to stand with one foot in the past and one foot in the future...much like many of the great farriers I have known. It seems to be a surefire formula for success.

For information about services for Don, visit www.stofcheck-ballingerfuneralhome.com.

Brumby Research Results: Wild Horses Switched Between Terrain Types in Australia to Observe Transition; Wild Hoof Researcher to Speak in Missouri

by Fran Jurga | 29 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

The Australian Brumby Research Unit has completed an experimental transfer of horses between different terrains, over 1000 miles apart. The results were recently announced after massive amounts of data, including hoof growth vs. wear measurements, were compiled. The purpose of the switch was for scientists to observe and document the transition that horses go through when environmental conditions change.

PhD candidate Brian Hampson commented in the research group’s newsletter that one mare, Christine/Footloose, had been removed from the program. Christine had been moved from a soft coastal environment to a hard desert terrain, and the researchers judged her wear to be exceeding her growth, in spite of the external remodeling of her hoof into a more ideal natural form.

Hampson reported that the mare’s sole depth had been reduced but that her wall thickness had not been affected by the transfer at the proximal border but had been reduced slightly at the distal border, due to rolling wear on the harder ground.

Brumby Christine as she appeared when taken off her soft coastal habitat (top two photos) and after three months in hard substrate desert terrain (bottom two photos), as part of an experimental switch between herds in Australia. Her hoof wear was 3x that of another mare and she lost considerable condition (weight) during the period. Researchers decided to remove her from the experiment even though her feet, as shown, seemed markedly more healthy and robust by natural hoofcare parameters but welfare was of equal concern.

“Christine’s feet…had totally transformed from long splayed feet to stout hard feet,” Hampson wrote. “They look great but the data tells us they were in a state of imbalance with wear exceeding growth…She was not coping with the change in substrate and the change in environment, including diet. Seeing the condition (she) was in following three months in the new environment makes us relieved that we didn’t put domestic horses into this environment as was initially planned…It appears some horses may not cope well with such a drastic change in environment.”

The research team has shortened the duration of the desert swap from 12 to 8 weeks to reduce the chances of deterioration of other horses in the program.

The publication of Pollitt’s team’s results stimulated a critical rebuttal from long-time US wild horse hoof expert Jaime Jackson, author of The Natural Horse. “Bungle in the Jungle” was Jackson’s title for critiquing several aspects of Pollitt’s and Hampson’s efforts, including questioning the wisdom of inviting Hampson to speak in America.

The mare Christine especially hit a nerve with Jackson, who felt that the mare would have been better served to be left out in the desert to tough it out. His critique outlines the basic premise of many barefoot transitionists, who feel that the end justifies the means. The means, which often translates to some level of pain for the horse, is objectionable to many people, and was probably not an option to a university research program operating under strict animal welfare guidelines.

Machiavellian hoofcare principles notwithstanding, Jackson closes his critique with a question to the world at large that is most definitely worthy of consideration. He asks, “Why aren't American researchers out in our own wild horse country? ….We need them out there now garnering important information about diet, habitat, behavior, and more. What we are getting is pharmaceutical funded research aimed at generating and dumping more and more dangerous chemicals, biotoxins, and molasses-laden feeds into horses that only complicate their lives -- and our work as humanitarian professionals. What is needed is useful, well-thought out, and science-based information…” Amen on that one, Jaime.

Jackson's comments can be read on his website, www.aanhcp.net.

USA LECTURE IN OCTOBER

The modern-day man from Snowy River is alive and well and headed for the USA. He who is charged with being kind to a sore-footed brumby, Dr. Pollit’s PhD candidate Brian Hampson, will travel to Missouri on October 17 and present a four-hour lecture outlining what the research team has learned from their extensive studies of wild horse herds in different environments. He will no doubt have to face his critics. He’ll have some out-takes from Dr. Pollitt’s high-definition video documentary of wild horse hooves and will bring freeze-dried brumby feet with him, which will be available for purchase.

Brian’s lecture is presented by a barefoot advocacy group called Liberated Horsemanship. The lecture is from 2-6 p.m. on October 17 at the National Equestrian Center in Lake St. Louis, MO. Registration is $50.

Dr. Pollitt will present a major lecture on the research project at the Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida on November 7, 2009.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Pollitt's Laminitis Images Have a New Look: MIMICS Software Goes 3-D

by Fran Jurga | 27 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

The cover of the Proceedings of the 2009 laminitis conference is a compilation of images of one foot of a chronic laminitis case from the University of Queensland in Australia. The foot's CT scans were converted to 3-D images using Mimics software and the expertise of Dr. Simon Collins of the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, England. (Double-click on image for a larger view in a new window, but sorry that the web requires a low-resolution version of a very high-resolution form.)

When the end of the Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot comes, attendees might remember proportionately less of what they heard...and more of what they saw.

The heightened visual aspect of the exciting biennial conference, which will be held November 6-8 in West Palm Beach, Florida, may lie in the technology side of things, but the impact will be an eyeful that everyone can appreciate.

Leave it to Dr. Chris Pollitt (photo inset at left), assistant director of the conference, to bring the latest and greatest technology to the conference and to enhance his presentations.

