Halloween: The Original "Jack o'Lantern" Was a Grumpy Blacksmith with a Glowing Lump of Coal

by Fran Jurga | 31 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog


So here's the way the story goes...I'll tell the short version because it's an Irish story and you know how long they can be.

There once was an Irish blacksmith named Jack. He was a miserable man, and he spent his nights in the pub trying to make everyone around him miserable, too.

One night he made a deal for one more drink, but he had no money so it had to be paid for by the Devil.

The devil demanded to be paid back, but Jack tricked the Devil. That's never a good idea. The Devil promised Jack that he'd take his soul.

When the blacksmith died, he was refused admission to heaven for all his evil, selfish deeds, and foul moods. He was sent straight to the gates of hell.

Whom do you think was waiting for Jack? 

The Devil was standing at the gates to Hell. He immediately recognized Jack as the Irish blacksmith who had cheated him. The devil crossed his arms and refused to let Jack into hell.

Where was Jack supposed to go? The Devil didn't care, but Jack had better get going. Jack pleaded for a coal from Hell's fires so he might see his way as he wandered out through the darkness.

The Devil granted his wish and squashed a glowing coal into a half-eaten turnip. He handed it to Jack with a smirk.

The grouchy old blacksmith wandered off and guess what? He wandered forevermore. He's still out there, they believe in Ireland.

It's said that Jack's piece of glowing coal in a turnip could be seen across the Irish countryside at night as he wandered aimlessly, the ultimate ghost.

And of course, as a smith, Jack would have had the skill to keep the coal ember going. He made the most of the devil's generosity.

Irish children began to imitate Jack's lantern and Irish-American children switched from turnips to pumpkins on this side of the Atlantic.

And so it is that so many of us still place glowing vegetables on our doorsteps on Halloween to scare away the haunted souls...like Jack, the grumpy, cheapskate, old blacksmith who is out there somewhere, tonight.

--Fran Jurga

Click here to add your email address to the Hoof Blog headlines list. You will receive an email, which you must click on to confirm you made this request. Thanks!

She Strolls Through the Horse Fair on Halloween...

by Fran Jurga | 31 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog


I've been saving this picture for today. It's from a portfolio of images, mainly farriers, taken at the Smithfield Horse Market in Dublin, Ireland, one of the last urban horse sales in western Europe. The travelers bring horses and ponies and donkeys into the city the first Sunday of each month to sell or trade them. They've been doing it exactly this way, in the shadow of the Jameson's whiskey distillery, since 1665, as much as the city has tried to stop this chaotic manure-producing festivity. Dublin is one of the last cities where horses are kept within the city by private owners, many by young boys who tether them on any available greenspace.

One Dublin photographer, Teresa O'Brien, is especially taken with the farriers who skip church and show up to shoe the horses at the market before they are sold. But she only photographs their hands. I've never seen the rest of these men. Later, she moves through the crowd and her lens finds a hand on rusty hames or in this case the hand of a traveler (gypsy) matriarch's multi-ringed fingers.

Imagine this woman draped in her long dark hooded coat and leaning on her cane. She is walking among the horses on a chilly October morning. She speaks to no one. Is she buying or selling or is there something spooky going on here? Is she the ghost of horse markets past?

Click here to read a little more about and see a little more about Smithfield Horse Market.

Smithfield Horse Market and the gypsy horse fairs of Ireland and England are some of the last horse fairs. I grew up staring at a print of the painting The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur (above; the original painting is 16 feet long and hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City). It is still one of my favorite paintings because there is so much going on and the horses are so well-formed.

But if you think about it, what will go on this Sunday morning at Smithfield hasn't changed much from Bonheur's basic scene, which shows the horse market in Paris in the 1800s. Someone should document the few horse fairs that still exist. I know there are still big ones in India and Mongolia--where else are they still held?

