Showing posts with label Brian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian. Show all posts

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Hoof Research Road Show Premieres This Weekend: Pollitt-Hampson Laminitis and Wild Horse Hooves Headline in Australia

by Fran Jurga | 7 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Dr. Pollitt is known for his hoof-related research but part of his ability to get people to listen is his dazzling imagery. These images are from a series of CT scans of a foot. (©Chris Pollitt/AELRU image)

A couple of weeks ago, there was a street scene here in Boston that was wilder than anything since the Red Sox won the World Series. U2 was in the town. That's not so unusual in itself--the band might play Fenway Park or some other huge venue and sell it out for three or four nights of legendary concerts.

But this was different. They secretly booked a tiny concert hall in the suburb of Somerville.

I can remember, vaguely, that the Rolling Stones did something similar years ago. They wanted to play a small, intimate little theater where they could see the audience and judge how the music was received.

The same thing is going on this weekend in the southern end of Australia, where Dr. Chris Pollitt and his PhD candidate assistant Brian Hampson are quietly opening a new series of lectures on laminitis and hoof research. They'll be at the University of Melbourne Friday, and in Tasmania Sunday.

Dr. Pollitt's been lecturing about laminitis for years, but his work now has the added synergy of the brumby (wild horse) research component, which in turn has been energized by some out-of-the-box thinking about domestic vs wild horses that will have all of us scratching our heads when we finally hear these lectures.

Dr. Pollitt's model foot begins with a MIMICS image, created in collaboration with Dr Simon Collins, Animal Health Trust, Newmarket, UK

There were gasps of apprehension when Dr. Pollitt stepped down as professor at the University of Queensland vet school, but the research world was pleased. Freedom from teaching would surely allow him to dedicate full time to his directorship of the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit, the world's leading center for laminitis research at the University of Queensland.

To everyone's surprise, something else happened. In addition to charging forward on the laminitis front with a collaboration with the Laminitis Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, he started a second research center, the brumby unit, designed to study the hooves of Australian wild horses so that he could finally come to understand how a normal foot is supposed to function.

For years, Dr Pollitt has said that his hands have been tied in laminitis research because he is trying to understand a disease mechanism in the foot without being able to compare it to the normal functioning foot because we simply don't have a good model of the normal foot.

So Pollitt and his research associate, Brian Hampson, and most recently with sidekick American veterinarian Dr. Donald Walsh of Missouri, have been trekking through the outback of Australia studying wild horses in wet, dry, rocky, sandy and even flooded terrain. They watch, they film, they tag, they camp, they bring volunteer research assistants, and they've collect data--volumes of it, none of which has been shared except in tantalizing tidbits until now.

Donald Walsh DVM of Missouri, president of the Animal Health Foundation in Pacific, Missouri, has been conducting laminitis research in Australia but rode out on brumby research expeditions with Pollitt and Hampson. Walsh has been studying wild horse feet in the USA; the Animal Health Foundation helps fund Pollitt's laminitis research. (Brumby Research Unit Photo)

Marg Richardson, a research team member of the Australian Brumby Research Unit, is one of the hosts for the lecturers this weekend and has organized the warmup tour.

She is particularly excited to be introducing Brian Hampson in his first official speaking tour. At the Australian Brumby Research Unit, Hampson is undertaking world-leading research by capturing and sedating brumbies, attaching GPS collars, tracking their movement and then recording the relevant data for herd groups. This includes what they are eating, the condition of their hooves and how much they are moving.

One of the marketing projects launched by the Australian Brumby Research Unit is making freeze-dried brumby feet available to other researchers.

Maybe, it turns out, to understand a lot about hooves we need to learn to a little bit about behavior. “Never has the saying of ‘No Foot No Horse’ been more obvious, when you see how much these horses move,” Hampson says. “We have tracked the movement of domestic horses in a variety of settings from the racing environment (to) five-acre paddocks (and) up to 10,000 acre paddocks to see the variation of movement and it has been quite staggering. Old brood mares turned out in paddocks are moving more over a 24-hour period than our elite race horses."

Dr. Pollitt's presentations will center on using computed tomography imagery to share the inside view of what happens to the hoof in laminitis and other hoof diseases, compared to normal hooves. Digital images from the CT scans, arranged in 3-D will also allow manipulation of the model to observe whatever tissue is of interest. Models will be shown for laminitis, side bone and normal feet.

A world tour is planned, of course; Dr Pollitt plans to speak at the 5th International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida, to be held November 6-8. See you there.

It sounds like Brian Hampson is ready for a world tour of his own.

I am not positive that places are still open in the lectures, but you can inquire. Please email Marg Richardson or phone (in Australia) 64 272255 or 0419 572255. Click here for a press release and links to flyers from the Equine Veterinarians Australia web site.

To learn more, visit both The Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit and the Australian Brumby Research Unit.

© 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.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Friends at Work: Meet Brian Cameron, Award-Winning National Senior Apprentice Farrier in New Zealand

by Fran Jurga | 4 December 2008 | www.hoofcare.blogspot.com

When New Zealand apprentice farrier Brian Cameron puts down the last horse's hoof at the end of a day of shoeing, he puts his own foot in the stirrup and starts schooling his show jumpers.