The new software is called MIMICS; it is made by a Belgian company called Materialise NV. In a nutshell, MIMICS converts CT scans into three-dimensional forms. I've also seen it used to model a nasal cavity for a surgery case at Cornell's vet school, and for a comparative study of the soft tissue structures of equine feet at Auburn University. Dr. Pollitt says that MIMICS software is used extensively for human skeletal reconstruction surgery and prosthetic implant design and simulation.

"Suddenly I can 'see' an individual horse’s foot from all angles and can virtually dissect it on the computer monitor," Dr Pollitt wrote in the Proceedings.

MIMICS was introduced to Dr Pollitt and to the world of laminitis by British hoof anatomy researcher Dr Simon Collins. Dr Collins will be in Palm Beach to explain how he uses computer modeling in his work at the Animal Health Trust, where he collaborates with lameness experts Drs Rachel Murray and Sue Dyson. His images will be dazzling.

Dr Pollitt wrote in his introductory essay in the Proceedings, "Analyses of feet with chronic laminitis clearly show that distorted tubular hoof growth, lamellar wedge formation and solar loading of the distal phalanx are relentlessly destructive to bone. It behooves laminitis caregivers to understand the unmitigated, severe chronic process and develop proactive, early intervention strategies that will measurably arrest the process. MIMICS in the hands of laminitis scientists will aid this process."

Does anyone besides me see great irony in the way that Dr Pollitt over the years has created stunning visual images of the terribly destructive disease of laminitis? The quality of his images is always worthy of Scientific American or National Geographic and yet the subject is the disease we all dread. Thanks to his artistic eye we all know what laminitis looks like, even though it's the disease we'd most like to see wiped off the equine map.

NOTE: The deadline for registration for the conference has been pushed back to September 28th, since the mail has been so slow in getting the brochures and registration forms to everyone. Brochures were sent to all subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Also, a reduced rate for two-person registrations has been added. Visit www.laminitisconference.com for more information.

Credit: Individual cover images were created by Dr. Simon Collins of the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, England using MIMICS software, and are used with permission; they illustrate pathology on the “Bronski” chronic laminitis case studied by Dr. Chris Pollitt at the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit in 2009. Cover montage and design by Fran Jurga will be published with Proceedings of the Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida November 6-8, 2009.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Friends at Work: Stanley Vasques Gives 40 Years to Kauai Horses

Stanley Vasques shoes horses on the beautiful Hawaiian outer island of Kauai; photo by Leo Dubois/The Garden Island

Wherever you are today, you are probably a long way from Stanley Vasques. But we all share an interest in horse hooves and their care. The only difference between most of us and him is that Stanley will wake up this morning and go to work in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Stanley has been shoeing horses on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for more than 40 years. An article about him was published in the island newspaper, and I thought you might like to get to know Stanley and see a little bit of his world.

Click here to read an article about someone who will wake up in paradise this morning and go out and shoe some horses.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

NEAEP Conference Preview: Patrick Reilly Will Report on Hoof Balance Studies

by Fran Jurga | 20 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

A last-minute addition to the 2009 NEAEP conference program is farrier Patrick Reilly from the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center. Pat is filling in for farrier David Farley; both Dave and Pat are on the board of the new organization, which has both farriers and veterinarians among its members.

Patrick's lectures will include interesting studies and observations of hoof balance. In the video clip above, you will see that he has been documenting comparative solar forces on the hoof during athletic activities. This video clip shows the extended trot, which will be compared to a working trot in both a straight line as well as on a 20-meter circle. Pat also has some interesting measurements of the solar forces during jumping, and a comparison of differing density rim pads during jumping.

Patrick's videos and the use of pressure-sensitive data collection media give him some opportunities to make observations that bring up plenty of questions. For example, the same horse might land toe first in one gait (such as the extended trot), but land heel first in the regular trot. Also, a horse might land laterally on one footing, but lands evenly with the same trim on another.

Data from the hoof is transmitted directly, rather than through a pressure-sensing plate in the ground

The rider in the video is Patrick's wife, Karen; the flashy horse is her own; they just won a national young horse title last month. Congratulations!

To read more about the NEAEP organization, click here.
To see the foot symposium program and find out about registration, click here.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Hoofcare@NEAEP: See You in Connecticut!

by Fran Jurga | 20 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Don't call the office this week. Hoofcare and Lameness will be on location at the first-ever conference of the Northeast Association of Equine Practitioners (NEAEP) in Ledyard, Connecticut. The new NEAEP organization is kicking off its public persona with a double-barreled lecture series from Wednesday through Friday. One lecture hall is podiatry only, while the other covers a range of veterinary topics, including equine sportsmedicine.

Chances are, you'll find me in the podiatry lectures. The NEAEP has brought together a great group of speakers--including Robin Dabareiner, Melissa Fagerlin, Ian McKinlay, Scott Morrison, Scott Pleasant and Patrick Reilly--and filled a trade show with exhibitors.

I will try to keep the blog updated from Connecticut, but if you are planning to attend--and I hope you are--please stop by the Hoofcare booth in the trade show and say hello!

Registration will be available on site; details are at www.neaep.net. See you there!

