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)

Triple Crown Hindsight: California Chrome's Hoof Bulb Injury in Pictures

The dream is over, and that's horse racing. The champion is just a horse, after all. But a special one.

California Chrome: Horseshoer Judd Fisher with a Horse on the Doorstep of History

Best of luck to California horseshoer Judd Fisher as he waits to find out if the horse with his shoes on will make history today by becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. Cross your fingers, rub a horseshoe, raise your glass--whatever happens, Judd has done a great job to get California Chrome to this point.  (Judd Fisher photo)

Read more about Judd Fisher and the special shoes that California Chrome wears.

Triple Crown: Remembering Affirmed, the Horseshoer's Son, and the Horseshoer Himself

Whenever a big race is coming up, you'll see The Hoof Blog joyfully tweeting good wishes to jockey Rosie Napravnik. She is, after all, the horseshoer's daughter who made it to the big time. Her father, New Jersey shoer Charles Napravnik, often shows up in the winner's circle.

In fact, in the photo below of the Kentucky Oaks winner's circle when Rosie won on Untapable, you can clearly see Charlie, with his gray moustache and fedora hat, behind his daughter as she hoists the trophy over her head.

It's a lot of fun to be a Rosie fan, but she's not the first champion jockey to call a horseshoer "Dad". You'll see the original today in the Belmont Stakes coverage. He was the last jockey to win the Triple Crown.

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?

Irish Super-Star Thoroughbred Camelot and His American Farrier Jeff Henderson Are Two-Thirds of the Way to Winning the British Triple Crown

Jeff Henderson shoeing Camelot today at Ballydoyle Training Center in Co. Tipperary, Ireland. Camelot will attempt to win the British Triple Crown on Saturday, September 15.

Time flies: Just 90 days ago, racing fans in the United States were on the edges of their seats. It was time for the Belmont Stakes, the third leg in the Triple Crown. I'll Have Another had won the first two legs.

Would we finally have a Triple Crown winner? No horse has won the American Triple Crown since 1978. It's been a long 34-year drought.

As we all know, it wasn't meant to be. The afternoon before the race, I'll Have Another was scratched and retired. He's now hard at work as a breeding stallion in Japan.

But hang on a minute. We might have a Triple Crown winner, after all. 

This video documenting Camelot's rise to superstardom is 18 minutes long. A highlight is when Aidan O'Brien nonchalantly describes Camelot's movement: "He moved more like a dressage horse than a racehorse, which was very unique. Usually horses that move like that are too good-looking to be true."

Spin the globe halfway around. Drop a map tack on Doncaster, England. That's the place to be on Saturday, September 15, 2012.

Perhaps no horse has won the USA's Triple Crown since 1978 but consider this: no horse has won the British Triple Crown in 42 years. The last winner was the great Nijinsky in 1970.

This third leg of England's Triple Crown is the St Leger, at slightly longer than 1 3/4 miles. Like most European races, it's on the grass.

And the horse with two-thirds of the Triple Crown already on his resume is named Camelot. 

He might be the horse to re-write the record books.

Jeff Henderson in Camelot's stall at Ballydoyle with the handsome champion colt.

Jeff Henderson, staff farrier at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital's Podiatry Center in Lexington, Kentucky was in Ireland this week with Camelot, as part of his consulting service for Coolmore trainer Aidan O'Brien, and will travel with the colt to England for Saturday's race.

Jeff shod Camelot on Friday at Coolmore's Ballydoyle training center outside Cashel in County Tipperary, Ireland. Here's what he had to say:

Hoof Blog: Tell us about this horse!

Jeff Henderson: Camelot is shod and ready to run, his feet look good and he nails up well. I just shoe him with Kerckhaert raceplates and he gets nothing special. 

Hoof Blog: He's shod the day before the race?

Jeff Henderson: I try to keep it business as usual and just shoe him the same as any other time, so we do not get caught up in the hype.

Hoof Blog: What's the extent of your consultancy for Aidan O'Brien?

Jeff Henderson: I look after 20 to 30 horses in Ballydoyle and during racing season they are shod every 21 days. I spend 2 weeks at home and 1 week in Ireland from about March through November. I have to give a lot of credit to my wife for putting up with the schedule and handling everything at home while I am away. 

Hoof Blog: It must take a tribe of farriers to shoe all the horses at a center like Ballydoyle.

Jeff Henderson: There are two full-time farriers who work at Ballydoyle. I work closely with them when I am here and they deal with lost shoes and basically hold it together while I am gone. I have all the tools and gear here and can fly with just a carry-on bag and do all I need.

