First All-Women Farrier Class Training at Cornell Vet School

Kerry Spain, right, and Kahlan Schramm shape horseshoes as part of the Cornell Farrier Program. (Photo by Lindsay France, University Photography)

In early January this year, three women walked through the farrier shop doors at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. They weren’t vet students checking on a lameness case or horse owners picking up a freshly shod horse. These women started up the forges and went to work at their anvils--without a male in sight.

Cornell announced this week that the farrier program’s 2018 class is the first to be comprised entirely of women. Paige Maxxam, Kahlan Schramm and Kerry Spain will complete the four-month program in April.

Required Reading: Dr. John Steele's 68th Year in Equine Practice Profiled in Chronicle of the Horse This Week

If you were the gambling kind, you might have been able to make some money at the World Equestrian Games in France last month.

What if, when Team USA's Beezie Maddie and Cortes C came oh-so-close to the gold medal in show jumping, you had wagered with that Irishman sitting next to you about the veterinarian responsible for that high jumping superstar horse--and all the Madden showjumpers?

What if you turned to him in the bar and said, "Yeah, and did you know that horse's vet is 89 years old?"

Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine to Open Urban Equine Hospital near Belmont Racetrack

Alan Nixon, DVM, MS, BVSc, Diplomate ACVS

Edited from press release

Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine has signed a lease-buy agreement with Racebrook Capital Advisors, LLC for the former Ruffian Equine Medical Center. The arrangement will establish Cornell Ruffian Equine Specialists, a referral and emergency care hospital.

The hospital, located near the Belmont Racetrack backstretch in Elmont, New York, is expected to open April 1, 2014, and will provide elective equine specialty services to horses referred by their attending veterinarians. Full emergency and critical care services will be offered by the spring of 2015. Cornell Ruffian Equine Specialists will partner with referring veterinarians to meet the needs of New York State racing and the surrounding sport horse communities.