Hoofcare Confidential: American Pharoah’s Subtle Triple Crown Horseshoe by Wes Champagne

Suds stream down the hooves of American Pharoah's legs during a bath at Belmont Park last week. How can such an extraordinary horse run so brilliantly on ordinary horseshoes, you ask. Maybe they only look ordinary, is the answer. (© Associated Press photo by Julie Jacobsen, used with permission)

Jack Hanna at Ohio State's Equine Lameness Lab: Running Amok Through Gait Analysis

Watch a segment of Jack Hanna's "Into the Wild" television show filmed in a lameness lab

Television wildlife promoter Jack Hanna visited The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center's Galbreath Equine Center in Columbus, Ohio in February; he was filming a segment for his television show "Into the Wild."

Hanna and crew were hosted by our friend Alicia Bertone, DVM, PhD, DACVS professor of Equine Orthopedic Surgery and The Trueman Chair in Equine Clinical Medicine and Surgery at Ohio State.

Dr. Bertone tried to explain different diagnostic methods for osteoarthritis in horses as well as how a horse progresses through her new clinical trial for horses with osteoarthritis--when Jack wasn't mugging for the camera. It's nothing short of fun to watch Jack stumble through the familiar treadmills and force plates and surgery room hoists, all the while taking Dr Bertone not very seriously. Luckily, we know she has a great sense of humor and was well-chosen to host someone like Jack.

If you live in the United States and watch television, you know Jack Hanna. But since so many Hoof Blog readers are not US residents, it might be helpful to explain who this character is. Some might say that he is best known for taking his role as director of the down-at-the-heels and unknown Columbus Zoo back in the 1980s and turning "Jack Hanna"--and that zoo--into household names through his back-to-back appearances on every news and talk show on television. He actually does have a show of his own, however.

But most of us see him over breakfast on "Good Morning America" or late at night on David Letterman's show. He brings the creepiest or cutest animals he can find and turns them loose on Dave's desk.

Jack Hanna still lives in Ohio; that location meant that he became the de facto spokesman to the press during the terrible tragedy of a home zoo gone mad when wild animals escaped from a Zanesville, Ohio farm.

One reason he's so effective on-camera is because he plays dumb. Sure, it's dumb like a fox, but it works to get--and keep--the audience on his side. He's been able to become the most visible icon of American wildlife not in spite of but perhaps because of his lack of a DVM or a PhD. With the possible exception of the Zanesville aftermath, Jack Hanna doesn't usually lecture or talk down to his audiences. He falls over his own words often, makes more than his share of off-the-wall comments, and acts downright goofy sometimes, especially when David Letterman is around.

The AVMA and AAZPA may or may not approve of what Jack Hanna says or does, but they can't argue that he fuels the public's interest in wild animals, and has probably done more than any individual to increase the sales of family tickets to zoos and nature parks around the country.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

The horse world could use someone to do for us what Jack has done for zoos. Maybe this little video is a start. 

Click on the ad to learn more about this beautiful guide to the equine foot anatomy

 © 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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Video: Thoro'Bred Racing Plates Are Born and Bred in California. See How They're Made!

by Fran Jurga | 6 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



On Tuesday night, the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York celebrated the addition of a new case of shoes to its "Ride On!" exhibit on advances in racehorse health and safety. As part of the Hoofcare@Saratoga series for 2009, Hoofcare & Lameness hosted a little reception, sponsored by Life Data Labs, and I pointed out some of the innovative shoes and boots and hoofcare products that the museum had selected to display.

My point was that horseshoes are much like mousetraps: people keep trying to invent a better one, a more ideal one. Of better materials: stronger, lighter, more supportive, longer laster, more colorful, more healing, or sometimes just more complicated.

There were two companies I didn't mention but you will certaily see their shoes in that museum and all over the backside at Saratoga. They are the Victory Race Plate Company of Baltimore, Maryland and the Thoro'Bred Racing Plate Company of Anaheim, California.

Their shoes may not be in the exhibit of therapeutic shoes and braces and boots, but you will find them all over the museum in the cases of the trophy shoes of the champion racehorses like Secretariat.

The Orange County Register in California made a trip to Anaheim recently to see how raceplates are made and say hello to Thoro'Bred's Ed Kinney on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of his company. I hope you will enjoy this video.

Ed and Thoro'Bred were supporters of Hoofcare@Saratoga last year and we appreciate their support. We have it from an inside source that Thoro'Bred shoes are the equivalent of the Jimmie Chooz faves of the top three-year-old filly in the USA; she wore them when she modeled for her fashion portrait, shot by Steven Klein, in this month's issue of Vogue Magazine. Check it out the next time you're near a newsstand!

© 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.

Champion Australian Jockey Takes Off His Shoeing Apron to Don Silks

There's something about fillies: Australian jockey (and farrier) Glen Boss has been one of the world's leading money-winning jockeys in recent years. He rode to victory in three consecutive Melbourne Cups aboard superstar mare Makybe Diva. This weekend he rides favorite Samantha Miss in the $3 million Cox Plate.

As America gears up for the Breeders Cup championship races this week, all eyes in Australia will be on the $3 Million Cox Plate to be run at Mooney Valley. In the jockeys' room, however, one pair of eyes will be solemnly focused on the scales.

Remember those gut-wrenching passages in Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit as the jockey tried to come back from injuries and keep his weight down, all at the same time? I remember a joke told by one of the Thoroughbred trainers about flying cross-country with a jockey. The trainer felt guilty eating the airline's peanuts. The jockey took one, and cut it into quarters...and rationed it to last the flight.

