Ever So Lucky Horseshoe Helped Colt Train for Keeneland's Toyota Bluegrass Stakes

"Like my new shoe? Pretty cool, eh?" Ever So Lucky, with the guidance of Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard, worked under jockey Julian Leparoux on Tuesday morning over Keeneland's Polytrack surface. As he straightened out from the turn the three-year-old son of Indian Charlie flipped his fetlock and let ace photographer Wendy Wooley have a good look at his special bar shoe. (Image © Wendy Wooley/Equisport Photos)

One of top contenders in tomorrow's Toyota Bluegrass Stakes at Kentucky's Keeneland Racecourse is aptly named. "Ever So Lucky" should count his blessings that his connections knew the number of a horseshoer who could lend a hand--and a shoe--after the colt grabbed the outside heel of his right front foot.

Except he didn't just grab it. He ripped a chunk of it off.

Enlargement of Ever So Lucky's
right front foot. (© Wendy
Wooley/Equisport Photos)

"It looked like hamburger."

Kentucky horseshoer Steve Norman wasn't talking about what he ordered for lunch at the track kitchen. He was talking about what he saw when he picked up Ever So Lucky's right front foot a few weeks ago.

He was brought in by the veterinarian to see what could be done to keep the horse in training for his Pennsylvania-based Hall of Fame trainer, Jonathan Sheppard.

"He ripped the meat of his heel bulb right off," Steve said, echoing what I had read in the Barn Notes for Keeneland. "But that happens a lot. It probably happened in the starting gate, that's where it usually does. A horse scrambles and that hind foot just reached up there."

Steve Norman is busy this time of year. In the past, he shod Kentucky Derby winners like Alysheba, Go for Gin, War Emblem and possibly others. In 2009, he shod five runners in the Derby--he must have been in demand for tips that year.

Here's a z bar shoe photo from the vault. The aluminum bar is welded into a Thoro'Bred plate. From the archive of aluminum bar shoes created by the late, great Emil Carre. (© Hoofcare Publishing)

Steve Norman's solution for Ever So Lucky was to build a z bar shoe by welding a frog support and a heel bypass into a racing plate. It's not a new answer for the Nebraska native and former jockey--he used a similar shoe on Unbridled's Song, now one of the country's top sires, when he needed to train for the Derby in 1996. That colt injured his heel bulb in the Wood Memorial while prepping for the Derby.

The z bar is often seen on horses with a quarter crack on heel bulb injury. It transfers some of the load to the frog. "You might even call it a half a heart bar," Steve mentioned. "I just shaped the shoe and welded in the bar. The insert z's over in front of the injury."

Like Unbridled Song, Ever So Lucky trained in the special shoe but if you're around the backside at Keeneland early Saturday morning, you might see Augustin Stable’s colt get switched back to a plain shoe. (The similarity ends there: Unbridled's Song switched to egg bars for the Derby, finished fifth, and sat out the rest of the Triple Crown.)

Steve Norman is ambivalent about changing the horse back over. "He could run in that shoe, without a problem," he said Friday afternoon from a stop at Ashford Stud. "Especially on that Polytrack at Keeneland. If he was at Churchill, yes, I'd never hesitate. An aluminum bar shoe with a frog like that is going to slide in the dirt but on Polytrack...it's so much stickier.

Here's a freeform imitation (sort of) of a z bar that I found when I picked up the foot of an event horse with a quarter crack. Ever So Lucky's connections are hesitant to race him on Polytrack without heel support under his injury. This horse had just completed an upper level cross-country course at a three-day event. I wonder how he fared at the trot-up the next morning. (© Hoofcare + Lameness file photo)

"We don't have the slip at Keeneland that you see on dirt. But it's fine to switch him, too," Steve said before starting his next horse.

Z bar shoes are either a great solution or...not, according to many horseshoers. They are often used for horses with quarter cracks, and are always good for a debate.

While they may raise an eyebrow when a Thoroughbred races in one, the Z-bar shoe for Standardbreds is much more ubiquitous, ever since the 1980s superstar Nihilator seemed to win every big stakes race--and do it in record time--wearing a Z-bar for his quarter cracks. 


