Showing posts with label Budweiser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Budweiser. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Watch Now: "Lost Dog" Budweiser Clydesdales Super Bowl Commercial Released; Puppy Ads Under Scrutiny




I don't know about you, but I'm still snowbound. Cable service returned just in time for me to catch the new Budweiser Clydesdales Super Bowl commercial (a.k.a. "Lost Dog") on The Today Show this morning. And here it is, along with a behind-the-scenes reel, thanks to Budweiser, to share with you.

I wonder what people will think of this one. Who hasn't had a cat shut in a trailer? But should that side escape door pop open when the pickup slams on its brakes? That's trailer safety 101 and sure to elicit the biggest shudder from horse people since the hitch gelding cantering on pavement in the first ad.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Budweiser Clydesdales 2013 Super Bowl Commercial: Advance Showing of the 2013 Commercial on the Hoof Blog

This year's Budweiser Clydesdale commercial is quite a story. "Brotherhood" shares the bond of a trainer and his favorite horse.

Spoiler alert!

Have you been chewing your nails (or hooves)? Are you worried you might be running to the refrigerator or bathroom on Sunday night when the annual Budweiser Clydesdale commercial comes on the Super Bowl?

Fear no more, here it is: (go ahead, watch it in full screen mode)




Monday, May 23, 2011

An Unusually Silent Anvil: Ron Dyer ("The Horseshoer")

 I learned tonight, completely by accident while researching something on the web, that Ron Dyer the Horseshoer (as he called himself) died on April 23, just shy of his 84th birthday. I don't have much information, perhaps other people have already announced his passing, but I had no idea.

When I knocked on the door of the farrier profession, I immediately noticed that people tended to cluster around certain individuals. Were they hoping to pick up some sage advice? Not really, they were more likely souvenir story collectors. These people stood close enough to listen, memorize and then go home and re-tell the best stories, again and again, until the stories became legends. And the people who originated those stories along with them

Ron Dyer The Horseshoer 1927-2011
Ron Dyer, a.k.a. Ron Dyer The Horseshoer was one of those people whose stories were and still are re-told.  Here was someone who'd been there, done that and definitely had an opinion about it that he didn't mind sharing. People were a little timid around him; some might use the word "gruff" to describe him, but I also saw him be generous and kind and help people.

Ron was a horseshoer, all right. According to his obituary, he worked for the Budweiser Clydesdales, he worked on the midwestern harness racetracks of the Grand Circuit, he traveled with the circus, he was part of The Great Milwaukee Circus Parade...he did it all.

To hear him talk, he might have been around to shoe Dan Patch or Man 'o War. He pulled history out of the past and made it sound like he'd been there. I never could tell if he was giving me a history lesson or telling me about something he'd seen with his own eyes.

Case in point: The Galesburg, Illinois horse sale barns were one of the biggest horse yards in America in the early 20th century. It was right there in Ron Dyer's hometown that the French military, and then the British, came to buy artillery horses and mules for the First World War. Thousands of them. Reading the history of the sale barn tonight in Ron's honor, I realized it closed seven years before Ron was born. But he told stories about it as if he'd be there.
"By 1910, (the Galesburg Horse Sale) was receiving 25 carloads of horses a week and the same number of 25 cars would be shipped out—making a total carload business for the two railroads of 50 cars per week.  The sale employed 25 regular men. and always had 40 to 50 extra men for Friday and Saturday. Five hundred horses per week consumed about all the hay and straw raised in the adjacent counties. Five hundred horses per week  had to have 500 new halters. Each horse had to have two shoes on his front feet, which made a total of 1,000 horse shoes per week. From 7 to 10 blacksmiths were busy the week around making the shoes." (From Galesburg's Mighty Horse Market by Cornelia Thompson and Fred Dunbar)

I found a story about Ron Dyer in the archives of the Chicago Tribune. It included this gem: Once--possibly many more times than just  this once--Ron Dyer was judging a horseshoeing competition. The anxious competitors awaited their precise instructions of what the esteemed judge would be looking for in their work. Ron told them simply, "I want to see a commercial job; something you can charge for." End of subject. 

Farrier Henry Heymering, the visionary founder of the American Farriers Journal and my colleague in our early years of publishing that magazine, offered a few memories of Ron, who was also an author of articles in that magazine in its early days. Thanks, Henry:
  • Ron left quite an impression on me. Florida formed a farrier's association and started a certification test before the AFA. When Ron took the Florida test he made four shoes and shod the horse with them in about 40 minutes, and did a damn nice job!
  • Ron said the Illinois association was started after a shoer had a heart attack. Two farriers worked in the same barn, but they (as was the custom then) worked at opposite ends of the barn and wouldn't talk to each other. One day one of the farriers collapsed under a horse. The other farrier went up to the owner to tell him there was a problem.
  • When Florida started having contests, Ron was so good he won most everything. Other farriers before signing up would ask if Ron was going to be there and if he was, they would't compete. Ron got wind of this and stopped competing. He would only judge and/or demonstrate, and help the others improve.
  • Ron was too young for the French remounts, but I bet his father and grandfather worked on them. I believe Ron was a 4th generation farrier.
Probably Ron Dyer never wrote down any of his stories, and probably no one ever tape-recorded them for him, either. Like so much of the history of the horseshoeing profession, it's just going away with him. Horseshoers wear their stories well. Maybe if he'd written his life down, no one would have believed it anyway.