PS I chose this nice old illustration as our company's booth logo for this event because it is so old. It dates back to a time when farriery was veterinary medicine, and the art of bandaging a horse was an example of one of the many arts of farriery. NEAEP is an organization comprised of both veterinarians and farriers (and other horse health professionals) and I am looking forward to working with this organization for many years to come!

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Horseshoes CSI: Who Shod the Wall Street Bomber's Horse Back in 1920?

by Fran Jurga | 18 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Today's a dark day in New York history, and the day when horseshoes made the headlines of the New York Times...and it wasn't good news.

It was 89 years ago today that a horse and wagon ambled down Manhattan's Wall Street and exploded into bits in front of the Morgan Bank in an attempt to assassinate financier J.P. Morgan. Instead, the heinous act killed 38 innocent people and injured at least 300 more.

When the 9/11 tragedy struck in 2001, few people were familiar enough with New York history to know that it was not the first terrorist attack in lower Manhattan on a September day. The anarchists had tried it first.

All that was found of the wreck were the horses' hooves--all four showed up mysteriously in a neighborhood church. The police combed all the stables and blacksmith shops in New York City looking for clues…by trying to identify these horseshoes. Because the farrier had stamped the initials of his two unions ("JHU" and "NOA"), the NYPD detectives, Department of Justice (this was before the FBI) and Secret Service hoped the shoes could be traced back to horseshoers who belonged to both unions, until the detectives found out who had actually shod the horse.

To quote from the December 1920 edition of the Horseshoer’s Journal: "Of course, no onus is attached to the shoer, but the link of evidence is of greatest importance. (The horseshoer’s identity) lead to the arrest of the party responsible for the awful calamity which shocked not merely the whole of America, but the entire world."

This is one of the hind shoes taken off one of the hooves of the dead horse. The initials stamped in the shoe indicate union membership as a protection mark. Another union farrier might help out and reset the shoe if it was loose, but they would honor that horse as being shod by the brother. This was a code of honor among union horseshoers.

The headline in the New York Times read "200 Detectives Canvass Farrier Shops for Clue to Identity of Bomb Driver". The police began by enlisting their own farriers to analyze the horse shoes and tell them everything they could about them and the horse that might have worn them.

Finally the shoes were traced to the farrier shop of Finnegan and Kyle at 85 New Chambers Street and a farrier from the Bronx named John Heggarty.

How did Heggarty pick the shoes out as his? How would a farrier know his own shoe? Heggarty told the Times that he "found on the fore shoes the horizontal line just above the heel clip which he always has put on his handiwork as the sort of secret identification mark which all horseshoers use, largely for the purpose of know their own work in case of complaint. Haggerty is a non-union man and called attention to the absence of the JHU...from the front shoes, though they were on the hind shoes.

What's going on at the site of the shoeing forge at 85 New Chambers Street in Manhattan today, thanks to Google Maps

Unfortunately Heggarty couldn't (or wouldn't) remember who brought the horse in, and said as way of explanation that he shod eight to 12 horses a day. The shop is near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Fulton Street Ferry, so police speculated that the horse had come from off Manhattan.

Interestingly, farrier unions are among the oldest in America, and in the 1920s, farrier unions espoused what sounds today like extreme left-wing rhetoric. An editorial in the same edition of the Horseshoer's Journal calls on local unions to "oust their Bolshevik members". Was Heggarty a Bolshevik sympathizer? Did he re-use someone else's shoes who was a union member for the hind feet of the horse? What happened to him?

This story raises many more questions than it answers, but it offers many great history lessons. I highly recommend the archives of the New York Times, which are available online, or interested blog readers can email me or leave comments to continue this discussion.

In Boston also in 1920, the JHU struck against the Master Horseshoers Association; employee farriers (journeymen) walked out of the large city farrier shops owned by the powerful master farrier owners. The city stopped.

The year 1920 was also the height of the horse population in the USA: an estimation 25 million horses, perhaps even more, were hard at work in the cities and on farms, compared to less than 10 million today. (Estimates range from 6 to 9 million horses.)


To this day, the crime has never been solved, but the scars on Wall Street have never been repaired. They remain as a solemn reminder of the day a horse and wagon became the first suicide bombers in the neighborhood. But not the last.

Portions of this article originally appeared in Hoofcare and Lameness #75. Thanks to the New York Times archives and especially to Cornell University's Flower Sprecher Library at the College of Veterinary Medicine for help in preparing this article.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Laminitis Prevention: Is Current Body Condition Scoring Irrelevant for Ponies?

by Fran Jurga | 18 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

A 9.2 hand, 12-year-old spotted pony named Firefly suffered from overgrown feet and laminitis in England in April 2007. She couldn't walk properly, but her owner refused to have her cared for, nor would she sign the pony over to the World Horse Welfare. A court case ensued and the owner lost her right to own horses for two years.

Here's Firefly in September 2007, on her way to full recovery and adoption to a new home. The research project funded by WHW at the University of Liverpool suggests that it is difficult to assign an objective body condition score to ponies using the system designed for larger horses.

Researchers at the department of clinical science at Britain's University of Liverpool, with support from the World Horse Welfare charity, presented new research at the annual convention of the British Equine Veterinary Association(BEVA) last week.

The question: how accurate is conventional equine body condition scoring for weight loss management when the equine being evaluated is an overweight pony?

