The Olympic Hoof Explained: Swedish farrier outlines barefoot management of gold medal team

Everyone has questions about the shoeless Swedish showjumpers that have been so successful at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Sweden won the Team Gold Medal Saturday, as a followup to rider Peder Fredricson's Individual Silver Medal for jumping earlier this week.

To explain it to you, we went straight to the source. Peter Glimberg is the farrier at Peder Fredricson's training farm and oversees the hoofcare of some of the world's most elite show jumpers, many of whom now train and compete without shoes on carefully-groomed arena surfaces.

Supply Side: Vettec Hoof Repair and Sole Support Innovator Acquired by Kerr Corporation

The following information has been provided to Hoofcare Publishing by Vettec Inc.:

Kerr Corporation, a global manufacturer of healthcare products, announced today that it has acquired DUX Dental and Vettec Inc. The acquisition will unlock new worldwide opportunities for growth in the large animal healthcare market.

Texas A&M Farrier Conference Brought Together Diverse Professionals with Common Concerns for the Horse's Foot

The following article was shared by Blair Fannin of the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service

More than 70 professional farriers, veterinary students, farrier school students and horse owners gathered for the 2014 Texas A&M University Farrier Conference held January 10 in College Station, Texas.

Hosted by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M, the one-day workshop provided the latest information on proper foot care and shoeing techniques, according to organizers.

David Hood, PhD, DVM (photo
courtesy of Richard Booth)

“The 2014 TAMU Farriers Conference was well attended and was a huge success due largely to the number of highly qualified farriers in attendance,” said Dr. Dennis Sigler, AgriLife Extension horse specialist. “I continue to be impressed with the Texas Professional Farriers Association and American Farrier's Association and their members’ dedication to the continuing education of all professional farriers and the skills and knowledge that the majority of these professionals have.”

Connie Larson,
Zinpro representative

Featured presentations included preparing the foot for shoeing, the value of farrier certification, laminitis research update, live hoof and lower limb dissection, live demonstrations of variations in foot flight demonstrated on the high-speed treadmill, effect of nutrition on hoof health, therapeutic shoeing techniques for laminitis and navicular syndrome and the latest techniques in applying synthetic foot protection material.

Tab Pigg, Vettec representative

Farriers, veterinary students, farrier school students and horse owners gathered recently for the Texas A&M University Farrier Conference in College Station. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo)

Sigler said he and a group of nationally renowned experts made the presentations, including: Dr. David Hood, Hoof Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Center; Dr. Lynn Ruoff, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine; Dr. Connie Larson, ZINPRO Research Nutritionist; Blane Chapman, American Farriers Association-Certified Journeyman Farrier; Pat Burton, American Farriers Association-Certified Journeyman Farrier; and Tab Pigg, Vettec representative and American Farriers Association-Certified Journeyman Farrier.

Blane Chapman, CJF

“In addition to presentations and demonstrations, lively, interactive discussions were held to take advantage of the knowledge and experience of the large number of certified farriers and examiners in attendance,” Sigler said.

Following the conclusion of the conference, on January 11, the Texas Professional Farrier Association sponsored an American Farrier's Association Certification exam for those desiring to take one of the certification exams. Twenty individuals took exams for farrier certification, according to organizers.

The conference was made possible by ZinPro Corporation, MLS Nutritional Supplements and Alvin Farrier Supply, along with the support of AgriLife Extension and the department of animal science.

Texas A&M University has been hosting farrier seminars for many years. The University is home to both a renowned veterinary college and a highly respected equine science department, as well as an active extension education program. A new equine center is under construction at the university, which is in College Station.

Thanks to Blair Fannin and the Agrilife staff for assistance compiling this article.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is the news service for Hoofcare and Lameness Publishing. 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 headlines-link email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

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Disclosure of Material Connection: The Hoof Blog (Hoofcare Publishing) has not received any direct compensation for writing this post. Hoofcare Publishing has no material connection to the brands, products, or services mentioned, other than products and services of Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

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.

Dubai Horse Hooves Are Being Molded, Not Shod, with Experimental Hoof Application Process

by Fran Jurga | 12 September 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Take a really close look at this "shoe". What looks at first glance like a Natural Balance shoe is actually a urethane hoof application created on the foot by injecting Vettec Adhere material into a mold. Vettec Superfast is sometimes also used, but Derek said that in this particular shoe, Adhere made the shoe more flexible.

Here's the ground surface of a six-degree short-heart bar, made for a horse with a fractured navicular bone.

A new shoeing technique developed in Dubai by South African farrier Derek Poupard is offered for your comments. In addition to the photos above, we have a short video showing how the mold is applied and the material is inserted, and the removal of the model to reveal a "shoe", if you want to call it that.

"This is so new, I only put my first one on 4 months ago, and after doing hundreds I now feel it is time to expose it," Derek wrote in an email. "I have only shown it to a handful of farriers here and right from the word go they embraced it and it is very rewarding to see their response as they peel of a mold seeing the perfect shoe. They all describe it as a revelation and every time they use it, it gives them the same feeling over and over again."

This has been a big year for plastic and composite horseshoes. First Curlin won the great classics of his four-year-old career last fall wearing square-toed Polyflex shoes of polyurethane. Then Steffen Peters and Ravel won the World Cup of dressage wearing plastic Eponashoes. This week, the venerable Horse and Hound news magazine from London carries a feature article touting the popularity of plastic shoes, especially those designed by our friend, the clever Andrew Poynton, who has expanded his moldable Imprint therapeutic plastic heartbars into sporty new models for competition horses.