Except those of us who knew Ron Dyer The Horseshoer.

and

If you have a favorite memory of Ron Dyer, click the comments button below and share it with the rest of us or email it to blog@hoofcare.com and I will post it for you.

 © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. 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.  
 
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Saturday, January 01, 2011

From Post Parade to Rose Parade: Ada Gates is Underfoot as Pasadena's Official Horseshoe Safety Inspector

 From ABC News in Los Angeles: Would your horse's hooves pass the Ada Gates inspection?

It's not unusual to find Ada Gates behind the scenes at a parade but it would most likely be the post parade at California's Santa Anita racetrack. She's at a different parade today.

The first woman licensed to shoe racehorses in America picked up the feet of 236 horses--including Budweiser Clydesdales, silver-draped Andalusians and military mules--this morning as she made sure their hooves were in compliance with the rules of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. The parade has specific rules for hoofcare that must be followed, as they hope to both prevent slipping on the pavement and lameness problems along the parade route. I did notice the horse trailers in the parade, ready to pick up any horses in distress or in need of relief.

NBC also has a video featuring Ada Gates and several of the equestrian units in today's parade, filmed at the parade's stabling at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center at Griffith Park in Burbank, but it did not have an embedding code so it can't be seen here on the blog. If a code becomes available, you'll see that video here, as well.

The Hoof Blog had a report from Ada after the 2008 Rose Parade with her observations about the hooves she sees at the parade: Traction Counts at the Rose Parade (Just Ask Ada).

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. 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.
 
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Sunday, February 01, 2009

Scotch Bottom Toe Grabs? Budweiser Clydesdale Ads Go to Great Lengths to Lead the Pack of Commercials for 2009 Super Bowl

by Fran Jurga | 1 February 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog/Hoofcare & Lameness Journal

It looks like the racing segment of the new Budweiser Clydesdale ad was filmed on Polytrack or ProRide or some sort of artificial surface, perhaps at Del Mar or Santa Anita racetracks in California. For years, they pulled the starting gate off and onto the track for each race at Santa Anita.

As promised, here are some special clips from Budweiser, showing just a few highlights of the three or possibly four Budweiser Clydesdales ads aired on tonight's Super Bowl. I've seen two of them so far, in the first half of the game.

Here's a clip from the "generations" commercial, honoring the 75th Anniversary of the Budweiser Clydesdales. It was filmed partly right on the streets of New York City. The narrator sounds like my friend James Ferrie, who shoes Clydesdales in Ayr, Scotland. Could it be?



And how about that lovestruck Clydesdale? How on earth, though, did they film that Clydesdale jumping over the canyon! That Clyde really had good form! And what a Hollywood ending!



And don't forget the Dalmatian:



Did you ever wonder how the commercials are made? Here's a video clip that goes behind the scenes for the racetrack segments, and you'll meet director Joe Pytka:


These commercials are the highlights of the Super Bowl each year for many people, thanks to our friends, human and equine, at

© 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.

Super Sunday Video Humor: Sneak Previews of Racing Clydesdales and Charging Ostriches on Tonight's Fun Commercials

by Fran Jurga | 1 February 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

The Budweiser Clydesdales at the track? You have to see this!

It's Super Sunday across America and all through the land, we all waited for half time and Bruce Springsteen's band...

And what from our wondrous eyes could not hide, but three brand new commercials about a Budweiser Clyde.

But I soon was laughing, like a February Fool, about a dog food commercial called simply "Dogs Rule"

You can watch it too, you'll catch the vibe, and pronounce to the world, "I think that's my tribe!"


Today's a tossup, not between Arizona and Pittsburgh, but between Bruce Sprinsteen and the Budweiser Clydesdales. Is there another reason for 50 million people to plant themselves in front of the television tonight?

Pedigree dog food just might give the Clydes and the Boss a run for their money. The new commercial and web site "Dogs Rule" will be a hoot to those of us who work around animals and the people who love them. Pedigree thought it was making an outrageous takeoff on exotic pets, but, ummmmm, actually, I think they are pretty close to capturing some of the "unique" people and pets I've met along the way.

Pedigree is doing their Super Bowl ads (at how much for 30 seconds? $3 million?) as a public service to encourage pet adoption. If you go to the new web site (www.dogsrule.com) you can download an .app for your iPhone and the company will donate dog food to animal shelters every time someone watches a video on the site.



The best part is that they have made it possible for you to watch four character development videos that give you some insight into the individual pets and their quirky owners featured in the commercial: Rusty the rhino, Bruno the ostrich, The Boar, and Max the Water Buffalo. It's a great laugh.

This is all in good fun. I hope you will watch the original commericial here, go to dogsrule.com and click around so some dog food flows to the needy ones. I wish someone would do this for horses in need of homes.

And don't forget to watch for the Clydesdales! One commercial has a lovesick Clyde and another honors the hitch on its 75th anniversary year. Later today I will post some sneak-peek footage from Budweiser about how (and where!) they shot this year's great commercials.

In the meantime, have a laugh with Pedigree...and don't forget to consider giving a shelter dog a good home, right next to you on the couch on Super Sunday.

© 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 and Lameness Journal is often published under the cover of fog amidst the comings and goings and launchings and sinkings and leakings of the old industrial waterfront in Gloucester, Massachusetts. If you come to visit, bring your life jacket...and you'd better like fish.