Now it's my turn to remember. I was at a farrier convention. The awards banquet followed a buffet dinner. I wasn't in a hurry to eat so I lingered by the bar. Then I heard loud grumbling. The line was halfway through...and the food was gone. All of it.

There couldn't be two people with different eating agendas than a jockey and a horseshoer.

Today, meet a man who is both.

Australian champion jockey Glen Boss has been trying to make the weight so he can ride the favorite--a young filly running against colts--in this weekend's Cox Plate. He'll be riding for his friend, the trainer, but under Australian riding terms, he needed to get his weight down to just (gulp) 47 kilos (103.4 pounds). He would need to lose more than 10 pounds from a body that already was so lean you can't pinch him.

Glen's effort has been poignantly documented in photos by an Australian newspaper. What attracted my attention was seeing a closeup of a jockey's head with the words "Fighting Farrier" stitched into a watch cap.

Yes, Glen Boss used boxing as one of his main exercise routines to drop the pounds. His trainer and advisor was fellow farrier and former Australian welterweight champion Julian Holland. According to the story, they met when shoeing in the Gold Coast region of Australia 20 years ago. Boss was able to put his race winnings to use and sponsor Holland. This year, Holland is returning the favor and training Boss to ride in one of the world's richest races.

The campaign for Holland's title would dub him "The Fighting Farrier" forevermore in Australian boxing history and that moniker certainly fits Boss now, as he emphasis shifts from fighting in the ring to fighting the scale.

Read the full story by clicking here. And stay tuned tomorrow to find out how Samantha Miss did in the Cox Plate.

Looking ahead a few weeks: Glen Boss will try to equal the record of consecutive Melbourne Cup wins when he rides Profound Beauty in that race for Euro trainer Dermot Weld. The race, run at Flemington Racecourse outside Melbourne in Victoria, is worth $5.5 million.

Or at least Glen Boss hopes to: ironically, the star filly who is willing to take on the colts in Australia's richest race is questionably sound with a bruised foot. Maybe Boss can take a look.

Glen Boss, left, spars in the ring with fellow farrier Julian Holland, former welterweight champion boxer of Australia, whose quest for that title was sponsored by Boss's race winnings.

Be sure to visit the photo gallery documenting what he's going through to make the weight. Click here to see 28 photos of a determined man.

Photos credit for this blog post: www.couriermail.com.au

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. This post was originally published on 23 October 2008 at http://www.hoofcare.blogspot.com.

Triple Crown "Crack"down: Update from Ian McKinlay on Big Brown's Latest Hoof Malady

This device from Holland was marketed in Europe for stabilizing quarter cracks on Standardbreds. This photo shows clearly what a typical quarter crack would look like after being cleaned up. Notice where the start of the crack is at the hairline vs where the bottom of the crack is at the shoe. A quarter crack is a fissure in the hoof wall and is a reaction to stress so it will generally follow the angle of the horn tubules if the intertubular horn is weak, or the path of least resistance. Big Brown's crack is only 3/4" long, according to Ian, and is up at the top of the wall.

As promised yesterday, Hoofcare and Lameness caught up with hoof repair specialist Ian McKinlay today. Ian has promised a photo of Big Brown's new quarter crack on Wednesday of this week.

Ian was called to Belmont Park the other day when trainer Rick Dutrow noticed something wrong with the medial (inside) hoof wall on Big Brown's left front foot.

As avid Big Browners will recall, the left front foot is the site of the original wall separation that started the chain of hoof repair and layups for the champion colt over the winter months. Ian had removed the heel tissue on the inside heel of the left front, as detailed in previous posts and videos on this blog. The horse then shipped to Florida, where his right front inside heel was removed and repaired by Tom Curl.

Since then, Big Brown has been training and racing on a designer adaptation of a Thoro'Bred racaing plate that is glued on his foot without nails. The Yasha shoe system is like an orthotic insert between the shoe and the foot. One density of plastic, similar to the gasket that holds your truck's windshield in place, circuits the shoe and holds adhesive in place. Another density is a thick block pillow on which the remains of the heel sits as it grows out. Big Brown raced successfully in these shoes, winning the Florida Derby, Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.

Note: in the "combi" Yasha paradigm, the plastic coats the foot surface of the shoe and acts like a dual-density rim pad. Some Yasha shoes have dual densities for different parts of the foot. Big Brown's shoes do not look like this.

"He doesn't even need the shoes anymore," McKinlay said today. "He could be in a regular shoe now."

My first thought was that a crack had developed at the hair line above the patch because of the stress from the material as the colt pounded down on the heel but Ian assured me that was not the case. "It's back around a little ways toward the heel," he said, "but not near that area. Besides that heel is all grown down now."

Many reports state that the crack has been "patched" but that is not the case. The crack has been cleaned up and treated with drying agents to dry it out and allow drainage of any infected area inside the crack. Then it was laced with the sutures as illustrated in the video posted on this blog last night (scroll down to May 25 video post to see that technique illustrated).

"As soon as I tightened it down, the foot started to cool out," Ian said. "Call me Wednesday to find out how it went."

Ian will check Big Brown again on Wednesday and decide what the next step will be in, in terms of replacing or relocating sutures, covering the crack with hoof wall adhesive, etc. The horse would then have nine days to train up to the mile-and-a-half Belmont.

In an email just received this evening, Ian gave an update: "By the way, his foot went cold within five hours of lacing him up, couldn't ask for more than that."