Arizona Equine Massage Therapist Fights Accusation of Illegal Practice of Veterinary Medicine with Lawsuit

There are 50 states in the USA but Arizona seems to make the news more often than most. And when it does, it is usually because there is something that lawmakers in Arizona want to keep out. Whether it's unique Arizona-only laws to send illegal immigrants back to Mexico or the rights of businesses to refuse to serve gays on religious grounds, Arizona makes the news when it makes new laws.

Now it wants to get rid of equine massage therapists.

Maryland's Kathy Anderson DVM Will Be New American Association of Equine Practitioners Vice President

The American Association of Equine Practitioners has named Kathleen Anderson, DVM, owner of Equine Veterinary Care PC in Elkton, Maryland, as its 2014 vice president. Dr. Anderson will be installed during the December 10 President’s Luncheon at the 59th Annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and will assume the role of AAEP president in 2016.

Raceplates and Horseshoers in Preakness Stakes History

In this ad from the Daily Racing Form in 1931, Victory proclaims that racehorse Mate ran in the Preakness wearing the new-fangled aluminum raceplates--and won! It took a lot of years to convince trainers and horseshoers to switch from steel to aluminum. In 2011, Shackleford won in Polyflex glue shoes. 

It's Preakness Stakes day, 2013-style, in the USA! Whether you think Kentucky Derby winner Orb is a shoe-in to win in his Jim Bayes Jr. crafted raceplates or if you like California's Goldencents, shod by Jim Jimenez, today's the day they line up at the Baltimore, Maryland track affectionately known as "Old Hilltop" for the second leg of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred racing.

What is it about Maryland? Why are there so many connections to the Triple Crown that pass through this state?

History: 1960s Racetrack Horseshoers Union Court Case May Have Inspired Propaganda Film

This video was a film buried in the Library of Congress and unearthed just this week.

How much has shoeing racehorses changed since 1960? Not much, but this film makes some good points about the role of horseshoers in a horse's life.

The International Union of Journeyman Horseshoers was part of the AFL-CIO until 2004; the IUJH is one of the oldest unions in the world. It was formed in 1873 and claims to be the oldest union retaining its original charter.

There is probably much more to this little film than meets the eye. It may even be what you call a "propaganda film", if you know anything about labor history in the United States and the pressure that was on unions in the 1960s.

No documentation is on this film footage as to the exact date of publication. It is labeled 1960, but that may be an approximate date. Maybe someone can date it by the models of the cars.

When this film was made, the union might have been under pressure to define the profession of farriery as a specialization, and to stress the importance of the union in keeping standard high within the trade. While the IUJH started out as representing the interests of the employee, or "journeymen", farriers against the Master Horseshoers Association whose members employed them, it survived at the racetrack in the second half of the 20th century and still exists today.

About the time this film was made, a controversy arose when three Canadian owners and trainers, while in Canada, used a nonunion farrier to shoe horses. To quote a summary of the case: "When they brought their horses to a racing meet at Bowie, Maryland, the International Union (of Journeyman Horseshoers) required its Local No. 7 to refuse service to the Canadians unless they would sign an agreement to use only union members, both in the United States and Canada...

"The other aspect of the case affecting all of the plaintiff owners and trainers sprang from the local union's setting of a minimum charge at Bowie of $16 for the shoeing of each race horse. The local enforced this policy by threatening to discipline or expel any union member who charged less than this minimum price."

Thus began an historic court case that came as close as the United States has ever come to defining the work relationship under which a horseshoer earns a living. The racehorse owner sued both the IUJH and the shoers themselves, and charged that they were acting in violation of the Sherman Act, that most famous of labor relations legislations that you haven't thought about since an American history class back in high school or college.

It all came down to a few questions: are farriers employees or independent contractors? And do they sell only their service or are they actually selling shoes, since they can, in theory, be considered "manufacturers" if they make their own shoes, in the eyes of the law. So were the unions actually a trust protecting a group of manufacturers? On which side of anti-trust laws did they truly fall?

The Sherman Act ("The Anti-Trust Law") had one of its most unusual tests right there in the blacksmith shops of Maryland racetracks. The horseshoers didn't strike, they kept on shoeing. They just didn't shoe for that one owner because he wouldn't agree to their terms.

Did this film just happen to be made in Maryland or was it intentionally made there, perhaps even to be shown in court, and to illustrate exactly what the horseshoer does and how important s/he is to the functioning of the racetrack? Was it made to gain the support of other unions and politicians who might be sympathetic to the horseshoers' union?

It appears to have been made to be shown on television or perhaps in movie theaters as a short feature, since the credits at the end mention that it is part of a series that will continue "next week".

There is probably no one left alive who can tell us, but finding this video was like finding another clue in that tumultuous time in American labor history and especially in the history and tradition of horseshoeing.

The horseshoers' unions operated under, or around, the terms of the Sherman Act, Taft-Hartley and the Clayton Act. Horseshoers didn't write the laws, but they tested them more than once and will always hold special footnotes in American labor and legal history in remembrance of cases like the Maryland one, which had the courts learning about the difference between machine-made and manufactured shoes, and what that meant--or might mean--under the law.

No matter how you look at the records, it seems that the horseshoers were able to use to their advantage their unique status as a small, necessary, but ill-defined and undocumented trade that defied being classified. To some extent, that same fuzzy focus survives today and, depending on who is doing the talking, either serves or paralyzes the advancement of the profession.

You can watch this film as a simple educational film or you can watch it as a classic example of labor propaganda.  It's up to you but this is another example of the depth of history surrounding the farrier profession.

However, like so many other things, that history has not yet been written about from the point of view of the shoers and it is equally unclear whether this court case was a victory for the horseshoers' union, or a defeat.