Also called a "half mushroom" in some harness circles, the shoe has been the subject of a lot of debate over the years: should the bar be level or set down? Should the bar cross the frog or follow its edge? Joey Carroll was Nihilator's farrier and he always stressed the importance of proper shoe design and application for an injured foot.

"You're only as good as the last shoe you nailed on," is a line I have often heard from Steve Norman. Shoeing a horse to heal an injury while simultaneously keeping the horse comfortable and making it possible for the horse to get out and work in the morning is a Triple Crown feat of its own.

Ever So Lucky didn't train like a layup. He clocked five furlongs in :57 under Leparoux this week.

The Toyota Bluegrass Stakes is one of the final prep races for the 2012 Kentucky Derby. The favorite is the ghostlike gray Breeders Cup winner, Hansen. There's no shortage of interesting horses headed to the gate with him; the purse is $750,000 and possibly the bonus of a trip to Louisville on the first Saturday in May for the winner.

To learn more:


The Hoof Blog's perspective on quarter cracks and heel bulb injuries in a historical survey of this prevalent problem in Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing


Read about Steve Norman's hoof work on Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem for Bob Baffert.

Read "Hoof Care and Shoeing: Barring difficulty" with horseshoers Mark Dewey and Sonny Broaddus commenting, along with Kentucky trainer John Ward, on z-bar shoes.

For more on Nihilator and his Z-bar, dust off the photo and story in Hoofcare & Lameness 10, December 1985.

Thanks to Wendy and Matt Wooley of Equisport Photos for noticing Ever So Lucky's special shoe on Tuesday--and for thinking of the Hoof Blog. Wendy and Matt write the "Turf and Dirt" blog and will keep you connected with the Kentucky Thoroughbred scene in a brilliantly visual way. Their current top story is a photo collection of Rachel Alexandra at home in her paddock at Stonestreet Farm.

© 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.  

Follow Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than 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.

Farrier Model Dean Dibsdall Wins British Reality TV Show; Next Project Is Documentary of His Life Shoeing Horses

Farrier Dean Dibsdall has been in the news in England lately for his victory in a reality last-man-standing show called "Playing It Straight".  He also works as a model and next month will be the star of a documentary about...himself. (Photo courtesy of Horse and Country TV)

You never know who your friends are. In this case, a perfectly nice farrier from England turned out to be have a second career as a model and, I found out, was even a finalist in the Mr England competition.

And the next thing I knew, he was on a reality show similar to the USA's "The Bachelorette" but with a twist--some of the eligible bachelors were gay. But which ones? And was Dean gay or straight?

I honestly didn't know which he was, but I was cheering him on from the USA anyway.

Dean Dibsdall DipWCF ended up winning the "Playing It Straight" show (was it his burnt hoof after-shave?) and a lot of money. Now the British network Horse and Country is planning a documentary about what it's like to be a farrier celebrity--they'll even follow him when he competes in the farrier events at the National Shire Show in a few weeks.

When I played "do you know..." with Dean, I found that he could rattle off at least three names familiar to American farriers: he lives next to Billy Crothers; he was apprentice to Carl Bettison's second apprentice, Daniel Harman; and he has worked for James Blurton in the past. That seems like the start of a great resume, or like meeting your second cousin, twice-removed, for the first time.

In the farriery world, Dean is four years into his career and shoes horses around Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, all north of London.

Dean Dibsdall really does shoe horses. "Being a farrier and working with horses is the most important thing in my life," he said in an interview. (photo courtesy of Dean DIbsdall)

It seems a long way around, but if the documentary comes out as Dean describes it, it could well be a great promotion for the farrier profession, as has been his smiling face on the reality show these past weeks.

Let's all celebrate his success and wish him well and  hope that we can figure out a way to see the documentary in the USA.


Here's the press release from Horse and Country TV, and some information from the Hoof Blog files about other farrier models:

Dean Dibsdall, winner of Channel 4’s Playing It Straight series, is to be the subject of a documentary on Horse & Country TV (Sky Channel 280), it was announced today.

The hour-long show, Dean Dibsdall: Model Farrier, will be shown on the British channel in April.

Horse & Country’s cameras will follow Dean as he deals with his new-found fame while working as a specialist in horse hoof care. As well as being a full-time farrier Dean, 28, from Leighton Buzzard, also works as a part-time model. He won the title of "Mr Bedfordshire" last year and represented the county in the final of the "Mr England" competition.

