Ready, Vet, Go! Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital Shares World Equestrian Games Plan to Serve Horses, Educate Visitors

Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington will make technologically advanced diagnostic and treatment equipment and personnel  available to any horses that may become sick or injured during their stay in Kentucky. This horse is being worked up on the Rood and Riddle high-speed treadmill so that his metabolism and airways can be evaluated.

Many of the people who read this blog would be just as happy being backstage at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Lexington this fall as they would be with front row seats. Of course we all hope that no horses are injured or become sick during the Games but if that happens...the vet bases backstage are very well-covered. In fact, if you do the math, there may well end up being more veterinarians than horses at the World Equestrian Games!

Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital is only six miles from WEG.

To explain, here are some insights to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital's role as the Official Equine Hospital and Veterinary Partner for the Games. Rood and Riddle is, of course, one of the leading equine veterinary medical centers in the United States and the world, and its location in Lexington is serendipitous to insuring the finest possible care for any veterinary needs that arise for horses at the Games. Rood and Riddle's college-campus style setting accommodates horses of all breeds for referral surgery, medical treatments, diagnostic imaging and a very special service, equine podiatry. 

Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital employs 50 veterinarians and 200 support staff. Four of the veterinarians are specialists in hoof problems and three farriers are employed in the podiatry clinic and technicians have specialized skills in hoof-related procedures. Interns and trainees can change the number of people working in the podiatry department on a given day.


During the World Equestrian Games, Rood and Riddle will work closely with Dr. Kent Allen, the official veterinary coordinator of the Games. Dr. Chris Newton, a veterinarian and partner at Rood and Riddle who is also an avid equestrian and eventing competitor, heads the Rood and Riddle team of veterinarians and veterinary technicians assembled to provide medical support to the Games.
 
When the horses arrive in Kentucky from all over the world, their handlers will pay close attention to how well they survived the stress of travel and are settling in to their new surroundings. However, these horsemen and their equine charges will have access to one of the most extensive arrays of advanced veterinary services available at a competition. 

The Horse Park will offer an on-site veterinary clinic that will provide 24-hour care ranging from basic medical treatment to high-level diagnostics.  Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, less than six miles away, will be staffed and ready to address any emergency or injury in need of specialized medical care.

The diagnosis of musculoskeletal injuries is a specialty at Rood and Riddle. Experts in equine imaging have precise criteria for selecting between MRI, CT, nuclear scintigraphy, ultrasound and digital radiography for the best evaluation of an injury, depending on whether a soft tissue or bone may be injured. This photo shot through the observation window into the MRI suite shows an anesthetized horse with a limb inside the MRI magnet. The monitor in the foreground shows preview images.

During the Games, a minimum of six Rood and Riddle veterinarians with numerous veterinary technician assistants will be on-site daily. During the more taxing competitions, such as Eventing Cross-Country, Endurance, and the Driving Marathon, the veterinary staff will increase with additional support from the Rood and Riddle medicine and surgery specialists at the on-site veterinary clinic.
 
In addition to the Rood and Riddle veterinarians, every National Federation will send a minimum of one team veterinarian. The Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI), the governing body of equestrian sport, will also have veterinarians in attendance. The FEI veterinarians’ primary function is to ensure that all rules are being followed, allowable medications are administered correctly and the horse’s welfare is placed above the competition.
 
The Rood and Riddle Pavilion at the Alltech Experience
One of the most exciting aspects of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games for Rood and Riddle is the opportunity to educate the world about the hospital and the advances in equine veterinary medicine. WEG attendees will find the Rood and Riddle Pavilion, located within the Alltech Experience compound, to be a must-see destination on their tour of the extensive exhibit areas at the Kentucky Horse Park. 

The pavilion (design plan at right) will provide an educational experience for young and old with multiple interactive stations and video displays covering the latest veterinary technology including diagnostic imaging, equine medicine and surgery, and stem cell therapy. 

Visitors can use touch screen controls to choose which type of horse they would like to see on a treadmill followed by the endoscopic view of the throat, use an ultrasound probe on a phantom uterus to locate a pregnancy, and see an actual surgery table anesthesia machine set up complete with a 900-lb. model of an equine patient in position and ready for surgery. 

