Farrier Jim Quick's Colorado Shop and Equipment Destroyed by Fire, Explosion

Fire and an explosion destroyed farrier Jim Quick's workshop in Niwot, Colorado on Sunday, June 5, 2011. This is all that remained.  (Jim Quick photo)

 Jim Quick is a lucky man. He has a good sense of timing, too.

He took a break from working on some tools Sunday morning. The well-known farrier clinician and competitor left his farrier shop in Niwot, Colorado to step onto his patio and speak to a neighbor for a few minutes. It would be the last time he'd set foot in that shop.

Jim Quick will still compete at Calgary

 Jim said, "I was running the power hammer and using a gas forge" before he shut everything off to speak to the neighbor. "We walked up to the house to sit on the patio when we heard a boom..." he continued. The blast was said to have sent a gas tank flying 100 yards in the air before it landed in a field.

According to a passerby quoted on Denver's Channel 7 ABC-TV local news, the shop caught fire and then exploded, eventually leaving behind just a few hulking metal skeletons.

Jim was mourning the loss of some of his favorite tools today, many of which were made for him or were gifts from great farriers and friends, living and dead, from all over the world. His Kohlswa anvil and some hammers survived the explosion and his shoeing truck was not damaged.

"The Practice Palace is gone," Jim Quick wrote on Monday after fire and an explosion destroyed his shop. (photo provided by Jim Quick)

"The Practice Palace is gone," he wrote on Monday. But even without most of his beloved special tools, he plans to keep practicing.

Looking at the calendar, it's easy math to see that Jim Quick has exactly 30 days left to practice for the Calgary Stampede World Championship Blacksmiths' Competition in Canada next month. He's promised he won't let his teammates down. I told him Monday night that he may be practicing under the stars, so it had better not rain for the next month.

He's a lucky man to be practicing at all.

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Saved the Best for Last: Paul Williams and Pearl and the Rest of the Story

by Fran Jurga | 31 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com This is the story that stopped me in my tracks and I wonder what it will mean to you. Please watch these videos but understand that they are only the beginning of this very special end-of-the-year story. The television crews showed up when the deed was done, and the film footage showed only the wreckage of a burned-out horse barn. You heard only the testimony of onlookers. Yet something about this little story from a small town outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania piqued my curiosity. There had to be more to it. And there is. The fireman who rushed into the burning barn at Greenmoor Commons Equestrian Center in Cecil Township, Pennsylvania was not just a local volunteer fireman. He was a farrier. And he was rushing in to save a horse he knew very well. Paul Williams knew exactly where Pearl's stall was, and though he said that she didn't seem to recognize him, we can only wonder about that. Others had tried to get her out but failed. Water from the fire hoses was filling her stall. She was standing in a foot of water. "It was her blanket that saved this mare's life," Paul told me. "She was completely soaked. The blanket was saturated." That saturated blanket and the deep pool in the stall meant that the sparks and embers falling from above were doused as they entered the stall. Pearl was safe, for the most part, though. "And the wind direction was in her favor, too, " Paul recalled. "But it was that thick blanket that saved her." The story doesn't stop there. "I was at the station when the call came in, and I heard a horse was trapped," Paul told me. Paul has been through special large animal rescue training and he is dedicated to educating horse owners and firemen about fire safety and horse rescue, along with a fellow firefighter who is a horse owner, Ed Childers. And Paul does it all as a volunteer fireman, in addition to his farrier work, and the training of his horses. His fire department has only expertise, not equipment; they use an old bedliner out of a pickup truck as a glide for an injured horse. They have no slings or straps or pulleys. They rely on just their common sense, and (most of all), their horse sense. Just ten days before Pearl's heroic rescue, Paul had been personally touched by fire. He trains Standardbreds, and had been looking into buying back one of his former trainees, a mare named Dancing Cassidy. She was stabled in southern Ohio at Lebanon Raceway. On the morning of December 5th, two men and 43 horses died in a barn fire at Lebanon Raceway. One of those who died was Paul's mare, Dancing Cassidy. "She won the night before," Paul said, still proud of her. "I wanted to get her out of there and bring her home but I never got the chance." You may have noticed in the video that Paul has an accent. "People ask me if I'm from Boston," he laughed. He moved to the USA 15 years ago from Brecon in South Wales, but the musical Welsh accent has stuck. Paul rode National Hunt races back home in the winter; when he came to America, he set up his farrier business and started training Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds; he lives three miles from The Meadows racetrack. He estimates there are close to 3500 active riding and race horses in his county, and that he's picked a good place to shoe and live the life that suits him.

The horse rescue work is unfunded but Paul said that the day after the fire, an anonymous check for $500 arrived at the firehouse, and he was delighted. If you'd like to help Paul help more horses, I'd recommend that you learn what you can about fire prevention and emergency care of horses. And if you have a few dollars left at the end of year (or anytime), I know a donation would be put to good use if it was sent to the North Strabane Fire Department Large Animal Rescue Unit, 2550 Washington Rd., Canonsburg, PA 15317-5224 USA. I'm sure Paul would also travel to give talks on rescue and safety.

The fundraising t-shirt for the North Strabane Large Animal Rescue team.

When I asked Paul about being a farrier and rescuing horses and how the two jobs fit together, he quickly said, "Well, who better than us?" And that's, as they say, the rest of this great story. If you live near Pittsburgh and would like to learn more about large animal rescue and fire safety, Paul and Ed will give their next seminar on January 9th. There's lots more info at the North Strabane Volunteer Fire Department web site. I'd like to thank Jim Durkin and everyone at WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh for making a special effort to release the video of Paul and Pearl, and uploading it so we could show it on this post. It is not that station's policy to allow their news footage to be used by outside web sites, and I know they made a special exception in this case for this special story, knowing that Hoof Blog readers would like to see the footage. Thanks too to CNN, who have had quite a few horse-related video clips open for use on the blog lately. © 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.