Hoof Blog: Possibly American readers don't know the type of operation you're describing. There's nothing like it in America. How do you get a contract like that?

Jeff Henderson: It is quite a privilege to get to work on a horse of this caliber. This is my third racing season shoeing for Ballydoyle. Dr. (Scott) Morrison and I came over three years ago for two days to do some consulting and I ended up staying for a week. 

Hoof Blog: How does it feel to be on the verge of making history with this horse?

Jeff Henderson: It is great to be part of a historic event and I hope for a fast and safe trip for all the horses in the race.

• • • • • • • • • •

Camelot's trainer, Ireland's Aidan O'Brien, can't say enough good things about this horse: “He looks different; everything about him is different. He’s flesh and blood, but there’s a vibe around this horse. There’s a bigger aura around him, and there has been from Day One,” he said today in an interview with Jennie Rees of the Louisville (Kentucky) Courier Journal.

He'll be ridden by the trainer's son, Joseph O'Brien. He's been trained at the same center as Nijinsky. He has a Japanese exercise rider. And an American farrier will be at--and on--his side on Saturday.

TO LEARN MORE:

Camelot's Epsom Derby Victory Footnote: American Farrier Jeff Henderson on The Hoof Blog

Is Camelot enchanted? British Triple Crown would make his case by Jennie Rees for the Louisville Courier-Journal

Overlooking Camelot In Britain's Glorious Summer Of Sport by Teresa Genaro on Forbes.com

The race will be broadcast by HRTV and TVG racing networks on cable television in the USA beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET on Saturday.

Story and photos protected by copyright; no use without permission. Photos courtesy of Jeff Henderson.

Click to order this usual and beautiful reference poster.

© 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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Friends at Rest: Benjamin Franklin Talbert Shod the First Winner of the Triple Crown

by Fran Jurga | 5 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

An anvil marks the grave of someone named Benjamin Franklin Talbert in Pennville, Indiana. In case you are having trouble reading the lettering it says "Here lies an old horse shoer. Maybe not the best, but as good as the rest." (Daniel Lillard photo.)

Before the 2009 Kentucky Derby recedes in our memories (well, not much chance of that), I'd like to remind readers of my desire to construct a list of horseshoers who shod Kentucky Derby winners. If you know who shod which winner, please send an email to hoofblog@gmail.com. Any help would be wonderful--do not assume that I already know the obvious ones.

All that is by way of introducing today's photo. It's a pretty unique gravestone that you will find if you snoop around the cemetery in Pennville, Indiana. Thanks to Pennville's super historian, and my fellow blogger, Daniel Lillard, I can share some information about this grave with you.

The anvil and its self-effacing plaque mark the grave of Benjamin Franklin Talbert, a Pennville native who started out learning to shoe horses there in the 1880s, when he was paid a dollar a day. But Talbert thought he could do better, and lit out for the Oklahoma oil territory, where he met a rich oilman who needed someone to shoe his racehorses.

If Talbert wanted to see the world, he got his wish. He started to tour on the racetrack circuit from Cuba to Canada--and everywhere in between--for the next 30 years. Eventually he landed the job as the contract farrier for the stable of Joseph E. Widener, the wealthy art collector who owned Belmont Park and was the developer of the winter racing mecca at Hialeah in Florida.

Talbert shod the great racehorse Sir Barton, who was the very first winner of the Triple Crown, back in 1919; Sir Barton was yet another of those great racehorses troubled by sore feet. There's an excellent description of Sir Barton's brittle hoof walls and shelly feet in the wonderful book Man o' War by our friend Dorothy Ours. She did some thorough research and said that Talbert used piano felt to line Sir Barton's shoes but that they still wouldn't stay on and often flew off during races.

He also shod Zev, the winner of the 1923 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. The list of stakes winners he shod goes on and on. Widener's stable and his Elmendorf Farm in Kentucky were world-renowned.

During World War II, two events happened that must have deeply affected Talbert. First his employer Widener died, so he may have technically been out of a job; then the US government closed all the racetracks in support of the war effort. A government memo suggested that the horseshoers would be well-suited to work in welding shops and shipyards; they were better off than than the jockeys, who were urged to enlist for duty in the noses of bomber planes, where their small size would make them an asset.

So Talbert, who was getting on in years anyway, moved home to Pennville in 1944, and opened a blacksmithing and welding shop where he worked until his death in 1959.