The pavilion also includes a theater section where daily lectures will be presented by Rood and Riddle  veterinarians and other equine professionals including Hall of Fame jockeys and World Games competitors.
 
Rood and Riddle Hospital Tours During WEG
Rood and Riddle is also hosting tours at the hospital, Monday through Friday, at 10am and 12pm during the Games. Tours are by reservation only and may be booked at www.HorseCapitalTours.com. Tickets are $12.95 per person (ticket required for children aged 5 and up; strollers not permitted) with $5 from every ticket purchase going to the Kentucky Equine Humane Center and the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation.

After years of planning and anticipation for the big event, our friends at Rood and Riddle are ready and say that they are honored to participate in this extraordinary event. They're eager to see World Champions crowned in eight disciplines. Let the Games begin!



 
If you enjoyed this story, or if you are planning to attend the World Equestrian Games, you may also want to read Fran Jurga's new blog, Discover WEG with Fran Jurga on the discoverhorses.com web site. It will only be around for a few months--the Games will soon be here!

© 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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"Blame" It on These Four Fast Feet

My friend Wendy Uzelac must have been thinking of The Hoof Blog when she was walking around Keeneland Racetrack in Lexington, Kentucky yesterday. Her expert camera clicked just as the groom threw a bucket of suds at the lower legs of the horse that many believe is the top older male horse in the USA. Blame has been on a roll this year and beat Quality Road last month in the Whitney at Saratoga. The New Yorkers must be relieved that Blame is back in Kentucky. Quality Road and Mine That Bird have a pretty local field in this weekend's Woodward. Thanks to Wendy, who specializes in photographing Thoroughbred racing and golf, for aiming at Blame's leg's instead of his handsome head and congratulations! She's getting married to fellow photographer Matt Wooley this weekend and will move from northern Michigan to Lexington, where Matt is based. The Thoroughbred industry in Lexington is in for a treat. Image © Wendy Wooley/EquiSport Photos.

© 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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Springs in the Bluegrass; Fine-tuning a Thoroughbred Yearling's Hooves 30 Days Before the Sale

A funny thing happened on the way to the airport.

I had a chance to look over the shoulder of Dr Scott Morrison of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital's Podiatry Clinic, and who would turn that down? The patient was a perfectly healthy yearling colt being prepared for an August sale. But with 30 days left until the sale, the growing colt was showing a slight tendency to be "a bit upright" and some finetuning was in order.

Make no mistake: this colt’s hoof conformation wouldn’t be of much, if any, concern other than the fact that he’d be under the microscope at the sale and every detail has to be considered. Every detail, after all, can make the difference in a bidder's enthusiasm for a horse and where the colt would be ranked on a bidder's wish list. In the end, it comes down to dollars and cents but in the climate of recent yearling sales, it could be the difference between a sale and no sale.

Dr. Morrison’s solution to this horse’s problem was at once right out of the textbook and equally unorthodox in that it might have come out of two different textbooks. He arrived with two spring shoes, which would be on the menu of recommended shoes for a case like this. But the shoes for this horse were made of two different materials.

The solution to working on two front feet with different levels of contraction? 
Spring shoes made of two materials, one more flexible than the other. The aluminum 
shoe also had a hinge in the toe to open the right front more.

On the left front, which had the least amount of deviation, the horse now wears a Burns Polyflex shoe, into which Rood and Riddle added a spring wire, which is a v-shaped wire roughly the size and shape of the frog. The wire, however, does not touch the frog.

Polyflex spring shoe glued on, before cutting the horizontal keeper wire and adding
Equipak to fill the sole. The spring (frog-shaped wire) does not touch the frog.

The Polyflex shoe is made for glueing; it is composed of nearly-transparent polyurethane with a wire spine inside. The shoe was glued on with Equilox  hoof adhesive and then the sole was filled with Vettec’s Equipak, a clear cushioning urethane. Before pouring in the liquid padding, Morrison clipped the temporary horizontal keeper wire to release the spring action of the wire.

The Polyflex shoe did not have a hinge, but the spring action of the wire and the forgiving material of the shoe would help keep the foot open, Morrison believes.