The study, entitled Managed Weight Loss in Obese Ponies: Evaluating Weight Change, Health and Welfare, involved five mature, overweight or obese ponies and aimed to restrict their feed intake (on a dry matter basis) to 1% of body weight of a chaff-based complete diet for 12 weeks.

During this time the ponies' weight change, health parameters and behavior were monitored. All ponies remained healthy throughout the whole trial and an appropriate and safe rate of weight loss was achieved.

Clare Barfoot BSc (Hons) RNutr, registered nutritionist and the research and development manager for SPILLERS® (British horse feed company) explained: “Body weight decreased at a steady rate. However, despite significant weight loss, the body condition scores of the ponies didn't change. This highlights the concern that body condition scoring may not be the most effective way to monitor early weight loss in ponies.”

Even in this well-managed study, the feeding activity of the dieting ponies was decreased by 74 percent compared to ad libitum intake, highlighting the need for a practical feeding system that is both effective at managing weight loss but is sensitive to behavioral needs.

The WALTHAM® Equine Studies group was closely involved with this study as it has been with other groundbreaking work on equine obesity, such as showing that an obese body condition score was associated with increased insulin resistance back in 2003, and developing the cresty neck scoring system.

In response to the study, the research group is in the process of developing a new condition scoring system designed specifically for ponies. “This will involve validating the relationship between actual measurements of body fatness and the external appearance of the pony,” said Alex Dugdale, lead researcher for the study at Liverpool University.

Note: information provided by Spillers was used in the preparation of this blog post.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Texas A&M Adds Full-Time Farrier to Hospital Staff

by Fran Jurga | 17 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Jason Wilson-Maki is the first resident farrier at Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine's Large Animal Hospital.

The following article is provided by Angela Clendenin of Texas A&M University. I don't think I know Jason Wilson-Maki, but wish him the best of luck in his new position and congratulate A&M for taking the important step of hiring a full-time farrier. Photographs were also provided by A&M.

COLLEGE STATION, TX –A certain specialization that is often overlooked or unknown by many people today is that of a farrier. A farrier’s job is to provide shoes for horses, and to work on their hoof problems. The Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences does a lot of work on lame horses, and a big part of treatment for horses’ hooves often requires therapeutic shoeing, and a specialist who knows what to do.

“For years, Texas A&M has had a farrier contract on an 'as needed' basis,” said Dr. Kent Carter, Professor of Equine Lameness and Chief of Medicine at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine Large Animal Hospital. “The problem with this type of contract is that we don’t always know when we are going to need a farrier and that makes us unable to provide full service to our clients.”

One year ago the faculty decided to do more towards pursuing a full time farrier to provide a better resource for our clients as well as a better teaching and learning environment for professional veterinary students.

“We set out on a national search for a full-time farrier and received a tremendous response,” said Carter. “There were 30 or 40 applicants who were narrowed down to 12, and finally we interviewed 5 of them. Jason Wilson-Maki had the most outstanding interview.”

A native of Ohio and a 1997 graduate of the Heartland Horseshoeing School, Jason was qualified for the job because of his previous experience and teaching. He also has a double certification in the American Farrier’s Association and the Farrier’s Guild (Guild of Professional Farriers). He showed great enthusiasm about horses and teaching during his interview and began work at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine during October of 2008.

Wilson-Maki feels that one of the greatest benefits of working as a farrier at a vet hospital, as opposed to being self-employed, is that working with so many veterinarians eliminates the guesswork, and is of greater benefit to the horses.

“Having a diagnosis and a prescription reduces the amount of trial and error required to improve an animal’s performance or soundness” said Wilson-Maki. “Moreover, the direct communication between the clinicians and myself benefits the animal by reducing the risk of a miscommunication. If I have any technical or application concerns, these issues can be discussed. This facilitates an individualized, comprehensive treatment for the animal which accomplishes the goals of the attending clinician and stays in step with the fundamental principles of sound farriery. This team approach is a great joy for me.”

Since such a huge part of an equine veterinarian’s career has to do with providing the physical skills needed to handle problematic hooves, Wilson-Maki’s expertise has taken the veterinary medical students’ education to the next level.

Jason Maki and Dr. Kent Carter (far right) with Texas A&M vet students.

“It has been such an enjoyable experience interacting with the vet students,” said Wilson-Maki. “It is great to be able to see the light go on in their heads when applying certain aspects that they have been taught, but have not been able to apply until now. The students are constantly challenging me with questions that I must sometimes pause to think about the answer! Working at the CVM has truly been the best experience of my life.”

From enhancing veterinary medical education to providing value added service for clients, the farrier service at the veterinary medical teaching hospital has given the clinicians at the CVM another tool for helping their patients.

“Having a full-time farrier on staff has been extremely beneficial” said Carter. “We are able to provide a more consistent and thorough job for clients, as well as a better learning experience for students pursuing their veterinary degrees.”

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

The World Would Be a Better Place If There Were More of These

Farrier Vane, originally uploaded by Dave Angood.

Weathervanes, that is. They are one of the best ways to make a statement. A silhouette against the sky can be seen from afar and a good blacksmith can create a work of art to go atop a barn's cupola, a vet clinic, or a mobile home. Or a car dealership, clam shack or tipi.

