Theo Jansen's Anatomical Inspirations: Abstract Musing Can Help You Understand and Appreciate Hoof Design

Spring is in the air and a hoof blog editor's fancy turns to...kinetic sculpture. 

But you'll soon understand why.

To anyone who says we can't improve on the way that horses are trimmed or shod, or the way that lame and sick horses' legs are treated or cared for, I'd have to say we're just not trying hard enough. And the answer is not likely to come from tinkering with the designs and devices we already have in our hands.

Kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen builds 'strandbeests' out of PVC pipe and turns them out on the wild ranges of the sand on Dutch beaches. The goal is for his perpetual motion creations to become permanent, independent citizens of the sands.

Jansen's kite-like sculptures will trot along the beach on PVC legs and coffin joints.

That's right. He wants to turn them loose. It sounds like he's been watching some fantasy beer commercial where the wild horses run free forever.

You can't help but notice that his sculptures' legs and feet mimic the design of horse' limbs, right down to the single digit and breakover action of forward motion via a rotating distal joint.

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Maybe Jansen's been reading the Hoof Blog and saw this extreme rocker rehab on a foundered foot from Loic Entwistle's photo files in Germany. I'm sorry I don't have more information about this photo. I don't even know if this is Loic's work. But the image has always intrigued me. It's a thought-provoker.

Think backwards for a minute. What if you could be Jensen and design a new hoof for the horse, one that would be easier to work on, to keep sound, to serve the horse on multiple surfaces, in multiple environments, under a rider's weights, in different sports?

What would your design parameters be for the lower limb and hoof? Where would you start--at the bottom? in the middle? Would you specify a model with replaceable (transplantable or implantable) parts?

There's no doubt that Nature designed an amazing structure that functions organically with perfection when everything's right. Humans just seem to muck it up, in one way or another. Bioengineering is on its way to being able to identify weak tissue structures; perhaps digital cushion implants will be possible soon, or coronary band grafting will allow rehab to be completed in six weeks instead of six months.

I suspect most of us would be happy to tinker with the parts to improve them, but we like the design just the way nature has given it to the horse, and to us to work on, to ponder, to study, to capitalize upon, or to admire.

Maybe we should invite Theo Jansen to watch our horses run on the racetrack. What we'd end up with in return might be a little different than what you''d see him sketch on a drawing board. Imagine a silky, kite-like kinetic sculpture floating around the infield of a dark racetrack at night, under its own perptual power, making eerie music like a chorus of call-to-the-post buglers playing a duet with every foghorn on the coast of Maine.

People would pay to see (and hear) something like that. I think they'd pay to see lots of things he does. Keep an eye on him, and his beests. I think he's trying to tell us something

© 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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The World Is Flat? The Hoof Is Round? Horseshoe Designs Cover Both Extremes

I call this the "banana moon" shoe. Another great photo by Loic Entwistle from Germany.

Or is it that the world is round and the hoof is flat? Sometimes it is hard to tell.

Here in America, we have banana shoes and Dr. Ric Redden's rock-and-roll shoes, but here's a really rocking, all-belly laminitis shoe borrowed from the archive of German farrier Loic Entwistle, whose collection of photos never fails to fascinate me.

I don't know anything about this case and there is no photo of the bottom of the foot. But it started me thinking.

In my part of the world, we have special shoes called "bog shoes", or "marsh shoes". Not so long ago, horses had to be able to travel over the salt marshes, because that's where the hay was. In the early colonial times around here, the only open fields were the marshes. So the horses were fitted with big flat platform shoes so they wouldn't sink.

This old illustration is actually from Holland, where they probably perfected the bog shoe centuries before the Pilgrims made it to Plymouth. This image bothers me because I am so distracted by the horses' shoes that I don't question the rest of the scene. Can someone tell me why the wheels of the wagon wouldn't just sink up to the hubs?

These days, great minds in farriery tinker with the bottom of a horse's foot like it's meant to be a radius; Loic's shoe doesn't have a belly point like a Danny Dunson banana shoe--it's all belly.

Some days you want the world to be flat, some days you want it to be round.

An antique store near the Hoofcare & Lameness office has a collection of bog shoes; no two are alike and there must be 100 of them hanging from the rafters. It is appropriately called Salt Marsh Antiques. And they're not for sale, although I did borrow the collection once for an exhibit. The proprietor even has a salesman's catalog for readymade bog shoes like this very heavy steel plate. Most are wooden and look like thrifty yankee farmers made them out of barn boards. They resemble the Dutch shoes in this old print. I think this one is from Michael Wildenstein's collection. Most people who go to see the antique store's shoe collection leave with a new table or some old tools. Note: the toe is at the bottom of this photo, I think.

© 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.

AAEP Convention Report: Digital Extension Device Details from Hans Castelijns

German veterinarian Eva Krüdewagen learns to use the hoof lifter at a clinic in Germany. Dr. Hans Castelijns kneels at right. Photo by Loic Entwistle.

And now for something completely different: German farrier/veterinarian Hans Castelijns gave several lectures at the 2008 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention in San Diego, California. In a special session on lameness in the foot in Monday, he presented a tool that has, as yet, not hit the radar of American-style lameness diagnosis.