Completed left front foot with polyurethane shoe after Equipak is solidified. Just to clarify: soft urethane-based Equipak fills and cushions the sole and frog; harder PMMA epoxy-type adhesive Equilox glues on the shoe.

On the right front, which was slightly more problematic, Rood and Riddle’s shoe fabrication specialist Manuel Cruz created an aluminum hinged shoe with a spring wire. The hinge was in the center of the toe, as typically described for hinge shoes to relieve club feet and contracted heels in more advanced cases. Equilox, the clipping of the horizontal keeper wire, and Equipak again followed.

Shoe fabrication specialist Manuel Cruz fabricates a vast repertoire 
of shoes and devices for the vets and farriers at Rood and Riddle.

Aluminum hinge shoe fabricated back at Rood and Riddle by Manuel Cruz. 
The spring is the same as in the Polyflex shoe, but the shoe has a 
hinge in the toe to open the foot. 

I asked Manuel about the discrepancy in thickness between the two shoes but he said that it was an illusion and that they were almost the same.

Morrison and McAninch tackled the application of these results-oriented horseshoes to the colt's front feet as if it was routine; with yearling sales season approaching, that may be the case. The organization at the clinic to prepare what's needed for supplies and to fabricate shoess must be impressive when you see how easily the work gets done without searching for things.

The case itself was intriguing but equally interesting was the process, especially the speed and efficiency with which Morrison and his technician Loryn McAninch completed the job. I know from my travels that this would have been a half-day job at most clinics but the feet had been traced and trimmed in advance, the shoes fabricated to the tracings, and the adhesive and support materials were ready to go.

Another good point about the way this case was handled, from an outside observation, was that the young horse had to stand for a minimal amount of time since the measuring, tracing and trimming had already been done. The unorthodox unmatching spring shoes may have been an insurance policy on this horse's value. We'll never know what his feet might have looked like without this intervention but prospective owners will appreciate the picture-perfect feet that they will see on this horse at the sale.

Thanks to Dr Morrison, Loryn, Manuel and the farm staff for allowing me to observe this procedure and photograph it. Good luck to the colt!

To learn more: A valuable detailed reference paper by Dr. Morrison, Foal Foot Care, is available for download from the Proceedings of the 2009 CanWest Veterinary Conference.

All photos © Fran Jurga | Hoofcare Publishing.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com
© 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.

Rood and Riddle, AllTech and AAEP Partner to Add Education for Veterinarians and Horse Owners to 2010 World Equestrian Games Experience

19 November 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

(received via press release; please note that this event will immediately precede the opening of the Games. For those who may not know, Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital is a large referral equine healthcare complex outside Lexington, Kentucky.)

Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital’s role as the Official Veterinary Partner of the Games will not be limited to providing veterinary support during the competition but will also include hosting educational forums for veterinarians and horse owners. Rood & Riddle, Alltech and the American Association of Equine Practitioners have joined forces to sponsor a sport horse symposium for veterinarians and another for horse owners, to be held in conjunction with the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, which opens September 25 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.

The continuing education program for veterinarians, titled “Promoting Peak Performance in Equine Athletes,” will be held from September 22-24, 2010, at the Marriot Griffin Gate Resort in Lexington, KY. An international roster of speakers will present in-depth, current information on orthopedic problems, diagnostic imaging, equine podiatry, lameness versus neurological disease, upper and respiratory disease, muscle disease, and nutrition with focus on the veterinary care as it applies to the equine athlete.

Featured speakers include orthopedic surgeon Dr. Larry Bramlage, and internal medicine specialist Dr. Steve Reed from Rood & Riddle, and Dr. Kent Allen, Dr. Wayne McIlwraith, and Dr. Jean-Marie Denoix.

A one-day horse owner workshop is scheduled for September 24, 2010 at the Embassy Suites in Lexington. The workshop will be conducted by veterinarians and nutritionists to provide horse owners, trainers, managers, and riders with valuable information for managing injuries and maintaining peak performance in the sport and performance horse.

