Friends at Work: Will Hellyer Shoes a Real Shire for Virtual Farmers

Shoeing a Shire horse isn't easy. Neither is describing the process in a little more than a minute but The Farm's "Head Girl" Emma Warner did it.

Yesterday The Hoof Blog commiserated with a researcher who had to explain insulin resistance and its role in equine laminitis in less than three minutes.  Who knew an academic could avoid all the big words and cut to the chase?

Today I was thinking that it's equally hard to explain what a farrier is doing as s/he shoes a horse. And I found someone who did it in a minute and a half. "Head Girl" (that's British for horse manager) Emma Warner had some very good video editing behind her voiceover to make it possible. And in doing it, she manages to avoid many of the cliches and misused terms that many journalists and broadcasters inevitably--and understandably--garble.

Virtual farmers make the decision at a web-managed farm

Farrier Will Hellyer is hard at work on one of the Shire horses at the National Trust’s "MyFarm" project at the 2500-acre Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire, England, where over 250,000 visitors a year get up close and personal with farm animals, including many from rare species, on a "real" working farm. They also have the option of joining the farm and can become virtual decision-makers on how the farm is run. It's a very interesting way to use the Internet, and would be a great model for a show or racehorse stable, too.

I became aware of the farm in July when they set up a web cam in the stall of a Shire mare who was about to foal. I thought it would be exciting for people to follow the birth and encouraged people via Twitter to tune in.

The Shire is one of two native heavy horse breeds in England; the Suffolk is the other. Shires are traditionally shod with toe clips. Photo by Lars Lundqvist.

It turned out to be something quite different than what any of us imagined. The foal never took a breath after it emerged from the womb and the experience of watching the process turned out not to be the idyllic, joyful one people expected, but rather the hard, cold realism of life (and death) on a real farm, after all.

The farm said that 800 people were watching at the time.

Watching how the farm handled the publicity over the foal's death was interesting, as the public expressed a wide variety of opinions and reactions, thanks to the open book of social media. The farm seemed to post any and all comments, and take the critical ones in stride.

 TO LEARN MORE

© 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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EBay Fundraiser: How Much Is a Horseshoe Off the Injured Inaugural Parade Horse Worth?

What will people pay for a dirty horseshoe? We'll find out soon. (Amy Manning photo)

Last week was a tough one for horses and horseshoes. When an Appaloosa named Mouse held up the Inaugural Parade for an hour while he was being extricated from a bumper-mounted winch that he somehow stuck his leg into, people were calling for horses to be banned from future parades. (The incident happened even before the parade began.)

The next thing that I heard was that the incident happened because he was shod with steel shoes. Had he been barefoot, I was told, he would not have slipped and fallen.

Photos showed the horse down on the ground with his hind legs up in the air, but these pictures were taken only after he was sedated, so that the SUV's bumper could be dismantled.

In earlier photos, the horse is standing stock still, with his hind leg caught between the winch and the bumper. This smart Appaloosa did not struggle or panic.

Brooke Vrany of Days End Farm Horse Rescue was on hand with the farm's ambulance and the horse was vanned off with a police and veterinary escort.

I thought this story was over, but it's not.

Enter the horse's owner, who was not, in this case, the rider. Amy Manning gave lots of background about her horse and the incident; her story matches Brooke's: Mouse backed up, encountered the winch on the bumper of the SUV and kicked back at it. When his leg was trapped, he waited for the vets, in this case, two US Army Veterinary Corps practitioners.

It turns out Mouse is a veteran of many parades and had stayed calm during a helicopter landing earlier in the day.

One reason Mouse stayed on his feet may have been that his shoes were liberally sprinkled with Borium. Without it, they would have been slippery on the pavement, it's true.

And tonight, Mouse's shoes have been pulled by his regular farrier, John Haven of Henderson, Maryland, and they are not hanging on a fence. Not laying on a tack trunk. Not bouncing around in the back of John's truck.

They're on eBay.

Amy Manning is very grateful to Brooke Vrany and Days End Farm Horse Rescue for the expertise that Brooke brought to the scene, and for their professionalism in spiriting the horse off through a crowd estimated at two million.

Days End Farm's ambulance and crew were at the parade site as volunteers, and received no compensation for their time or services, as is often the case when they attend to horses at the bottom of a ditch or crashed through the ice into a pond.

So the shoes that helped keep Mouse on his feet while he kept the new President of the United States waiting can be yours, and the money will go to Days End Farm Horse Rescue.

