Big Brown: The Most Famous Feet in Derby History!

Big Brown's left front foot has a raceplate glued on with a PMMA epoxy type adhesive that is custom selected. The specs used are Lord 403 with a #19 accelerator. You can see a copper "clip" embedded in the glue; it is riveted to the shoe and is used only as a receptor for additional glue. The horse had wall separations on both front feet that required repair.

Racing fans, rejoice! I have finally obtained actual close-up photos of the feet of Kentucky Derby favorite Big Brown. The following photos were taken on or about April 11, 2008, when the horse's feet were re-glued and re-shod by farrier Tom Curl of Florida, who has been working on the colt since he shipped south for the winter. 

There has been some confusion and misinformation in the press so to clarify: the colt was originally worked on by Ian McKinlay in New York, and the horse benefited from his new Yasha shoe technology and heel resection technique. Ian has been supplying photos and videos of the technique and system. 

But the horse subsequently was worked on by Tom Curl, an associate of Ian's. Tom did the work on the second foot. What you see is a collaborative effort of two experts using a new technology that has been helping a lot of horses over the past few months.

 

This is the bottom of the foot, showing the placement of the clips. The shoe has a rubber-like gasket rim pad on the inside that is half the web of the shoe. Adhesive is under the other half of the web. This is a unique modification of the "direct glue" technique used by farriers.

This foot shows the repair situation on the inside heel of the first foot, which was done by McKinlay in New York. You can see that the new heel wall is growing down.

Here's the foot worked on in Florida by Curl, showing the heel repair on the right side of the photo. The glue on the left side is just for reinforcing the shoe.

Here are both of Big Brown's feet as he looked on April 11.

Now for an update: Tom Curl told me today that he checked Big Brown's feet the day he left Florida and headed to Churchill Downs. He watched the horse gallop with trainer Rick Dutrow. 

Tom said that he used more glue than McKinlay because he knows the Derby will fall three weeks after the horse was done, and the glue can be stressed over time, so he was pro-active.

Found Objects: Farriery Finesse in the Hands of Paul Goodness

Paul Goodness glueing a shoe on
a demonstration horse in New Hampshire.

I went to a seminar with one of my favorite farrier experts, Paul Goodness, last week. Paul is certainly a product of 20th century farriery. With a 20-year career at the top of the international sport-horse world behind him, he's now neck-deep in a nine-farrier practice that offers what is probably one of the best apprenticeships available anywhere in the world. Even vets go there for informal internships.

Paul did a great demo at New Hampshire's Rochester Equine Clinic of what he calls "sole-glueing" (also called direct-glueing) and then mixed a post-surgery toe extension for an flex-deformity foal from Spectra fibers and Equi-Bond, etc. No nails in sight at that seminar. Paul says that the farriers in his practice glue more than half of the horses that come through his shop.

He had an interesting demo shoe that was a Mustad Easy-Glu with a very thick compressible pad. It looked so comfy, I wanted a chunk of it to put inside my boots. I asked Paul what it was, and he said he had found a wrestling mat in a dumpster and discovered that the compression and cushion worked just right for a foundered horse...

A Mustad glue-on shoe with a wrestling mat insert.

Another found-object farriery fix from Paul was the sticky back foam tape used to seal truck caps onto beds (and lots of other uses, especially if you have a boat). Paul cut it to fit the toe of a Natural Balance shoe, and in another instance, a heel. Sort of a quick rim pad with a slight cushion, but you can cut it to fit whatever part of the shoe (or, rather, the foot) needs it.

A surprising story from Paul: He needed to alter a shoe for a lame horse so he was looking for a creaser, in preparation for punching a hole for a heel nail. He couldn't find a creaser anywhere on his tool table. He asked two of the first-year apprentices if they had taken his creaser. "What's that?" they asked.

Cushioned shoes instead of rim pads use foam tape

Paul has a unique approach with his apprentices. He looks for young people who are experienced in working with horses and often recruits grooms. Their training starts with the horse, and progresses to understanding the foot. "I can teach people forging later in their training," Paul told us. "But I can't teach someone to have a "feel" for working around horses. You have to be good with horses and get into the foot. That's where I start them. Forging skills can wait. I can teach that to anybody."

--Story and photos by Fran Jurga