Registration will be available for both programs in June 2010. Final program and schedule information is expected to be ready for release in early spring 2010. A group of rooms will be available at the Marriott at a special symposium rate for veterinarians registered to attend. This information will be available on the Rood & Riddle, AAEP and Alltech websites with announcements distributed to multiple media outlets.

In addition to these excellent programs, Rood & Riddle will also host hospital tours, short lectures and demonstrations throughout the weeks of the Games. Some of these offerings will be available in the exhibit area at the Kentucky Horse Park. Schedules and appointment information for these special events will be posted at www.roodandriddle.com in May 2010, and will also be promoted through other media releases.

© 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.

Learning to Love LEX: Is Lexington Ready for Its (Really) Big Blue Horse Icon?

by Fran Jurga | 22 March 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

New York has the Statue of Liberty. New Orleans has the fleur de lis. Baltimore has the crab. Boston has the beanpot. And St Louis has The Arch. Now Lexington, Kentucky has LEX the Horse, but he’s not the same stallion we have known and loved for the past 150 or so years.

The new symbol of Lexington, Kentucky is a variation of the famous old painting of the Thoroughbred stallion named Lexington by Edward Troye. (VisitLex.com image)

The famous New York/London design firm called Pentagram, hired by the city to re-define its identity and culture, has an easy explanation for the blue beast: apparently eating all that Kentucky Bluegrass turned the stallion the same color as the University of Kentucky's basketball team jerseys. (How timely, during NCAA March Madness!)

Who is this horse? Once upon a time there was a very famous Thoroughbred stallion named Lexington. I can spot his portrait from a mile away because for as long as I can remember, his portrait has adorned the front cover of the Blood-Horse Annual Stallion Directory, a book that resides permanently on my desk until the next year's arrives.

Open any book on the history of the horse in art, and there’s that classic portrait of Lexington.

Lexington will start seeing blue horses everywhere; the rest of us will start seeing them in tourism campaigns for the 2010 World Equestrian Games, to be held in Lexington, which I guess we are supposed to start calling "Lex", as on our luggage tags. (Pentagram photo)

The real Thoroughbred named Lexington was the leading sire in the Bluegrass region for 16 years in the mid-1800s and established an unequaled record for dominance in the breed. His offspring won everything from Kentucky to Saratoga and would have won more if the Civil War hadn't inconvenienced racing and disrupted the lives of Kentucky gentlemen (to say nothing of their horses' lives). For several years, his colts went to war, not to the races; one was even the chosen charger of General Ulysses S. Grant.

Recently, someone in Lexington decided that the good old horse should make a comeback; a new generation of townspeople and college students should embrace the iconic stallion, who was painted many times by Troye, although the favored portrait is the one also used annually by The Blood-Horse. The brand's rationale is that by re-embracing Lexington, the city is reaffirming its heritage of horses.

So, Lexington (the town) is on a Lexington (the horse) kick. The Kentucky Historical Society dedicated a highway marker in Lexington last week--on the stallion's 159th birthday--in his honor. The Kentucky Horse Park wants to display his skeleton in their museum, if the Smithsonian in Washington will loan it.

All this is good news to those of us in the horse business, considering that Lexington's chosen icon might just as easily have been a blue Lexmark printer, a blue Amazon.com warehouse or just a Big Blue Hoop.

The timing for this embrace of the traditional Lexington horse image seems a bit odd, since next year Lexington will become the sport horse capital of the world, at least temporarily, as the World Equestrian Games come to town. The mega-event will surely eclipse Thoroughbreds for a few months. Besides, the mood in Lexington's Thoroughbred sector--as in the rest of the racing world--is a bit down in the dumps lately. The big blue horse may be unintentionally symbolic of the mood in the sales ring and breeding shed.

Coincidence? Big Lex's appearance in Kentucky coincides with the recent unveiling of a huge blue mustang at the Denver Airport in Colorado. I am sure there are some conspiracy theories out there. They even seem to be the same color. (Rocky Mountain News photo)

Is the bluing of Troye's classic Lexington like seeing Mona Lisa with a mustache or Whistler's Mother in a Barcalounger? They have tampered with something that seems quite sacred. Denver's mustang is anonymous. For many people, Lexington is as well-known for basketball as it is for horses, but should the two be mixed? And will the public get the connection? Did that commercial of Shaq in jockey silks inspire this icon?

