Showing posts with label George. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George. Show all posts

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Farrier Jim Hayter Wins Burghley Horse Trials' Best Shod Horse Prize for 2014

O
front feet of best shod horse at Burghley Horse Trials
The front feet of the Irish Sport Horse Coolys Luxury, who was selected as the Best Shod Horse at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials in England last weekend. Farrier Jim Hayter received the prize along with owner David Corney and rider Tom Crisp. The judges must have thought Jim handled this horse's asymmetry challenges well. "I cannot keep the foot too long as I don't want to risk him pulling shoes off," Jim commented.
Keeping up with the tradition of chasing down British eventers and farriers to find out what it takes to be judged the Best Shod Horse at an international three-day event, the Hoof Blog has a few photos of this year's winner at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials in England.


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Heart-Bars in Heaven: George Platt DVM Has Died

Heart-bars in heaven: George Platt DVM and farrier Burney Chapman waged war against laminitis from one end of the United States to the other. Credit for their remarkable success rate was always modestly given to the only physical symbol of their treatment, the heart-bar shoe. The shoe inadvertently became a talisman of good or evil, depending on where you stood, and evidence to insurers that severe laminitis wasn't always a death sentence.  (© Hoofcare + Lameness file photo)

Dr. George Platt has died.

The legendary veterinarian who spent most of his career fighting the disease of equine laminitis suffered a stroke in late August and died this afternoon.

If you have ever seen, or touched, or made or used a heart-bar shoe,  George Platt had a part in it. The Texas veterinarian teamed up with horseshoer Burney Chapman in the 1970s and together they experimented with treatments for laminitis. They found the heart-bar shoe in an old textbook and gave it a try; the rest is history.

George Platt in 2009
That history was recorded in 1984, at the 30th Annual Convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners. Platt and Chapman presented the heart-bar shoe as the centerpiece of their treatment protocol which they documented as successful in rehabilitating a long list of cases referred to Platt by insurance companies.

George Platt's specialty, for many years, was answering the challenge of bringing these high-profile racehorses or show horses back from the near-dead. A broken neck in a skiing accident slowed him down for a while and he made a comeback as a lecturer and clinician because he felt the need to keep the heart-bar shoe front-and-center after Burney Chapman's death, and to clear up many of the misunderstandings about its use. But he ended up back in practice in the mountains of Colorado, where he told me he intended to just be a "ski bum". But he couldn't resist working on horses.

A few years ago, George posed for an over-exposed veterinarian fundraising calendar for an animal shelter in Vail. He was at least twice the age of most of the vets who posed--but he stole the show.
He received the "Veterinarian of the Year" Award this year from the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association, and it was one of many accolades to add to his long list.

Dr. George Platt (right) with farrier Eddie Watson (left) explaining heart-bar shoes at the 1992 American Farrier's Association Convention. Their collaboration sent Platt off to write a paper for Hoofcare + Lameness on using heart bar shoes for heel pain, which was quite a radical proposition in those days.

In looking through a file of letters from him, I'm struck by how many times he said "Just kidding!", both as he wrote humorously and as he spoke.

The last letter I received from him is undated. It says: "This is it: I can't explain how to fit a heart bar but I can show anyone how to." And that's what he did. 

I was lucky to have George Platt as a friend. He was a staunch and generous supporter of Hoofcare Publishing; all his contributions, of course, were about heart-bar shoes.

I have to say that he, as much or more than any one individual, changed the course of the way that farriers and veterinarians work alone and together when he teamed up with Burney Chapman.

People are always quick to give George Platt credit for the heart-bar shoe because he was the very first to lecture on it. He and Burney Chapman did much more than wake a horseshoe up and dust it off: They either launched the beginning of a new age or they opened a Pandora's box. Even 25 years later, it is too soon to tell which, but how many horses have benefited in the meantime?

George Platt wasn't one to sit around and wonder what the historians would have to say about him and his ideas on laminitis. He knew what he'd accomplished in his decades of trying to stop laminitis from taking horses' lives.

He might not be able to explain it, but he could show you how it's done. 

And he did. Thank you, George Platt.

Follow Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal
Read the Hoofcare + Lameness Facebook Page
 

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Favorite Photo: Dowsing the shoes by Peter Meade


Cooling the shoes, originally uploaded by Peter Meade

Every once in a while I come across an image that shows something about hooves that I haven't seen captured before and this is one of those. And leave it to Peter Meade to catch it.

For anyone not familiar with the workings of shoeing a horse, at some point the farrier may be making or altering shoes for a horse to nail on at some time in the future, rather than one by one. You'd heat a shoe while working it, and you'd touch the hot shoe to the hoof to burn it on and judge the "hot fit" and check how level the job is, but you'd nail the shoe when the steel has cooled.

This is traditionally done by dunking the shoe in a bucket or barrel or water, which gives a satisfying hiss.

And if you're in a hurry to pack up and get on your way and you have four somewhat hot shoes that you've been working on for a horse to come later in the day, and no bucket is handy, you'd run them under a hose, as appears to be going on here. Peter's caught the cold clean water in mid-stream, splattering off in all directions.

Peter is a brilliant photographer in England whose specialty is the posh polo scene and military equestrianism but luckily for me he also likes to get up early once in a while and photograph his wife's farrier, George Crichton, at work in the eerie early morning light. His work is beautiful and he is someone who sees art in the work and role of the farrier.

Peter's photos of George were last featured on the Hoof Blog  back in 2008. You can see Peter's silhouette of George, and an early rising horse on a January morning.

You can "ooooh" and "aaaah" over Peter Meade's photographic work at www.petermeadephotography.co.uk.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Friends at Work: New Hampshire Farriers Practice for World Championship at Calgary Stampede

13 April 2010 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

A horse at the mounted police stables in Dover, New Hampshire gets the benefit of a shoeing by veteran Jim Smith during a practice session for local farriers who plan to compete in July's World Championship for farriers at the Calgary Stampede in Canada. It's a long way to go, but New Hampshire pros Tim Bolduc of Fremont, Jim Smith of Milton Mills, George Barker of Gilmanton, and Nathaniel Bruss of Bradford are preparing to represent the "Live Free or Die" state and are being sponsored by the Horseshoes Plus farrier supply store in Barrington, NH. Click here to read a nice story about their practice session that appeared in yesterday's Foster Daily Democrat newspaper, and which included this and other photos of the team.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, 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.