The real issue--whether the shoers were breaking the law by refusing to shoe one owner's horses--was lost in the shuffle and the case is referenced forevermore in legal history annals because it is so hard to define what horseshoers do, not how they do it or for whom.
 

To learn more:

IJHU current web site and history

Labor Law: Union Not Exempt from Suit for Sherman Act Violation If Its Members Are Independent Contractors and No Employer-Employee Relationship Exists in Virginia Law Review, May 1966

Horseshoers Union May Be Tiny, But Members Stand Proud from the Chicago Tribune in 1987

© 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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Virginia Tech Hires Full-Time Farrier for Veterinary College Post

20 January 2010 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

Travis Burns will leave his employment with the multi-farrier practice Forging Ahead in Round Hill, Virginia to become the full-time farrier at the veterinary college at Virginia Tech. He's shown here with one of his favorite horses, a big-footed barefoot fellow named Gumpy. (Hoofcare & Lameness photo)

This announcement was received this week from the
Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia; thanks to Drs. R. Scott Pleasant (far left) and David Hodgson (near left) for their assistance. (University announcement text in red)

We are very pleased to announce that Travis Burns, of Marshall, Virginia, has joined the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech as a full-time farrier.

Burns’ arrival in February will allow the College to provide complete equine podiatry services through the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. In his position, Travis will assist the equine faculty in building on the service, education, and community engagement strengths of the College. We believe that Travis’s special skills, knowledge, and experience will be a great resource for our students and regional horse owners, farriers, and veterinarians.

Proper management and care of a horse’s hooves is essential to the overall health of the animal, according to Dr. David Hodgson, head of the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences. “Properly trimmed and balanced hooves and correctly fitting shoes are essential to preventing lameness and other maladies in horses,” said Hodgson. “The addition of Travis to our department and hospital further enhances the overall preventive healthcare package we are able to offer our patients, clients and referring veterinarians. We are very pleased to welcome him and plan for him to enhance our ties to the local community of farriers. Travis will be working closely with Dr. Scott Pleasant and other members of our veterinary team. Dr. Pleasant is one of the leading veterinary exponents for the advancement of hoof care in horses. ”

Travis’s interest in horseshoeing began at an early age while working with horses at his uncle’s riding stable in North Carolina. He attended farrier school in the winter of 2002 and then continued to shoe horses while attending college. He graduated from North Carolina State University in 2006 with a Bachelor’s degree in Animal Science. In 2007, Travis was accepted into a one-year internship program at Forging Ahead, an elite multi-farrier practice in Northern Virginia. Upon completion of the internship program, based on his outstanding ability, Travis was retained at Forging Ahead as an associate farrier.

Travis recently achieved Certified Journeyman Farrier certification by the American Farrier's Association, the highest level of certification granted by the organization.

(end of Virginia Tech document)

Hoofcare and Lameness would like to congratulate both Travis Burns and Virginia Tech for the new directions each of them is taking (and taking together). While Travis is heading into a new area, there is no doubt he gives a lot of credit to the formal internship program that he completed at Forging Ahead; he was later hired on as an associate farrier there. The fact that he would be an AFA Journeyman and be considered for this position at the vet school so early in his career is testimony to the program that Paul Goodness has designed at Forging Ahead for farriers who want to seriously accelerate their careers working on top sport horses or specializing in lameness. While not everyone can be an intern at Forging Ahead, the program can be emulated by others, and hopefully more internships for working professional farriers will be offered in the future.

How does Paul Goodness feel about losing his protege? "I think it's so great," he said in a phone interview this morning, "that Virginia Tech would choose a young, talented farrier like Travis. He'll go far in this industry. They are starting with a clean slate, by hiring someone who wants to help horses and make a positive difference on many fronts. This is a step forward for the farrier-vet world. I will be able to stay in touch with Travis and send him cases from Leesburg. (Note: Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Virginia, which is affiliated with Virginia Tech and where Paul is the farrier).

"It's not a crisis here at Forging Ahead. It's true, 2009 wasn't the best year for us, and I'm sure not the best year for most farrier businesses," he continued thoughtfully. "But we've already picked up new clients this month and I don't feel like I need to be running back and forth to Florida. Scott and I have full books, all day, just here at the shop with haul-ins. We're predicting a big year and an influx of foreign riders to the area to train and compete before heading to Kentucky for WEG in the fall. The farrier business should be just fine, as should be the lameness referrals."

Here's a re-post of the NBC News segment taped at Forging Ahead about the internship program during the run-up to the Kentucky Derby last April:

, ,Please allow time for NBC's "Thank Goodness" video to load. Click the play icon to begin.

Links to more articles about Forging Ahead:
Link to Internship Program Announcement in 2007
Link to "Friends at Work" About Forging Ahead in 2009
Link to Forging Ahead web site

In 2009, Travis attended the Fifth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida and the North East Association of Equine Practitioners Conference in Ledyard, Connecticut. He also was a guest presenter at one of our Hoofcare@Saratoga evenings last August in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he presented Forging Ahead's clever reverse Mustad glue-on shoe for laminitis therapy.

While I was working on this announcement, several people forwarded to me links to a story that was published around the country today, via Associated Press, and most notably on the ABC News and National Public Radio web sites. The article features Jason Wilson-Maki, farrier at Texas A&M University, along with a brief mention of Michael Wildenstein, farrier at Cornell.

There are many hardworking farriers at vet schools around North America, including Jason and Michael, whether full-time employees or contract service providers. I'm sorry to say that I don't know who they all are, so if you work for or with a vet school, please contact The Hoof Blog so we can keep a list.

And today we can add Travis Burns to that list of farriers...and Virginia to the list of vet schools that has one.

© 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.