The Universal Farrier Apprentice

by Fran Jurga | 2 September 2009 | Fran Jurga Hoof Blog



I had an idea for this blog post: Everyone turn the sound off when you watch this video, and then you won't be influenced by the location. Because for nine minutes and thirty seconds, this video takes you into a universal setting. This shoeing forge could be in Colorado or Sweden or Turkey or Japan or New Zealand, with few changes. It's a pretty universal scene.

However, the sound is very nicely recorded and adds a lot; after a while, the apprentice's voice comes on and you'll hear what it's like to train as a second-year apprentice farrier in remote Donegal, on the northwestern edge of Ireland.

I play a lot of games when I watch farrier videos (and I watch a lot of them). I love to watch the background activity (and give bonus points for multiple dogs) and in this case, the shoe pile jumps out of the background and dominates the whole forge. Obviously they aren't worried about earthquakes in Donegal or else John and Heather will be buried in old shoes some day.

A game I like to play with non-US videos is to try to pick out the countries where tools and clothing and shop decor were made. In this video we see Kevin Keegan's ubiquitous Hoof Jack--is there a country on earth that the Hoof Jack hasn't conquered? I'm staring at one in my office right now as I write this.

Readers: send in photos of your Hoof Jacks in a native setting showing what it's like in your part of the world where you live and work. Just make sure the Hoof Jack is in the photo somewhere. I'll post them on the blog.

I wondered where the loop knife came from: Canada? Australia? Montana? Germany? and John's apron has a made-in-the-USA look to it. The "w" on the shoes is the forge is a giveaway that they are by Werkman and from Holland.

That's just a start, you can take it from there. Many thanks to the gentle director and editor who refrained from a voiceover narration, intro music and splashy graphics. They had the good sense to just let this scene speak for itself so those of us who know what to listen and look for, can. And I hope you will.

It's just ten minutes out there in the farrier universe.

© 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.

USET's Irish-born horseshoer Seamus Brady Will Live On in Legend

Seamus Brady, center, at a celebration in his honor held in Wellington, Florida in March 2006. That's Canada's Larry Rumsby on the left and the USA's Joe Johnson on the right, both of whom have shod the international team horses for their countries, following in Seamus's footsteps. Twenty-six horseshoers from the show world assembled to toast Seamus that night. (Sandy Johnson photo)

I was in Dublin once, at the Irish Army Equitation School, touring with an American horseshoeing team. The young officer who was showing us around threw open the doors to the forge and as the sunlight flooded the space, he stood back and told me proudly, "This is where Seamus Brady learned the trade with John Boyne."

"That was before he went to America," he added as an afterthought.

He showed the same pride as would an Italian opening the door to the studio where Michaelangelo learned to paint. The fact that Doug Butler and Dave Duckett were standing next to me didn't seem to impress this rider at all.

"Do you see much of Seamus in America, then?" he asked, as if Americans were all on just one show circuit neighborhood.

New Jersey/Florida-based Seamus Brady, the dean of US show-jumper shoers and possibly the most well-known farrier in his native land of Ireland as well, died yesterday. He was just a few months shy of 78 years old.

Seamus Brady, right, received a plaque from his longtime trainee/helper Phil Breault (standing) at the Wellington event. Phil organized the evening. That's Connecticut/Florida show circuit specialist George Fitzgerald on the left.

The man needs no introduction in the farrier world. His name was a brand in itself, yet as far as I know, he never really had anything to sell except his services. His ideas traveled far and wide. But there is no Seamus Brady shoe, no Brady nail, no Brady pad, no Brady trademark or copyright or website. There are few articles or photographs, no books or dvds. I'm not sure that he ever joined any association except the informal show farriers group that gathered in Wellington, Florida on occasion. His only certification: his good name.

There's quite a legacy. I can think of no farrier who influenced shoeing of real-world English-type show and sport horses more. He defined "the circuit". For farriers, he practically invented the circuit. He may have influenced farriers on a professional level more than he influenced shoeing itself.