Comparisons to the nonsense rhyme about the purple cow by Gelett Burgess are inevitable when the Big Lex campaign gets even bigger during the World Equestrian Games next year. (Pentagram photo)

The design firm's rollout of the LEX concept includes plans for the installation of really big blue horses in downtown Lexington. But, wait: When Troye painted Lexington, the stud wasn't exactly racing fit. Much worse for observant Hoofcare and Lameness readers: his right front seems to have gotten increasingly clubby in the process of silhouetting.

"Angel of the South" sculpture to be constructed in England, designed by Mark Wallinger. (University of Glasgow image)

But great design minds do think alike. In England, plans call for a 150-feet-high gray Thoroughbred sculpture to be built along the highway leading from the Chunnel and ferry docks of the south coast, so that visitors arriving for the 2012 Olympics in London will be welcomed to England by a big horse. The English icon looks quite a big younger, and infinitely more fit, than poor Lex.

Technically, visitors to Britain will be welcomed by a closeup view of the horse’s hindquarters, which face the highway. The horse seems to be looking longingly toward Ireland, as this simulated video shows. Is he distracted? Or perhaps, since horses are herd animals, he may be gazing even further, trying to catch a glimpse of LEX, who should be hard to miss.

To learn more:
Click here to read the Pentagram story about the design of the Big Lex icon, and see more images of proposed uses for the big guy

Click here for the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau web site for Big Lex.

Click here to read a recent article about Lexington's skeleton and efforts to return it to Kentucky.

© 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.

Hagyard Equine Medical Institute Donates $10,000 for Racehorse Injury Research

(based on a press release)

The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation announced today that the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, an equine veterinary practice and hospital in Lexington, Kentucky has made a $10,000 donation to the foundation to further research on racehorse lameness issues.

"We realize many people associate Hagyard with broodmare, foal management and reproductive issues," said Stuart E. Brown II, DVM, a partner in the firm. "But we also want to help the finished product, the racehorse."

Hagyard, formerly known as "Hagyard, Davidson and McGee" has founded in 1876 by Scottish immigrant veterinarian Edward Hagyard. The practice has grown to enjoy a worldwide reputation and now has separate sub-practices, including sport horse medicine, a fertility center, and a pharmacy. The sprawling campus on Iron Works Pike across the road from the Kentucky Horse Park employs 60 veterinarians plus a large support staff.

Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation annually funds projects covering a range of health and soundness matters affecting various breeds. Since 1983, the foundation has provided more than $15.5 million to some three dozen universities to fund 239 specific projects.

"The Hagyard veterinary team has long been one of the leaders in providing top-quality and state-of-the-art care for their clients' horses," foundation president Edward L. Bowen said of the firm, which was founded in 1876. "Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation is proud that Hagyard views our efforts as worthy of its generous support."

The foundation's new slate of projects for 2009 will be established by mid-winter, and Hagyard Equine Medical Institute will be invited to select which project its grant will help fund.

© 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.

Inset photo is a Thoroughbred racehorse on a treadmill at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, England; from the new book EQUUS by Tim Flach, sold by Hoofcare Books.

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

Do you soft-shoe?

Amazing. Someone beat me to a buzz word...and my hat is off to him or her. Soft-shoeing is the descriptive term for use of plastic shoes, artificial wall, and boots instead of steel and nails. Another descriptive term is "anvil-free horseshoeing" or 'anvil-less" but that is hard to say (and spell).

Alexander Wurthmann, who is opening the Acadamie for Hoof Technology in Lexington, KY this fall, is offering a complete advanced program in soft shoeing. Alexander is including shoeing with Natural Balance aluminum shoes, though, and I would think that that requires an anvil. (Or should I say, I HOPE it does!)

I know a lot of traditional farriers poo-poo plastic shoes and all, but maybe it is not so far off as we think.

I wouldn't want to be in the plastic shoe business right now, waiting for 20th century farriers to accept them.

Unless I knew I had a really good shoe, the one that is going to change their minds. As always, we live in interesting times!