Castelijns is a referral vet/farrier and runs a rehabilitation farm in the Tuscany region of Italy, when he's not harvesting his olive groves or traveling the world as a lecturer and thought-provocateur.

His tool is a multi-level aluminum-encased disk that the horse stands on; the top surface is covered with a non-slip pad. A long lever arm extends from the center of the disk. It cranks the disk up to displace medial or lateral, toe or heel, regions of the foot, to test for discomfort, or perhaps more precisely, to gauge the horse's range of comfort. The horse protests when too much torque is placed on the foot, indicating ligament pain or general intolerance to uneven weightbearing.

Closeup view of the digital extension device: the center plate swivels quite elegantly so the operator can move around the horse while the horse stands still and does not have to have its foot repeatedly placed on and off the device. The opposite leg is still held up by a helper. (Loic Entwistle image)

Swiss farrier Bernard Duvernay demonstrated the device at the wonderful Luwex HufSymposium in Germany in 2006.

The lever arm has an angle gauge and a level at the end, so the operator can say, "Before we trimmed him, he had a medial intolerance at x degrees. With this new trim, he showed no intolerance at all."

The tool is a massive sophistication of the basic lever test for navicular pain; veterinarians formerly stood horses on a board and lifted it, higher and higher to extend the coffin joint and stress the navicular zone, including the deep digital flextor tendon and the navicular ligaments, while an assistant lifted the opposite foot (see photo below). Horses with navicular pain shivered their upper leg muscles, jumped right off the board or buckled backward. The test was often dangerous for all involved; sometimes diagnostic tests would try to lift the foot from the side to elevate the lateral side of the foot, so that pain in the collateral ligaments might be identified.

French veterinarians with a customized board for navicular zone reaction testing; one end has been covered with a non-slip pad, while the operator end has a handle for pulling up. Notice that the board is long enough to keep the diasnostician somewhat clear of the horse in case it rears up or jumps off. (Photo courtesy of Tildren educational series in Hoofcare and Lameness Journal.)

While digital extension tests with a board may not be very accurate in pinpointing the source of pain, they can be helpful, particularly in the field, and they are useful for before and after illustrations of horses reactions pre- and post-shoeing or trimming or surgery. Castilijns has developed a protocol for the use of the more sophisticated tool and also has pinpointed areas that he feels are sensitive to specific elevations.

Castilijns's paper is published in the official Proceedings of the AAEP Convention. An older paper on the device is published in the English language section of his excellent web site. Click here to read the older paper.

The device is sold commercially in Europe.


© 2008 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.

Favorite Photo: "Easy Shoer"

Move over, Easy Rider. Here comes Easy Shoer! (Loic Entwistle photos)

These photos are posted as provided by our friend Loic Entwistle of Germany. We had trouble with translation on the phone last week, so I am posting these as is, since they speak for themselves. You can click or double-click on the photos to see them in full size.

I am not sure that Loic is the designer of this shoeing rig, but I suspect he is. He won the "best rig" contest against an amazing array of tricked-out Mercedes and Range Rover vehicles at the 2006 Luwex Hufsymposium with his amazing custom-built truck.

My guess is that he couldn't beat himself, so he came back the next time with this rig.

Just a hunch.

Even if you don't speak German, I recommend that you visit Loic's site. Hoofcare will be featuring some of his lovely (and often humorous) hoof photography over the next few months. Since his photos are so clear and you already know how to speak "hoof", you may find that you can teach yourself a bit of German at his site!

This has long been one of my favorite farrier's web sites. Loic has a lot to share...but his photos always bring up lots of questions! He has subscribed to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal since 1994, but I didn't get to meet him until 2006.

Click here to go to Loic's site. But be prepared to stay a while. I know you will enjoy his photography and his sense of humor, no matter what language you speak.

Note: The 2008 Luwex Symposium opens October 23rd in Krueth, which is sort of the German equivalent of the Kentucky Horse Park. Loic is one of more than a dozen speakers from probably as many countries. His topic will be "Compensation of ground impact force with computer-aided measurement in mismatching feet." This conference is translated into Spanish, English, French, Italian and German. Dr. Scott Morrison will be the lone USA speaker this time.

In 2009, Hoofcare and Lameness may organize a group trip for Americans (and any other nationalities) to travel to Kreuth for this conference. It is probably the most adrenalinized farrier conference in the world. Three days at this conference is truly an immersion into European farriery. And a whole lot of fun! The hotel is right on the showgrounds, so you can't get too lost. Luwex offers a package including hotel and conference fees so we would only be arranging transportation. It might be a great way for Americans to experience European farriery, all in one place. They are always so disappointed that American farriers don't attend.

Here's Loic's real award-winning shoeing truck design. With him (yellow jacket) is Italian veterinarian Lorenzo d'Arpe. This photo was taken at the Luwex Hufsymposium in 2006. (Fran Jurga photo) Click here to read about Loic's truck.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. This post was originally published on October 15, 2008 at www.hoofcare.blogspot.com.