There have always been legends passed around the horse world about Seamus, great humorous tall tales about the Irish trickster who could weave great tales and present clients with the biggest invoices they'd ever seen. The legends preceded him around the world as he traveled with the US Equestrian Team to far-flung places like Seoul, Korea for the 1988 Olympics, where he kindly shared his experiences with Hoofcare & Lameness Journal, to out-of-context places like the Quarter Horse Congress, where we'd see him because he'd go to look at the new custom trucks.

I expect that Seamus will become the Paul Bunyan of American horseshoeing. He's earned it: If half the people had been his apprentices who claim to have been, he would have had to have traveled in a bus, not a truck, all these years, just to carry all his apprentices.

Every jumper show should fly its flag at half-mast this week. They couldn't have shown without his clever work on their horses and without the farriers he trained, inspired and called his friends.

Exit an icon. Cue the storytellers. Complete these sentences: "I remember the time...""I've always heard that Seamus Brady used to..."

See what I mean? Seamus lives. Pass it on. And on and on.

--Fran Jurga

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. 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).

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

Click to follow Hoofcare and Lameness on Twitter.

Click to stay current with hoof news via the Hoofcare and Lameness Facebook page.

Ireland's Fine Horses Once Passed Through This Arch

County Carlow in Ireland is home to this skeleton of a once proud forge. Double-click on the image for a larger view. Photo kindly loaned by Paddy Martin.

Throughout the lifetime of this blog, I have periodically shared evidence of a few special remaining buildings that are scattered around the globe. These buildings are usually in the British Isles. They are special in that they employ the simplest and most elegant form in nature, the arch, to emulate a horseshoe as the supporting doorway of a smithy or shoeing forge.

True to form, as soon as you publish one, another one pops up. Or, in today's case, two pop up.

We have Paddy Martin from Ireland to thank for these, and I do thank him heartily.

The top photo is my favorite. The arch of the old forge may soon be all that is left. It was definitely the strongest form. Notice there is also an arch in the fence gate. And even the ivy on the cottage is attempting to imitate the form of an arch. This must be a magical place.

I can't help but notice that the scale of this arch is more powerful than many of the horseshoe doorways seen in other smithies from days gone by. You could drive a truck through there, or a loaded wagon. Surely either this farrier was a proud man, or a prosperous one, or both, and that must have meant that the horses in the area enjoyed visiting a fine smithy, back in the day.

But why hasn't it been preserved? There's certainly something beautiful in the neglectful state, but how long before it crumbles?

Paddy writes, "I'm now 60 years old and the first time that I saw this old forge was when I was walking or 'driving' cattle from a farm near Castledermot to another farm near Rathvilly in County Carlow...a distance of about seven miles. I was helping my father and I must have been about 10 at the time. I seem to remember the name Cummins or Cummings being associated with this old forge. At about 18 I moved away from the area and I have only become reacquainted since my daughter moved into a house two minutes away a couple of years ago.

"The forge is located at Corballis Cross Roads which is on the 'back road' from Castledermot to Baltinglass through Crop Hill in South Kildare. The building itself seems not to be past restoration...must have a closer look when I'm there again."

Note to Paddy: Find out if it is for sale....

And this slightly different rendition on the arched doorway is in County Kildare. Photo kindly loaned by Paddy Martin.

Paddy's second forge photo is one that I believe I have seen pictured before; he says it is on the road from Kildare Town to Rathangan in County Kildare. It is very similar to others found in Ireland but it doesn't have the single window above the keystone--or maybe it did and it has been bricked over.

I need to make some sort of a Google Map with all these great old forges marked on it so someone (maybe even me, someday) could go on tour and visit them all. We could have some sort of a smithy architecture road rally up and down the British Isles. In order to win you'd have to have a picture of yourself in front of each forge. That's the sort of farrier competition I might be able to win.