Oh, the stories I bet he could tell in that little town. Now all that's left is an anvil in the ground, a man who has lived all over Europe and remembers it in a blog he writes about growing up in Indiana, and a hoof blog that is trying to find people like Benjamin Franklin Talbert.

If you go: Pennville is a town of 700 people in Jay County, Indiana. Click here to read Daniel's excellent blog about the little town that has never really left him, though he has traveled far and wide, much like Benjamin Franklin Talbert. Will Daniel ever find his way home again? I guess I'll have to keep reading his blog to find out.

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

Texas Horses at the Derby: The Club-Footed Comet Won the Triple Crown

by Fran Jurga | 3 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

On Wednesday, The Hoof Blog wrote about The California Cripple, a.k.a. Swaps, the winner of the 1955 Kentucky Derby. Today we'd like you to meet The Club-Footed Comet, the unflattering nickname for Assault, winner of the 1946 Kentucky Derby, and the entire Triple Crown.

Poor Assault was plagued with health problems and it almost seemed like his mashed up hoof was the least of them. But he was lucky enough to be born in Texas on the expansive King Ranch, where he would receive the best care and be sent to the great trainer Max Hirsch. Mr. Kleberg, owner of King Ranch, believed that his million acres of Texas was the ideal place to raise racehorses both because of the climate and because the feet could develop naturally.

According to the archives of the New York Times, Kleberg's theories of raising horses would be in line with the natural horsemanship theories of today. He did not think young horses' hooves would develop correctly if foals were kept in stalls. Unfortunately, the wide open spaces backfired on his most talented colt.

The story is that Assault stepped on a stake while turned out as a foal and that his foot was not actually deformed but that he did walk with a limp that would make you think he could never run. But run was about the only thing he could do. If Assault was around today he would probably never make it past the regulatory vet.

The nature of his injury is vague and radiographs were not available back in the 1940s, but perhaps he lost part of his coffin bone; it really could have been any sort of a traumatic injury. The official King Ranch biography of Assault tells us that the injury caused the foot to "become infected and the damaged hoof to be cut almost entirely away.

He wore a special shoe on that foot for the rest of his life and limped at a walk or a trot...It is incorrect to say that he was club-footed; when he was in a standing position, the misshapen foot showed no discernible defect."

One writer described the frog as looking like a block of wood. John Dern was Assault's horseshoer and it was always said that his shoe for Assault was a secret design, but it is described in the Assault's biography from the Blood-Horse's "Legends" book series as being nailed at the heels and having a very broad toe clip or perhaps even being a rockered toe, to aid in keeping the shoe on. No photos of the bottom of Assault's foot are ever shown; it's likely that the deformity showed loud and clear on the bottom, even if the hoof capsule looked pretty normal in shape and size.

Max Hirsch recalled, "He never showed any signs that it was hurting him... I think that when the foot still hurt him, he got in the habit of protecting it with an awkward gait, and then he kept it up. But he galloped true. There wasn't a thing wrong with his action when he went fast."

Assault had some unorthodox training under Hirsch, who took several months off from racing each winter and shipped his clients' horses to the fair grounds in Columbia, South Carolina for the winter. They stayed in training, but all had their shoes pulled. Whether he made an exception for Assault or not is not known.

Hirsch claimed that that particular training track had the best soil in America and that he had never seen a horse break down there. At that time, many northern trainers wintered at Aiken, Camden or Columbia while others ran horses year-round by wintering at Hialeah. Hirsch chose not to race in the winter. Hirsch said that none of the trainers at the Columbia track shod their horses but said shoes would be needed as soon as they returned to the sandy tracks of New York. The archives of the New York Times are full of great articles about Assault. Even his name suggests the upbeat end-of-the-war attitude and recent memories of any number of assaults in Italy, Normandy, the Pacific...and lots of places in between. Racing was shut down in the United States until VE day in 1945. Assault won the first post-war Kentucky Derby and for him to go on and win the Triple Crown was just what American sport needed. In August 1947, a match race worth $100,000 to the winner had to be cancelled between the also-timely-named Armed of Calumet Farm and Assault when Assault's foot pain flared up. Hirsch was quoted in the Times as saying, "The soreness developed in the foot that has been slightly deformed since Assault was a baby. Every time he is shod, it is like performing a delicate operation. It may be that the soreness is due to a nail that touches a tender spot in his hoof when I set him down for a hard effort. Under these circumstances it would not be fair to the public or to my great horse to run the match." Assault had fertility problems and returned to racing after his initial retirement, only to retire again. He ended his life as he began it, turned out in the wide open spaces of King Ranch in Texas and lived to be 28. Assault's biography is one of the most interesting and unusual you'll find. I wonder who has his shoes! To learn more: The photo of Assault is from the King Ranch web site, which has a nice biography of him and lots more information about the Ranch's champion horses, both Thoroughbreds and Quarter horses. © 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.
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Quality Road's Derby Withdrawal: What Did Others Do?

by Fran Jurga | 27 April 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

For better or worse, quarter cracks have altered the course of horse racing history. Fortunes have been won and lost because of them. Many top breeding stallions have been plagued by them, and their progeny repeat their sires' painful steps. 