Brian was recently awarded the title of National Senior Apprentice for his achievements with his mentor, senior farrier Jock Good.

This article is not just a good view of a hardworking young farrier who wants to excel; it offers insight into the New Zealand system of farrier training, which I have always thought was very good. THey not only have a system for apprentices with college training, but also offer continuing education courses with credits for working farriers--or at least they did when I was there.

You might see Brian Cameron in the farrier competition tents soon--or in the show jumping ring. He seems set to succeed in both arenas!

Click here
to read about Brian and the farrier training system in New Zealand, as published today in the Taranaki Daily News in New Zealand..

Brian seems to be following in the hoofprints of show jumper Bernard Denton, who didn't make the Kiwi show jumping team for Hong Kong on his high-flying jumper Suzuki, but as a consolation prize was chosen as the team's farrier!



© 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.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The Environmental Hoof: Will Wild Horse Feet Adapt to a Sudden Change in Climate and Terrain? Australian Researchers Switch Brumbies, Observe Hooves

By Fran Jurga and Brian Hampson | November 25, 2008 | www.hoofcare.blogspot.com

Herding horses out of the bush in Australia; photo by Dr. Chris Pollitt

One of the challenges to the paradigm of the wild horse foot as a model for domestic horses has been the criticism that most studies have been done on horses running on arid terrain in the US west. Skeptics have pointed to the platter feet of sand dune horses on the east coast of the USA and variations in herds like the Sable Island ponies that have been limited in genetic input.

Dr. Chris Pollitt was scratching his beard over that one when he launched his Wild Horse Research Project at the University of Queensland in Australia last year. Would it be enough to study generic brumby hooves in the wilds of Queensland? Or would he need to hoof it further afield?

For the past six months, Pollitt and his lead researcher, hoof science PhD candidate Brian Hampson, have indeed been hoofing it, to the wilds of the far Australian outback.

“The aim of this project is to determine if the typical shape of the feral horses’ feet from soft sandy country will develop into the typical shape of feet of the rocky country feral horses when placed on hard rocky country for six months,” writes Hampson. “The reverse case will also be tested.”

“There is currently no evidence that horses’ feet can adapt to suit the terrain they are moving over. If the foot type of the feral horse can change by changing the substrate, then domestic horse’s feet, too, can be presumed to respond to a change in environment. We will demonstrate that sub-optimal foot conformation can be rehabilitated by movement over the right terrain.

“It has been confirmed during the first 12 months of this project that feral horses living on soft sandy country have long and often splayed hooves. Feral horses living on hard rocky country have short, rolled hooves. We will swap six horses from each of these environments for six months to test the effect of the environment on the foot type," he writes.

This foot collected during previous studies from the Waterloo Station bush camp is from a horse that lives on dry rocky ground. (Chris Pollitt research series photo)

This hind foot is typical of the brumby feet from the sandy environments of Australia. (Chris Pollitt research series photo)

He continues: “It is hypothesized that the foot type of the subject horses will switch from the sand model to rocky model and vice versa. We hypothesize that it is the environment that shapes the horse’s foot rather than predetermined genetic factors. It is currently believed that certain breed types are predisposed to certain foot types. By exposing the same horse to two different substrate conditions, the breed factor will be controlled.

“We will use this information to devise a better housing model for the domestic horse. The housing model may include hard substrate and movement stimulation. Our aim is to improve the foot health of the domestic horse.”

Pollitt and Hampson plan to pen an important publication from the study; the results will be presented at scientific conferences in Australia and the USA, and publicized to farriers and horse people during an Australian tour.

You know there had to be some drama and poetry in this study, as you will find if you look beneath the surface of most of Dr. Pollitt’s research. In this case, Pollitt and Hampson will saddle up and ride into the back country. No helicopters for them! They will not only capture their chosen brumbies, but gentle them and then lead them out of the bush.

The chosen environments are the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north coast of Queensland, and the rocky desert of Central Australia, 400km southwest of Alice Springs, if you have a map handy. Both locations have feral horse populations in excess of 10,000 horses and have been well studied by Pollitt’s team.

Horses will wear a GPS tracking collar for the six months of their release and a VHF beacon for relocation. Horses' feet will be photographed, radiographed, and their loading pressures and pattern will be assessed using an RS scan pressure plate, both before and after the swap. They will also measure hoof wall growth rate over the six month release period.

The Australian Wild Horse Research Project is unique in that the researchers include not only scientists and students but private citizens who are interested in wild horses or hoof physiology. Donors to the projects are eligible for consideration as mates on the trail, presuming you can brew a decent Billy Tea and waltz beside the billabong. Australia has more wild horses than any other place on earth; in excess of 500,000 horses roam freely, according to Hampson, but he notes that they are subject to periodic sustained drought and culls by "government bodies and private graziers".

Visit wildhorseresearch.com for more information about how you can support the research…or possibly be part of it. We will all certainly benefit from this Outback experiment.

PS I thought this post would be appropriate since today is the premiere of the film Australia in the USA.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing for the Wild Horse Research Project and Dr. Chris Pollitt. No use without permission. Permissions for use elsewhere can be arranged.

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.