One of the (Many) Reasons I Love Ireland: Racing on the Beach

by Fran Jurga | 17 March 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

This video is like a quick trip to Ireland, although to these beach races. The festival you see here is at Glenbeigh on Dingle Bay in County Kerry and is held every August. I don't know how long the races are, but I'm sure it is a good distance.  Glenbeigh is near the place where, in Irish mythology, Oisin and Niamh rode the white horse shod with silver shoes into the sea to journey to that land of eternal youth known as Tir na nOg. 

To learn more: Two favorite movies set in this part of Ireland are the heart-wrenching 1970s film about Irish rebellion, Ryan's Daughter, and Into the West from the 1980s. The latter is about two Traveler ("gypsy") children who run away from the slums of Dublin with their gallant horse named Tir na nOg, who unbeknownst to them just happens to be a famous show jumper missing from the Dublin Horse Show. They are convinced that they will find cowboys and Indians, or at least the land of Tir na nOg from the Irish legend, if they ride off into the west.  

Click here to read the original legend of Tir na nOg...and why it pays to take care of your horse. There are many versions of this legend, but most include references to hooves. In one version, the white mare gets a stone caught in her silver shoe and the hero dismounts to relieve her pain...and instantly ages.

Here's to Ireland--the people and her horses!

Need to Laugh? Watching the New "Farriators" Video Can Help!

(If you read this Hoof Blog by email, you will have to click through to the actual blog to watch these two video clips. Hint: It's worth it.)

Let's face it, farrier competitions are a tough subject in the world of videos. The lighting is usually poor, there's smoke in the air, the forge blowers howl, cameramen inevitably focus on the horses' faces instead of their hooves, and the farriers you want to shoot always have their backs to you. Get in the way and someone will surely trip over your cord and fall into the fire.

Leave it to the Irish to put some humor into the serious "sport" of farrier competitions. Farrier Supplies Ireland is trying to get the "Green Anvil" competition circuit established, and they somehow teamed up with visual anthropologist Lia Philcox from London, who must have quickly figured out that the participants all had a sense of humor and made that the theme of the video.

One reason I like this video is because there is almost no narration, which means our friends in Japan, the Ukraine, Iran, Chile and Slovenia (among many other countries who read this blog) can have a good laugh even if they don't speak English.

Here's Part One (click on the screen to play):


And here's Part Two (click to play):


Thank you, Lia, for unlocking the video so we can show it here. And thanks, Farrier Supplies Ireland, and thanks to all the fearless Farriators! You're all winners because you have made a lot of people around the world laugh! And cheer!

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online or received via a daily email through an automated delivery service.

This post was originally published on October 19, 2008 at www.hoofcare.blogspot.com.

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal, please visit our 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.

European Racing Abuzz Over Oxygen Therapy

A mural of Grand National winner Red Rum on the wall of a pub near Coolmore Stud in Ireland.

Got oxygen? Coolmore Stud, one of the world's leading nurseries of Thoroughbreds, has plenty of it. They have just installed a hyperbaeric oxygen chamber at their main stud in County Tipperary in Ireland, home of some of the world's most valuable horses.

According to a report in today's The Times (London), Coolmore co-owner John Magnier plans to use the chamber for soft tissue injuries and laminitis therapy, but also has hopes that it will help with breeding problems of the farm's roster of stallions.

Hyperbaeric oxygen therapy has been used by human athletes for years, and in particular by deep-sea divers suffering from decompression ills. Horses were first exposed to the high-pressure treatments in Canada, where the therapy is common among hockey players.

In the U.S., a chamber is in use at Winstar Farm and at Keswick Equine Therapy Center, both in Lexington, Kentucky and at Alamo Pintado Equine Hospital in the Santa Ynez Valley of California. The therapy is also in use in Australia, according to the Times report.

Farrier/veterinarian Federico Oyuela of Buenos Aires, Argentina built and operates a chamber at the racetrack in that city, and is keen to share his experience and results. Coolmore's chamber cost more than a million euros; Federico has a more economical route to oxygen for horses that may make the therapy a more realistic alternative for therapy centers and veterinary clinics.