It takes the observer's eye up to the sky and there's something uplifting about that, it more ways than one.

I just wish it wasn't so hard to get a good photo of a weathervane! It seems like there are always power lines or something in the way, or I can't get a good angle from the ground.

This is my new favorite weathervane, captured on film by Dave Angood, who tells me he found it atop an old barn inside some fortress-like gates near Swaffham in Norfolk, England. He allowed me to share it with Hoof Blog readers. I kept staring at it for the longest time this morning.

It reminds me of the beautiful weathervanes made by a farrier and heavy horse expert named Richard Gowing in England. If Richard didn't make it, surely his past work helped inspire it. Our friend the late Edward Martin from Scotland made beautiful weathervanes too.

Weathervanes carry some responsibility, of course. They have to be aligned with the earth. In our little seaside village, my salty old neighbor died and left a provision in his will that money from his estate be used to get steeplejacks to come and re-orient the weathervane on top of the church which, over the years, have drifted out of alignment.

It really bothered him. He saw the vane as a tool to check the wind as he drove toward the harbor each morning rather than the beautiful ornament on the church that the rest of us saw.

It's fixed now.

What--and where--is your favorite weathervane?

Thanks to Dave Angood for his hard work in getting such a good shot of this beautiful weathervane. Dave's trying to find out more about it and I'll add more details if he reports back.

Been There, Done That? Farrier Shrine on a City Street in Florence, Italy

by Fran Jurga | 13 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

What are these shrines decorating the narrow street Sdrucciolo di San Michele in Florence, Italy?

British Columbia veterinarian Geoff Gaunt was strolling down the narrow streets of Florence, Italy on his summer vacation when he looked up...and smiled. He snapped a photo for the farriers back home, and I'm sharing it with you all, too.

Dr. Gaunt just happened to be standing in a magic place, in front of the church of Orsanmichele. This is no ordinary church; it dates back to the 8th century. But in the early 1300s, the church was damaged by fire. Who came to its rescue but the trade guilds in the city who were, strangely enough, also patrons of the artists. In exchange for their patronage, the guilds stipulated that shrines to their patron saints would be erected on the exterior of Orsanmichele.

Dr. Gaunt recognized a familiar scene when he looked up: anvils, hammers, and farriers at work. (Photo: Dr Geoff Gaunt)

Cue the moneychangers, the judges and notaries, the wool combers, the armorers, the flax merchants, the silk weavers, the shoemakers, the carpenters and masons, and the grocers. And, most definitely, cue the smiths!

You don't have to be a veterinarian to know that something isn't right about the left front leg of that horse; the legend of St Eligius (also called St Eloi) is known throughout Europe. (Photo: Dr Geoff Gaunt)

The smiths commissioned Nanni, the son of noted artist Antonio di Banco, to create their shrine to St Eligius, the patron saint of smiths and farriers everywhere. Not only did Nanni sculpt the figure, he created a bas relief at the foot depicting the saint's famed deed--removing the leg of a fractious horse, taking it to the anvil, shoeing the foot, and then returning it to the horse.

It's all right there on the city street of Florence, decorated with little panels of tongs. In fact, the guild shrines are undergoing restoration now. Some are being replaced by replicas, since the originals are so valuable.

This action by the guilds in Florence is similar to the financing of the stained glass windows in the cathedral at Chartres in France. If you go there, you will find a stained glass window of a farrier at work, possibly St Eligius again.

The museum guidebook tells us that the guilds decorated the statues on their feast days and on St Anne's day. St Eligius Day is the first week in December and is a shoeing holiday all over Europe in the Catholic countries. Farriers and smiths gather and have a day of feasting and parade through the streets with their banners. No work is done.

It's easy to imagine farriers for the last 600 years marching down this little street to this shrine. Some day I'd like to be there to greet them...if there are any left in Florence, the world's great capital of art. Now we know that the smiths and farriers helped make Florence that art capital...just another amazing fact in the worldwide history and tradition of the shoeing smith.

Thanks to Dr Geoff Gaunt for sharing his photos with Hoofcare and Lameness. Click here to visit the web site for his Elk Lake Veterinary Hospital in Victoria, BC.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Dubai Horse Hooves Are Being Molded, Not Shod, with Experimental Hoof Application Process

by Fran Jurga | 12 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Take a really close look at this "shoe". What looks at first glance like a Natural Balance shoe is actually a urethane hoof application created on the foot by injecting Vettec Adhere material into a mold. Vettec Superfast is sometimes also used, but Derek said that in this particular shoe, Adhere made the shoe more flexible.

Here's the ground surface of a six-degree short-heart bar, made for a horse with a fractured navicular bone.

A new shoeing technique developed in Dubai by South African farrier Derek Poupard is offered for your comments. In addition to the photos above, we have a short video showing how the mold is applied and the material is inserted, and the removal of the model to reveal a "shoe", if you want to call it that.

"This is so new, I only put my first one on 4 months ago, and after doing hundreds I now feel it is time to expose it," Derek wrote in an email. "I have only shown it to a handful of farriers here and right from the word go they embraced it and it is very rewarding to see their response as they peel of a mold seeing the perfect shoe. They all describe it as a revelation and every time they use it, it gives them the same feeling over and over again."