And now we have the possibility of design-it-yourself hoof molds to make not shoes, exactly, but something else, a hybrid lighter and perhaps more cohesive with the foot than a separate shoe attached by nails would be. While steel and nails have their advantages too, this new technique may find a niche of its own, or become a platform for inventors or farriers and veterinarians faced with challenging hoof injuries or deformities.

This second video was made a while ago by a Dubai television station that visited the royal stables where Derek works. It's a nice view into the facility and shows Derek's previous traditional use of glue-on shoes on a Thoroughbred racehorse.



Eventually, Derek's molds will be available for sale, I'm sure, but in the meantime, the floor is open for comments. He's a world away from almost all of us and would like to hear from you, I'm sure.

Much more information is available at www.quixshoe.com.

Some American readers may remember Derek from his time spent living and shoeing in Virginia. He has been featured in Hoofcare and Lameness Journal in the past but when he left the USA several years ago, we lost track of him. A royal farrier shop in Dubai is an interesting place for him to be found.

New shoes continue to come on the market or be passed around as prototypes. This process is quite unique, though, and while it seems cumbersome and awkward at this stage, it is sure to improve and become more streamlined.

What could your imagination do with technology like this? What if...

© 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: Hoof Dudes, Unite

There must have been something in the water. Or maybe it was in the tequila. But the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Convention, held in San Diego, California, last week was an escapist's dream. Five days of lectures, a huge trade show, a beautiful city, great food and drink, but most of all, a collection of interesting people from all stripes and ranks within the horse health and husbandry worlds made last week one of the most memorable conferences I've attended.

They streamed in and out of the Hoofcare and Lameness booth: veterinarians, farriers, vet techs, practice managers, hoof trimmers, educators, researchers, therapists, chiropractors, authors, journalists, photographers, artists, spouses, ex-spouses, significant others, old friends, new acquaintances and even a Dachshund from Arizona. Seldom was heard a discouraging word.

I hadn't expected the convention to be so upbeat. I flew in from the land of gloom and doom, where falling real estate values and collapsing stock prices have convinced everyone that the End is Near. I wasn't expecting people to be generous and supportive and so very friendly. What a wonderful surprise!

I would like to thank everyone who visited the booth, everyone who worked so hard to present their finest information and images from the stage, and especially the AAEP for hosting this event in the right city for this year. Warm and sunny and relaxed was the perfect recipe.

Special thanks go to our friends at Vettec for sponsoring our California-themed "Hoof Dude" unofficial convention guide. It had tips and schedules designed just for people who were interested in hoof-related information.

The AAEP again hosted a sub-conference for farriers. I can't estimate how many farriers were there because, as was the case in San Antonio, a lot of the people in the lecture hall were vets, which is encouraging. I did see a lot of farriers in the trade show, and met some from California that I might otherwise never have known.

Special thanks to everyone who came up and opened a conversation with the kind words, "I read your blog every day!" and especially to the one who said, "I check your blog before I eat breakfast."

I have more friends out there than I could ever know about, since I really have no way of tracking who reads this blog, or how many read it. I can only keep count of the "unique visitors" who actually go to the blog's web site (vs those uncounted legions who read it by RSS, email, and on various feeds like the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance) and I'm thrilled to report that the uniques passed 150,000 (cumulative) while I was in San Diego. I'm stunned. (Thank you to Big Brown, Barbaro, and Molly the Pony--three lame horses who have fascinated the public and brought thousands and thousands of people to this blog to learn more about how and why the three horses had such problems.)

The AAEP convention is the end of the conference year. It is the single biggest and most expensive event on the Hoofcare and Lameness calendar each year, and it is often difficult to pull it off when it is a few days after Thanksgiving, or when the trade show budget is being scraped as clean as a cookie batter bowl.

In December 2009, the AAEP travels to Las Vegas for the first time, where it will share the big bright city with the National Finals Rodeo (NFR). Hoofcare and Lameness already has a booth reserved.

My red-eye flight home landed in Massachusetts just a few hours before the worst ice storm in recent history hit the region. I feel a bit of survivor guilt, since the storm was mostly rain here on the coast, although the power did go out and is still out just a few miles from here. People are in the dark in their cold houses tonight as I write this.

It seems impossible that I could have been standing under a palm tree just a few days ago. I hope I can share with you some of the rays of sunshine that spill from my notebook, even if it is hard to type with gloves on.

Please keep the cold New Englanders in your thoughts, especially those who can't and won't leave their animals to get to a warm, safe place. It's not warm here. There are no palm trees. But it's home.

© 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.

New DVD on Underrun Heels Will Be Marketed by Hoofcare Publishing

Client education takes a big step forward this month as we begin marketing the new dvd "Get Your Horse Sound" from California farrier John Suttle. In just 38 minutes, John does a remarkable job of explaining the lever theory of hoof construction/function and how underrun heels compromise a horse's ability to bear weight and lead an athletic life.

Not everyone will agree with John's "materialistic" solutions (Vettec should have bankrolled this dvd, given the heavy use of their adhesive hoof reconstruction materials in the shoeing) but the explanations are clear and the examples are good. I think John has a great career ahead of him in educating owners (as well as vets and farriers) because his low-key approach (he even wears a Mr. Rogers-type cardigan) is sincere and direct. And, he doesn't have anything to sell (except the dvd). It's like a breath of fresh air.

Click here to watch a simple preview.

(You will need the QuickTime viewer to see this film on your computer; you can download the application for Windows or Macintosh platforms for free at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download.)
To place an order for the dvd, please call, fax or email the Hoofcare office with your name, address, and Visa/MC information. This dvd is made for North American format dvd players; if you are in another hemisphere, you'll need a universal player and even then, it may not work. Cost is $30 per dvd plus $5 post in USA.