“I’m very excited to be doing this show with Horse & Country TV,” says Dean, ”being a farrier and working with horses is the most important thing in my life.

“I hope fans of Playing in Straight will tune in and be really entertained while at the same time experience a world they wouldn’t normally get the chance to encounter.”

Dean's not the first British farrier
model; eventing specialist
Jamie Goddard was model for the
TeamGBR clothing line a few years ago.
He shoes for riders like Australia's Paul
Tapner, winner of Badminton Horse
Trials in 2010.
(Jamie Goddard photo)

Jonathan Rippon, Head of Programming at Horse & Country, adds: “Dean is a complete natural on camera and has a hugely engaging personality which will make him a hit both with our regular viewers and those new to H&C.”

The show will highlight the tremendous variety of Dean’s professional life including working with miniature Shetland ponies, alongside vets to help lame horses, visiting a range of livery yards and taking part in a farrier competition at the Shire Horse Show as well as following his new experiences as a fledgling celebrity.

Dean has been a farrier for four years, following in a family tradition that has seen three of his cousins become farriers too. After setting his heart on working with horses Dean underwent more than four years of intensive training at college as well as shadowing a qualified farrier.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I left school so one day went out with one of my cousins who was already a farrier and I just took to it straight away,” says Dean, ”It’s a physical job and you get to work with animals outdoors in the fresh air – plus you’re your own boss.”

Working in such close proximity to horses isn’t without its dangers but Dean says: “I’ve had a few broken bones and cracked ribs but you don’t mind when you’re doing something you love.”

British farrier Nick Partridge was the star of a
full-page ad for Herring shoes in the magazine
 for the 2011 Ascot race meet. I thought it
was a horseshoe ad. Fun to see such a well-
shod farrier!

On Monday night British television viewers saw Dean win the E4 network's reality TV series  “Playing It Straight” in which straight and gay guys competed to win the heart of female contestant Cara.

If one of the gay contestants had successfully deceived Cara and been picked by her, he would have won the show’s £50,000 cash prize. Because she chose Dean, one of the genuinely straight contestants, the two of them split the prize, receiving £25,000 (approximately $40,000US) each.

The documentary has been commissioned by Jonathan Rippon, Head of Programming at H&C TV, and is being made in-house at H&C by the production team responsible for other series on the channel such as Top Marks, When Nicki Met Carl and magazine show Rudall’s Round Up.

Refresh your anatomy knowledge with a high-tech, easy-to-use animated
3-D lecture series and user-operated leg model.  Order online!

© 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.  

Follow Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than 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.

Laminitis In Action: Coffin Bone Rotation Time Lapse Video (International Laminitis Conference Preview)

Laminitis, caught in the act: The foot of a horse suffering from Potomac Horse Fever is recorded as it goes through two processes subsequent to the damage in the foot caused by the disease: the coffin bone appears to be rotating away from the hoof wall at the toe and down at its tip; it is also "sinking" within the foot. These two processes are called rotation and sinking, or sinker syndrome. Many laminitis terms have parallel names in other parts of the world or even within the same country. (Andrew Van Eps video)

(You might have to watch this a few times, and if you have a slow connection, you might need to click on the stop button. Once the video is buffered, it should play smoothly. Watching it in full-screen mode helps.)

What you are seeing is a time-lapse of the radiographic view of a horse going through the process commonly called "rotation". What rotation actually is and which part of the foot is the chicken and which is the egg is perpetually debated. This particular foot is also "sinking" within the hoof capsule.

Andrew Van Eps

The video was created by Andrew Van Eps, BVSc, PhD, MACVSc, DACVIM of the University of Queensland. Dr. Van Eps earned a PhD while he was researching laminitis at the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit under Dr Chris Pollitt. Among the insights Dr. Van Eps' PhD research has contributed to the treatment of laminitis is the efficacy of cryotherapy in the prevention of laminitis. He created the video of the Potomac Horse Fever case during a residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

At the Sixth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida next month, Dr. Van Eps returns once again to speak. Among his subjects will be suggestions for ways to apply cryotherapy, clinical techniques to prevent support-limb laminitis and his intriguing-sounding lecture, "Lamellar Bioenergetics Studied Using Tissue Microdialysis".