This has been a big year for plastic and composite horseshoes. First Curlin won the great classics of his four-year-old career last fall wearing square-toed Polyflex shoes of polyurethane. Then Steffen Peters and Ravel won the World Cup of dressage wearing plastic Eponashoes. This week, the venerable Horse and Hound news magazine from London carries a feature article touting the popularity of plastic shoes, especially those designed by our friend, the clever Andrew Poynton, who has expanded his moldable Imprint therapeutic plastic heartbars into sporty new models for competition horses.

And now we have the possibility of design-it-yourself hoof molds to make not shoes, exactly, but something else, a hybrid lighter and perhaps more cohesive with the foot than a separate shoe attached by nails would be. While steel and nails have their advantages too, this new technique may find a niche of its own, or become a platform for inventors or farriers and veterinarians faced with challenging hoof injuries or deformities.

This second video was made a while ago by a Dubai television station that visited the royal stables where Derek works. It's a nice view into the facility and shows Derek's previous traditional use of glue-on shoes on a Thoroughbred racehorse.



Eventually, Derek's molds will be available for sale, I'm sure, but in the meantime, the floor is open for comments. He's a world away from almost all of us and would like to hear from you, I'm sure.

Much more information is available at www.quixshoe.com.

Some American readers may remember Derek from his time spent living and shoeing in Virginia. He has been featured in Hoofcare and Lameness Journal in the past but when he left the USA several years ago, we lost track of him. A royal farrier shop in Dubai is an interesting place for him to be found.

New shoes continue to come on the market or be passed around as prototypes. This process is quite unique, though, and while it seems cumbersome and awkward at this stage, it is sure to improve and become more streamlined.

What could your imagination do with technology like this? What if...

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Rachel Alexandra: Preparing to Make History in Saturday's Woodward Stakes at Saratoga

Rachel Alexandra: Preparing to Make History in Tomorrow's Woodward Stakes, originally uploaded by Rock and Racehorses.

The go-go girl herself takes to the track at Saratoga on Saturday. Miracle filly Rachel Alexandra skipped the Travers Stakes for three-year-olds in order to challenge older males in the shorter mile-and-an-eighth Grade 1 Woodward Stakes.

Expect Saratoga to be the site of the biggest traffic jam in New York State since Woodstock. Really. Since the race is not televised, the only way to witness this historic event is to Be There.

My guess is that there's a pool somewhere on what the gate attendance will be. Perfect weather is forecast.

Will someone who has TVG or HRTV or OTB call me and hold the phone so I can hear Tom Durkin call the race? I'd like to hear history firsthand, even if I can't see it.

Ace photographer Sarah K. Andrew of Rock and Racehorses just uploaded this nice shot of Rachel leaning into her bath sponge so I thought I would share it with you all. Thanks, Sarah, for the perfect timing and the beautiful photo.

Win or lose, Rachel Alexandra has made this an exciting summer. Right about now, she's camped out in the detention barn so she knows something is up. What is up is that New York and the nation has fallen in love with this horse and what they think she can do, who they think she is, and the time is just exactly right.

I don't know if this will be her last race or not but with each and every race, work, and schooling session she went through at Saratoga, I marveled that she's been my good news story of the year. And I want her to stay that way.

Safe home, filly.

The Universal Farrier Apprentice

by Fran Jurga | 2 September 2009 | Fran Jurga Hoof Blog



I had an idea for this blog post: Everyone turn the sound off when you watch this video, and then you won't be influenced by the location. Because for nine minutes and thirty seconds, this video takes you into a universal setting. This shoeing forge could be in Colorado or Sweden or Turkey or Japan or New Zealand, with few changes. It's a pretty universal scene.

However, the sound is very nicely recorded and adds a lot; after a while, the apprentice's voice comes on and you'll hear what it's like to train as a second-year apprentice farrier in remote Donegal, on the northwestern edge of Ireland.

I play a lot of games when I watch farrier videos (and I watch a lot of them). I love to watch the background activity (and give bonus points for multiple dogs) and in this case, the shoe pile jumps out of the background and dominates the whole forge. Obviously they aren't worried about earthquakes in Donegal or else John and Heather will be buried in old shoes some day.

A game I like to play with non-US videos is to try to pick out the countries where tools and clothing and shop decor were made. In this video we see Kevin Keegan's ubiquitous Hoof Jack--is there a country on earth that the Hoof Jack hasn't conquered? I'm staring at one in my office right now as I write this.

Readers: send in photos of your Hoof Jacks in a native setting showing what it's like in your part of the world where you live and work. Just make sure the Hoof Jack is in the photo somewhere. I'll post them on the blog.

I wondered where the loop knife came from: Canada? Australia? Montana? Germany? and John's apron has a made-in-the-USA look to it. The "w" on the shoes is the forge is a giveaway that they are by Werkman and from Holland.

That's just a start, you can take it from there. Many thanks to the gentle director and editor who refrained from a voiceover narration, intro music and splashy graphics. They had the good sense to just let this scene speak for itself so those of us who know what to listen and look for, can. And I hope you will.