Friesan Fire's New Shoes on Derby Morning

by Fran Jurga | Kentucky Derby Day | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Dan Burke emailed this photo taken in the pre-dawn backstretch flurry of activity this morning at Churchill Downs. I believe that is trainer Larry Jones with his back to the camera, holding his horse, Friesan Fire, the current favorite for the 135th Kentucky Derby while Todd Boston adjusts his front shoes. Thanks, Dan!

© 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.

Friends (Very Hard) at Work: Dr. Judith Mulholland Is Still Fighting Australia's Fires

by Fran Jurga | 2 April 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Time flies. One minute we're worried about koalas in Australia, then the world's worries shift to Red River floods in North Dakota and all the animals at risk there. Just tonight, I heard about tornado warnings for the Louisville, Kentucky area. Will we ever reach a point of disaster fatigue? Do we switch disasters the same way we switch channels on television?

What many people seem to forget is that when the fire is out, or the flood recedes, or the earth stops trembling is when the next round of real work begins. Roads have to be cleared before rescue workers and veterinarians can even get to the animals. They have to not only treat the animals where they are but then figure out how to transport them to a save fenced in area, and to make sure they are fed.

So it was for our friend Dr. Judith L Mulholland BSc BVMS in the firetorn remains of the Australian communities in Victoria that experienced "Black Saturday" less than 60 days ago. Normally a podiatry-specialist vet, Dr. Jude took up the call to help however she could and has been pitching in. Among her ways of helping was to prepare a videotape of the animals she met on just one of her days of rescue work.

Along with this short video focusing on horses' fate in the fires (brought to you from Australia by the miracle of youtube.com), Dr. Mulholland said that she is working on an hour-long documentary about the devastation to livestock and pets.

I highly recommend a visit to Dr. Jude's excellent web site, www.farriervet.com. Many Hoof Blog readers will see an old friend on her opening page.

© 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.

Australian Fire Survivor Horses Now in Danger of Heat-Induced Laminitis

This has to be the animal-lover's photo of the year; a firefighter in the Australian state of Victoria shares his bottle of spring water with a burned koala. (photo links to Horse Deals Australia blog)

The numbers are staggering. Wildlife and public health officials in Australia estimate that as many as one million animals may have been killed in the wildfires that ripped through the state of Victoria last weekend. As if that news isn't bad enough, there may be a double whammy coming for horses who had to stand on the scorched earth: the fire in the bush is over, but the fire in the feet may be only beginning.

We know that rapid and continual cooling by the icing of the horse's lower limb and digit ("cryotherapy") can clinically prevent laminitis, as proven in studies by the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit at the University of Queensland, directed by Dr. Chris Pollitt.

But can the inverse be true? Can heat cause laminitis?

Dr. Pollitt is flying south to Victoria to help with rescue efforts and provide veterinary services for the hundreds of horses displaced or injured by the wild bushfires that ripped through the countryside in Victoria.

The University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Veterinary Science in Victoria is providing free care to pets and horses injured in the recent fires. Professor Ken Hinchcliff, Dean of the Faculty there, says that veterinary clinic staff at the university are deeply concerned.

Dean Lewis of the Victoria Farriers Association has spoken up about the danger of horses "losing their hoof capsules" and has offered the services of his member farriers to help with rescue operations.

One of the things that touched me was that the rescue center are having trouble feeding the horses, and put out a call for soft lucerne (alfalfa) hay. So many horses have burned muzzles that it is painful for them to eat regular hay with its stiff stalks poking their burnt flesh.

The burns on this cat's paws are typical of what pets and livestock have experienced. This cat is receiving veterinary care at the Victoria Animal Aid fire assistance center.

Triple R Equine Welfare Inc. (TREW) warns horse owners and anyone wishing to help, "The immediate threat to horses left stranded in burnt properties is damage to hooves. Prolonged exposure to hot ground will cause a low grade overheating, that develops into heat induced laminitis. The prognosis for horses suffering this condition will be extremely poor. It is imperative the we move swiftly to relocate horses off burnt properties."

The textbook Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue by Gimenez, Gimenez, and May (Wiley-Blackwell 2008) offers some insight into what body conditions of a burn victim horse may contribute to laminitis and hoof capsule detachment:

"Thermal injury produces local and systemic responses. In the local (skin, which would include the hoof) response, inflammation is the primary reaction, caused by damaged, leaking tissues and blood vessels. Tissue fluid and electrolyte shifts cause inflammation and fluid loss...

"Tissue injury continues for 24-48 hours after the initial thermal injury, therefore the burn will increase in severity over that period of time. Necrosis (death) of the dermis and epidermis in full-thickness burns creates a hard, leathery charred appearance to the skin; this is called eschar (Pascoe 1999). As the eschar sloughs, it creates an increase in open wounds."

It's pretty straightforward to think that burned hooves are a danger in themselves, even though farriers routinely hot-fit hooves and prolonged hot fitting has not been shown to be a danger to hooves. Burned coronets would affect the blood supply to the lamina within the hoof, which would probably already be decreased by the inflammation, edema, and compromised circulation.

Let's keep all the Australians--two-legged and four-legged in our thoughts, and hope that we can learn something about laminitis and how to prevent and treat it in future forest fire emergencies.

Sam the Water Guzzling Koala is recovering at a shelter; she too has extensive burns on her feet. It looks like she's been to the hairdresser, too.

© 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.