The shoes, by the way, are St Croix Xtras, and both the owner and the farrier reported that all the horsemen in the parade were given a manual for preparation, which included the requirement that every horse must be shod on all four feet with steel shoes and Borium or a similar hard-facing for traction. As you can see in the photo, Mouse's shoe has puddles on the toe and big nuggets on his heels.

Amy added another point of order from the rule book: she had to sign a release saying that she gave permission for her horse to be euthanized without warning in the event of a mishap during the parade.

One of the shoes has already had 12 bids and the auction only began today. A third shoe will be added tonight, and Amy will keep the fourth for her own memento.

I think one of them would look great hanging in the White House. Or your house!

Click here to view the first shoe and its eBay auction.

Click here to view the second shoe and its eBay auction.

Click here to view a news video showing Mouse recovering at the Days End Farm Equine Rescue Center in Maryland.

Click here to view the Days End Farm account of the mishap and learn more about their rescue operations. Days End works only with law enforcement cases and takes in only horses taken from owners, not those voluntarily surrendered. Its equine ambulance and emergency rescue service is active in teaching equine rescue and handling, as well as being out there on the front lines.

If you are not the eBay type and would like to send a donation, mail your check to Days End Farm Horse Rescue, Attn: Inaugural Parade Thank You, P.O. Box 309, Lisbon, Maryland 21765 USA.

© 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.

Ice Capades: New Englanders Are Still in the Dark Tonight

APTOPIX Ice Storm "IDYLLIC", originally uploaded by nike6.

Throughout New England, more than 600,000 households are still without power following Friday's horrific ice storm that laminated the landscape, sent trees crashing into homes and barns, closed roads, blocked driveways, damaged vehicles, and sent the normally hardy residents of New England into candlelit darkness in their cold, cold homes.

Sure, lots of resourceful people have generators and the old-fashioned types of wood stoves and fireplaces that still burn real wood. But all those who own horses and livestock are experiencing the double challenges of meeting their own needs as well as those of horses who may not have on their winter shoes with ice calks. Horses that should be turned out, but the paddocks look like a hockey rink. And the fences are electric, anyway. Horses that need water, but the pumps are electric too. Horses that need hay or grain, but the driveway is blocked and the feed store is closed, without a doubt.

For many people, a horse is the only way to get around. Tree branches still lie on top of cars and trucks and block driveways.

December is a busy month for the farriers around here. The show- and sport-horse customers want a final set of shoes before the horses leave for Florida or Aiken or Southern Pines. And the grin-and-bear-it stay-at-homes want to delay putting on expensive winter shoes for as long as possible. They gamble for another week, another month, especially this year with so many people losing jobs or having just taken a heavy hit on the stock and real estate markets. They remember hacking out throughout the winter on bare ground last year, the year it forgot to snow.

So far, I have only been able to speak with one farrier. Phones are out everywhere, and cell phone chargers dangle uselessly from dead outlets. Not so for one farrier: Tom Maker has 50 Morgan horses to take care of at the beautiful old Townshend Farm atop a hill in Bolton, Massachusetts. The town, which is about 30 miles west of Boston, has been shut down since 10:55 p.m. on Thursday night, the exact moment the power died. Law enforcement has all roads closed in the town: no one goes in, no one goes out.

Tom said that, even today, if you stared at a tree line in any direction for a minute or two, you'd see a treetop break off. He said that virtually all the trees had been topped off, as if a helicopter flew over and trimmed them. Falling limbs buried the fence lines...and became fences themselves.

Unfortunately, Tom said, his clever Morgans are learning that the juice to the fences is off. He has one generator to use at two houses, an apartment, and a big barn, in an attempt to keep all the water pipes and drains from freezing.

Another handicap is that we are approaching the shortest day of the year. It gets dark in New England just after 4 p.m. this time of year, and stays dark for about 15 hours.

"Maybe tomorrow," Tom said optimistically tonight from a candlelit farmhouse on an icy hillside.

It's a sentiment echoed from all over Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, although power company officials say it may be another week for some towns.

Thanks to the Associated Press for the beautiful photo. Click on this link to read a story about the widespread darkness that continues tonight here in New England.

You wouldn't believe how bright the stars are.

Big Brown's Famous Hooves Find a New Kentucky Home

Posted on Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog | 10 November 2008

Guess who?

The most famous feet in the horse world touched down on their new Kentucky home last week, as more than 500 guests were on hand for a "Big Brown Bag Lunch" to welcome Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown to Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Kentucky.

Big Brown will stand at the elegant farm for a fee of $65.000. The farm was the former home of champions like Seattle Slew and is currently home to Point Given, Smarty Jones, Dynaformer, Sky Mesa and other top Thoroughbreds.