It's just ten minutes out there in the farrier universe.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Video: Watch Elastic, Athletic Dutch Dressage Stallion Set a New World Record

by Fran Jurga | 30 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



Just the other day this blog was quoting the superlatives coming out of the European dressage championships at Windsor Castle in England. Things went from the greatest to the unbelievable last night when, for the first time ever, a score above 90% was awarded in the musical freestyle to Dutch rider Edward Gal and the nine-year-old black stallion Moorlands Totilas.

I don't know what sort of biomechanics study could be done on this horse to figure out how he does what he does. He doesn't seem large. Doesn't look massive in the hind end. He actually looks quite closely coupled, yet his strides in the extended trot and canter look to be ground-gobbling. I can only assume that all his parts are equally massive, equally developed in a harmonious unit and yet...how does he manage to be so light on his feet, so loose at the shoulder?

I know one problem with watching this horse is that the rider is a very tall man, so his frame gives the illusion that the horse is smaller than he probably is.

Maybe a scanning session would show that his tendons and ligaments are bionic, that he has the support system of a warmblood on the feather-light skeleton of a racehorse. Something's up with this horse--something wonderful.

Holland also finished in second and third place. I'm certainly not an expert or a dressage critic and nothing should be taken away from Parzival and Salinero, yet it is interesting to see how differently constructed they are, and how their frames appear larger and especially longer. These horses seem to be exquisitely (and successfully) focused in order to nail the exact movements, like a tennis player at Wimbledon taking exact aim, while the black seems to perform them in a more relaxed mode, a la Tiger Woods.

Edward Gal and Moorlands Totilas performed to Celtic-type music, complete with echoing drums and ringing church bells, in the shadow of England's Windsor Castle. And it worked.(FEI photo by Kit Houghton)

With luck, Totilas will stay sound and remain in training for a trip to the USA next September for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Kentucky. A lot can happen between now and then, including the return of the top Germans who were sidelined for this week's competition.

Share this video, savor this moment, and celebrate this horse. This is what a sound, healthy horse looks like at the peak of condition without a thought of resistance or tension on his mind.

Watching Totilas brings to mind the fleet-footed racing star of this year, filly Rachel Alexandra, who seems to win her races for the joy of running fast because she can. It seems 2009 is a year of at least two great horses at the pinnacle of their respective sports. Enjoy them while they are here with us; we all know that soundness can be fleeting and they are two of the legends we'll remember in the future.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

California Statistics Reveal Dangerous Trend in Hind Limb Breakdowns on Artificial Tracks

by Fran Jurga | 28 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Data on racing breakdowns compiled by the University of California at Davis tracks the incidence of injuries, the seasonality of injuries and which limb is affected, among many other data points recorded. A publication of recent statistics presented to the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) reveals a disturbing prevalence of hind limb injuries that led to the death of racehorses last year.

While the report is not available at present, the Los Angeles Times today reported that the study presented to the CHRB yesterday reveals that 19 horses died on California tracks from hind limb injuries in 2008, and that those injuries were split pretty evenly between left and right hinds. Only one horse died from a hind limb injury on a dirt track.

Breakdowns on the front limbs were somewhat more comparable between dirt and artificial tracks, but the artificial breakdowns still exceeded the dirt tracks: 74 horses broke down in front on artificial tracks while 59 broke down in front on dirt tracks.

Some people feel that this is an invalid comparison, and that trainers will often work a horse on a synthetic track that they would not work on a dirt track.

UC Davis examined 351 cadavers of breakdowns in its search for new insights into why racehorses are so susceptible to fatal injuries.

California has a 4 mm limit on toe grabs on front shoes and allows horses to run barefoot.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Behind the Scenes with the Farriers at the European Championships

by Fran Jurga | 28 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Say hello to the farriers backstage: Brendan Murray, official show farrier, is on the right and Dieter Kronert, German team farrier, on left are working at Windsor Castle in England this week. Photo by Haydn Price, British dressage team farrier.

As a post script to last night's blog post about the spectacular world record-breaking dressage rides at the Euro championships in England yesterday, here's a first-hand quote from British dressage team farrier Haydn Price after watching Britain win individual bronze behind two Dutch riders who both set new world records:

"We are still pinching ourselves and hoping not to wake up to find that the last 48 hours has all been a dream.

"Yesterday was such a special day and quite emotional. We have waited so long for this and so many individuals have contributed to such an amazing result.

"We also witnessed history in the making with record scores both as a nation and global.
What a privilege it is to be part of it!"

I'm sure that Haydn and all the nations' farriers had a big role in the elevation of these horses to scores that had the judges wondering that a 10 was simply not a good enough measure of the movement the horse had performed.

Please scroll down in this blog to read yesterday's story and see one of the horses frozen in a moment of strength and beauty.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Picture Power: Hock Lock in Dressage Drama at Euro Championships

by Fran Jurga | 27 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Whether you call it the plantar plant, the hock lock or the tarsal torque, this photograph is a keeper. Events send me lots of competition photos, all very nice, but this one shows a horse working very, very hard. Double-click on this photo for an enlarged view to see the detail of this movement. You can almost feel the horse holding himself in place on the footing. The FEI rule book stipulates that the right hind would stay in place throughout the movement, although video analysis has shown that horses don't or perhaps can't actually do that. (FEI Photo by Kit Houghton)

The horse is Mistral Hojris, a Danish-bred ridden by Britain's Laura Bechtolsheimer today in the Grand Prix Special individual competition at the Alltech FEI European Championships at Windsor Castle in England. Records fell there today as not one but two Dutch riders--Gold medalist Adelinde Cornilessen and silver medalist Edward Gal--broke records for high scores in that event. And Laura and Mistral won the bronze medal for Great Britain, as she finished ahead of Olympic gold medalist Anky Van Grunsven, also of The Netherlands.