This quarter crack on a horse about to undergo treatment at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine is atypical in that it affects the lateral ("outside") hoof wall of a horse instead of the medial ("inside") wall. Trace the crack to the coronet and you will see that it follows a line of general stress that is not exactly parallel with the hoof angle. 

While most people focus on the larger part of the crack, toward the ground surface as it widens, the area of focus for judging the success of any  treatment will be the barely visible origin of the crack at the hairline. 

Florida Derby winner Quality Road sported a new patch on his new quarter crack when he galloped on Sunday, and plans called for a serious work today (Monday) at his home track of Belmont Park in New York before shipping to Louisville for Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

He stayed in his stall this morning: not a good sign.

Quarter crack specialist Ian McKinlay called on Sunday to say that he was disappointed that the crack's location, right at the hairline, meant that when he inserted the drain and tightened the sutures before applying the patch, there was a tiny drop of blood at the hairline.

“This is live tissue – we’re not changing a flat tire, so there are a lot of judgment calls," McKinlay told The Hoof Blog by phone. “Everything had been stabilized and when I changed the wires today, the crack opened up. There was a bit of sensitive tissue aggravated during the process. Hopefully, there won’t be a tinge of blood tomorrow (Monday) when he breezes.”

Trainer Jimmy Jerkens said Sunday that he was planning to treat the hoof with “Thrush Buster” as a drying agent and also with Animalintex poultice. “He’s got 24 hours to get better,” said Jerkens on Sunday. “I would have liked to have seen no blood, but it didn’t surprise me because he was still tender. He’s sound, he galloped the way he usually does, but I would have been more optimistic without blood.”

When Monday rolled around, the stall door did not open wide. No big colt came striding out.

Before you write this colt off, read your history. Today's leading sire A. P. Indy sat out both the 1992 Kentucky Derby and Preakness while recovering from a quarter crack, which popped the day before the Derby, and came back to win the much longer Belmont Stakes and Breeders Cup before entering stud.

And who could forget another leading sire, Unbridled's Song, whose owner (the now infamous Ernie Paragallo, currently accused of neglecting almost 200 horses on his farm in upstate New York), sent his colt to the post in the 1996 Kentucky Derby in spite of a quarter crack and bar shoe, only to have him finish fifth. Unbridled's Song missed the Preakness and the Belmont.

And don't forget one of the most underrated racehorses in American history: the great three-year-old campaign of Buckpasser, who won 14 stakes races with a gaping quarter crack that was often unpatched.

The crack did keep him out of the Triple Crown, but he came back to win the Travers...and everything else. I think he won something like 14 stakes races in quick succession, within a year, in spite of his re-cracking hoof. His jockey, Braulio Baeza, said he ran on his heart, not his hooves.

Buckpasser's three-year-old quarter crack was infected; the Phipps Stable brought in Standardbred quarter crack expert Joe Grasso to patch him and the crack recurred when he was four.

Buckpasser is one of the most interesting horses, hoof-wise, in recent American history. The Phipps Stables is said to have tested experimental European raceplates on him. He retired with a record of 31-25-4-1. That's right: he started 31 times in three years, almost all of which were stakes races.

In 1964, Northern Dancer (who looms in Quality Road's pedigree) won the Flamingo and Florida Derby prep races, as well as the Derby, while recovering from a quarter crack, but the crack would have been quite grown out by the Derby. Northern Dancer wore the vulcanized patch by Bill Bane at Santa Anita.

Just to muddy this whole situation, a horse can have a quarter crack, a Quarter Crack, or a QUARTER CRACK. It sounds like Quality Road has a quarter crack, but it is in a very sensitive spot, and his decisionmakers aren't taking any chances.

That translates to one less reason to hold your breath for two minutes on Saturday.

And that's ok.

Read The Hoof Blog's 2008 article on the history of quarter crack patches and horses who benefited from them.

© 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.