A report by Glenye Cain in the Daily Racing Form said that Big Brown's heel bulb injury, which caused his early retirement and withdrawal from the 2008 Breeders Cup, was "filled with soft putty" and that he was wearing a z-bar shoe.

Thanks to Jen Roytz, Marketing and Communications Director at Three Chimneys Farm for the loan of these photos which were taken by Gayle Ewadinger of Three Chimneys.

Big Brown received a Big Welcome on Wednesday when guests celebrated the Derby winner's return to Kentucky. He will stand at stud at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. Permissions for use elsewhere are usually easily 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 may also be found.

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

Friends at Work: Elizabeth Decker in the Bluegrass

Click on the screen to watch a slide show of farrier Elizabeth Decker at work; photos by and thanks to Gene Manley of Manley Farm. Slide show is mirrored from Gene's photo set at Flickr.com. Read more below.

Kentucky horse farm owner Gene Manley likes to take photos. He's a man who studies things--flowers, fencelines, his horses, his family--through the lens of his camera. The results are lovely, but when he turned his camera on his farrier last month, he didn't expect that he'd be sharing the photos with the world...but he wasn't counting on Hoofcare & Lameness stumbling on them, either.

Manley Farm outside Lexington is fortunate to have an energetic and hard-working farrier at their service: Elizabeth Decker.

Elizabeth Decker is a great role model for farriers everywhere. A few years ago, she set out to build a farrier business for herself in one of the country's toughest markets. There's lots of competition in Lexington, Kentucky; sure, there are a lot of horses, but there are also surely a lot of mega-farrier businesses and small herds of apprentices following around the Great Ones, not to mention world-class referral experts like Dr. Ric Redden and the stable of vet/farrier pros at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital's Podiatry Clinic.

Around Lexington, you never know who will pick up a foot you worked on and have a look. On the other hand, it's a good place to find top-shelf advice, and surgery or hoof repair expertise is just a quick horse van ride away.

Elizabeth earned her chaps with an apprenticeship under the detail-driven eye of sport horse specialist Victor Camp and worked toward her goal of an independent practice. Along the way, she picked up some special cases at the Kentucky Horse Park and began mentoring equine science students at Midway College as the farrier appreciation instructor.

Now she's well on her way and it's been a pleasure to watch her progress. She's subscribed to Hoofcare & Lameness since farrier school, and has even had her father call to order books for her for Christmas. And she doesn't just buy books, she reads them.

Note: these photos are not in order, but you are basically seeing Elizabeth prepare two front shoes, hot fit them, and begin to nail them onto one of Gene Manley's horses. As with all farriers, her job is made more pleasant or more challenging (it all depends...) by the presence of an audience.

Elizabeth can handle it; it's all in a day's work in the Bluegrass!

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. All images and text protected to full extent of law. F

Hoof do you like in the Derby? Shoewear of the Fast and Famous

A feet-first introduction: Meet Visionaire, trained by Michael Matz. He's wearing a Kerckhaert aluminum race plate, imported from Holland. Visionaire's farrier is Todd Boston.

One shoe is worth a thousand words for Kentucky's Colonel: Look at this shoe shape. It's the "Fast Break" raceplate from Kerckhaert, also imported from Holland. Notice how broad the toe bend is. Colonel John is owned by WinStar Farm and trained by Irishman Eoin Harty. His farrier is Steve Norman.

Blog readers must wonder if there are other horses entered in Saturday's Kentucky Derby besides Pyro and Big Brown. The blog has focused on the special footwear worn by those two...but the other 18 horses have feet and some special shoes, too!

Our friend Dan Burke of Farrier Product Distribution (FPD) must have some sort of a VIP backstage pass at the Derby. He seems to show up at the stakes barn every year and usually has some great photos to share.

Thanks to Dan for sharing these photos. I guess it is no coincidence that these two horses are wearing Kerckhaert plates, as was War Emblem a few years ago. Dan's company imports Kerckhaert shoes to the USA. Thanks, Dan!

PS For all the racing people checking in to this blog, especially the ones referred by the New York Times (thank you!): Look at these feet and you will see why we put so much store in the size, shape, and fine points of a horse's hooves. You can easily see that the frog (triangular tissue protruding on base of foot) is very different in each horse, as is the shape of the foot. There are always differences between front and hind shapes, and often between left and right, on the same horse, but the difference from horse to horse may not be obvious until you see two photos together, as we are showing you here. Unfortunately, the horse with the best feet is often not the fastest, or else we'd have cleaned up at the betting window years ago. However, the horses with better feet stand a chance of racing longer and staying sounder. If you are going to race a gelding, you want him to have great feet!