The announcer reportedly said when Laura came down the centerline to halt, "You can breathe again." And he didn't just mean Laura, he meant the entire British audience. Chef d'equipe Will Connell even blogged that the farrier had tears in his eyes watching the ride.

If you are one of those who still thinks that dressage is boring, consider this statement from Ground Jury President Stephen Clarke who said "I've judged a few championships in my time but I've never seen sport like this. This was the greatest moment in dressage history - we've never seen riders performing at such a level before and now the sport is wide open - anyone can win. I want to applaud the courage of the riders who rode so brilliantly under pressure - this was an outstanding day," he added. "At times the hair was standing up on the back of my neck! At odd moments, we were saying to each other '10's are just not enough' to reward what we have seen."

Interviewed after the event, silver medalist Edward Gal commented, when asked if there is now a new Dutch school of dressage, "It’s about how we ride. It feels good and it looks good, but it’s not just about training. We just keep the horses happy. You need to adapt your riding to your horse and not the other way around."

The musical freestyle is the next event at the championships, and will be held on Saturday.

This photo in a way reminds me of the nice photo from California of champion Thoroughbred mare Zenyatta bursting from the starting gate on hind legs acting like power thrusters. It was on the blog a few weeks ago. I like photos that show athletic horses fully engaged, working hard; they are something magnificent to behold. Capturing it in a split second with a camera is very difficult.

If you enlarge the photo you will also see that the grooming regimen for Mistral Hojris didn't include close-shaving his muzzle, although it may have been tidied up a bit.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Rachel and Kensei: Footwear of the Fleet and Famous during Travers Week at Saratoga

by Fran Jurga | 24 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

With legs like these, you can understand why champion racehorse Rachel Alexandra was chosen to model for a portrait in the August issue of Vogue magazine. She posed for fashion photographer (and horse owner) Stephen Klein soon after winning the Preakness Stakes in May. Sarah K. Andrew snapped this shot in Saratoga a few weeks ago, when Rachel was awaiting a visit by horseshoer David Hinton.

Note: the double or bonded shoe on her left front is an optical illusion; it's a reflection in a puddle on the stall mat. Rachel wears flat made-in-the-USA raceplates in front, according to Hinton and is so well mannered that when he accidentally dropped her foot once, she delicately picked her foot back up and placed it right back in his hand.

What's the definition of pressure in horse racing? Hinton knew he might need to shoe Rachel Alexandra after she was purchased in early May. When the decision was made to run her in the Preakness, it meant that she needed to be shod that day. That's right: the morning of the race. Each nail driven into the hoof was a chance to draw blood; one jerk, one rear and a rasp might scrape her coronet. But nothing went wrong. Nothing has gone wrong, that we know of. She just keeps on running.

Comparing this photo to the Vogue shot, I'd say the combination of a Saratoga lifestyle, Asmussen training, Hinton's hoofcare and Jackson ownership are all agreeing with the filly; her hoof walls look much better after a couple of months at the Spa. Maybe Rachel should consider permanent residence!

NEWS FLASH! Trainer Steve Asmussen announced this morning that Rachel Alexandra will run against older horses in the Woodward at Saratoga on September 5th. The Grade 1 Woodward is a 1 1/8 miles and on dirt, of course. Now, if it could just be on television...


Rachel's stablemate Kensei is headed to Saturday's Traves Stakes for three-year-olds, where he will face Quality Road, Summer Bird and Mine That Bird, among others. Kensei made winning the Jim Dandy Stakes look easy; he did it wearing these Burns Polyflex glue-on shoes. They have the square-toe polyurethane design made for another Asmussen trainee, Curlin, when he was training at Saratoga last summer. Kensei is still carrying some of the racetrack around with him as a souvenir.

Athletic footwear is a big deal in other sports, why am I the only one who seems to care about what these horses are wearing? It does make a difference: just like a basketball player prefers a certain brand of shoe or height of shoe, these horses must have preferences. They just can't tell us. But they can tell a good horseshoer, and they do.

A good horseshoer can see in the way the shoe is worn, and where it is worn and not worn, whether the horse is using the shoe and landing in a functional way, and using the shoe to push off. You can read a horseshoe and you can read a foot, and if you're good at it, you can help keep a horse comfortable and safe on its feet. It's an important job. And it matters. Boy, does it matter.

Many, many thanks to Sarah K. Andrew for her patience and effort in getting these photos and allowing The Hoof Blog to post them here. Sarah became intrigued with her own horse's shoeing and started to notice the feet of horses at the track, much to my delight. Most photographers don't even think to aim the camera at a horse's feet and legs, but there's a lot of information there that a good photograph can convey, as well as the beauty of one of nature's most amazing structures.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.