You might be interested in reading "Equine laminitis: cryotherapy reduces the severity of the acute lesion" and "Equine laminitis model: cryotherapy reduces the severity of lesions evaluated seven days after induction with oligofructose" by van Eps and Dr. Pollitt, originally published in 2004 and 2009, respectively, in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

He's probably forgotten all about this video. But to anyone dealing with laminitis, the question of whether or not rotation is inevitable in a given horse remains a paramount concern. How many horses technically experience laminitis and have damaged laminae, but have minor rotation or none at all, and why is there such variation between horses? How many horses have bouts of laminitis that their owners never even notice? Is it still laminitis if no one notices but the farrier, the next time the horse is due to be trimmed or shod?

And what is rotation? Is the deep digital flexor tendon, which attaches on the underside of the coffin bone, actually pulling up and back on the bone as the laminae at the toe loosen their hold on the bone, as we've been taught, and as this video would so nicely illustrate? Or is it the weight of the horse on the compromised structures, compounded by unusual posture, that encourages a combination of those forces to work in concert?

A paper from New Zealand published in this month's (September 2011) Equine Veterinary Journal proposes that the soft tissue structures in the back of a contracted, bar-humped foot make it possible for the palmar processes of the coffin bone to act like a fulcrum around which the coffin bone rotates, and that the tendon has no involvement. (See "The effect of hoof angle variations on dorsal lamellar load in the equine hoof" by Ramsey, Hunter and Nash.)

Lead author Gordon Ramsey was kind enough to send his paper and this section begs to be highlighted; using a Finite Element analysis model, Ramsey calculated forces on the proximal hoof wall at the toe when the heels are raised, as recommended in some laminitis therapy regimen. Extrapolating from that finding, he challenged the mainstream concept of coffin bone rotation in laminitis.

Please note that the author is from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and so uses "lamellae" instead of "laminae" in his text; instead of referring to raising the heels of the foot, he refers to mechanically altering the palmar angle of the coffin bone. It's food for thought whether measurements of heels and coffin bone palmar angles are interchangeable.

A typical laminitis foot, with increased heel growth, which would elevate the palmar angle of the coffin bone as per Ramsey's FE model. According to his calculations, as that palmar angle is intentionally increased in some laminitis treatment protocols, the stress on the proximal (closer to the coronet) laminae inside the hoof wall at the toe would be increased. (University of Nottingham vet school photo)

Ramsey writes:

"The first stage of structural failure in a laminitic hoof involves a stretching of the laminar junction (Pollitt 2007), with rotational displacement occurring subsequently. This seems consistent with a mode of failure that begins at the most loaded proximal part of the lamellae, as predicted by this model, with rotation only occurring after the lamellae have been weakened. 

"It has been proposed that rotational displacement of the distal phalanx, as a sequel to weakening or failure of the laminar junction, is a result of the forces imposed by the deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT) and leverage of the dorsal wall on the ground during breakover (Hood 1999). Experimental results have shown that in laminitic ponies the DDFT force is zero for the first 40% of stance and only approaches a normal value near the end of stance, but that the peak vertical ground reaction force (GRF) is only reduced by 13 percent compared to normal ponies (McGuigan et al 2005). 

"Since the peak lamellar load, predicted by this model to occur at the proximal (not the distal) region of the laminar junction, is more strongly influenced by the GRF than the DDFT force and does not occur during breakover, then this mechanism seems unlikely. 

"An alternative proposed mechanism is that the digital cushion and the region of the attachment of the DDFT are a fulcrum about which the distal phalanx rotates (Coffman et al 1970). As both the DDFT and the digital cushion are soft tissues, it seems unlikely that these could provide sufficient support. 

"However, if the hoof has contracted heels or ingrown bars (Strasser 1997), then these could provide support for the palmar processes to act as the fulcrum for rotation. This could explain why in some hooves the distal phalanx rotates but in other cases, where this fulcrum perhaps does not exist, it only displaces vertically."

Join in the discussion at the Laminitis Conference, October 29-31. The early registration discount ends soon!

 TO  LEARN  MORE

© 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.  

Follow Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

Read this blog's headlines on the Hoofcare + Lameness Facebook Page

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than 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.