Barefoot Research: What Are the Consequences of Shoe Removal for Trotting Racehorses?

How are the health, comfort and wear of the horse's feet affected when shoes are removed for racing? A research special report from Hippolia Foundation and CIRALE-ENVA

Text and images © CIRALE-ENVA and/or Hoofcare Publishing 

No reproduction or copying without permission

Professor Denoix

Special thanks to researcher Claire Moiroud and Professor Jean-Marie Denoix, who kindly arranged to share this research project with Hoofcare Publishing. This text is an approved, verbatim translation of a French document and is published to coincide with the excitement of the Prix d’Amerique, one of the world’s great trotting races, at Vincennes, France on Sunday, January 25. That race has been won by horses using the methods described in this article.

Introduction
In French harness racing, it is customary for the trainer to remove the shoes of some horses before races. "Relieve the foot, increase the speed"...that is the goal. Perhaps the immediate benefits seem obvious, but no study has addressed the risks to the horse itself in terms of possible discomfort and especially the risk of excess wear to the feet. That has now been accomplished through the work of the CIRALE-ENVA Hippolia team in Normandy, France.

Dubai Hoofcare: What--or Who--Was Underneath the Horses in the World's Richest Race?

Australian farrier Rob Stevenson now lives and works in Dubai. He demonstrated shoeing a lead pony with
gold raceplates before the Dubai World Cup last week; this week he's in China.

The emirate of Dubai is a tiny speck on the map, but it is growing into one of the world’s premier destinations for farriers and innovations in hoofcare. Saturday’s Dubai World Cup races in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) brought not just the world’s best horses and trainers and jockeys to the tiny desert nation; it brought farriers and some horses left with more interesting equipment on their hooves than when they arrived.

Shoeless Thoroughbred Wins at Keeneland; Track Lists Barefoot Entries as Trainers Experiment with Polytrack Surface Effects on Hoof Slide

The racing surface known as "Polytrack" is one of several artificial surfaces that have been installed at racetracks in North America to improve safety and help cope with bad weather. But it also changes the way the hoof interacts with the surface. The characteristic slide that horses experience on dirt can be "sticky" for some horses. Experimenting with and without shoes during training and racing has led some trainers to try some unorthodox combinations of shoes--or no shoes at all.

Update: A second "no shoes" designated horse won a race at Keeneland on Sunday, bringing the total of winners to two in three days. Updated information has been added at the end of this article.

History: 1960s Racetrack Horseshoers Union Court Case May Have Inspired Propaganda Film

This video was a film buried in the Library of Congress and unearthed just this week.

How much has shoeing racehorses changed since 1960? Not much, but this film makes some good points about the role of horseshoers in a horse's life.

The International Union of Journeyman Horseshoers was part of the AFL-CIO until 2004; the IUJH is one of the oldest unions in the world. It was formed in 1873 and claims to be the oldest union retaining its original charter.

There is probably much more to this little film than meets the eye. It may even be what you call a "propaganda film", if you know anything about labor history in the United States and the pressure that was on unions in the 1960s.

No documentation is on this film footage as to the exact date of publication. It is labeled 1960, but that may be an approximate date. Maybe someone can date it by the models of the cars.

When this film was made, the union might have been under pressure to define the profession of farriery as a specialization, and to stress the importance of the union in keeping standard high within the trade. While the IUJH started out as representing the interests of the employee, or "journeymen", farriers against the Master Horseshoers Association whose members employed them, it survived at the racetrack in the second half of the 20th century and still exists today.

About the time this film was made, a controversy arose when three Canadian owners and trainers, while in Canada, used a nonunion farrier to shoe horses. To quote a summary of the case: "When they brought their horses to a racing meet at Bowie, Maryland, the International Union (of Journeyman Horseshoers) required its Local No. 7 to refuse service to the Canadians unless they would sign an agreement to use only union members, both in the United States and Canada...

"The other aspect of the case affecting all of the plaintiff owners and trainers sprang from the local union's setting of a minimum charge at Bowie of $16 for the shoeing of each race horse. The local enforced this policy by threatening to discipline or expel any union member who charged less than this minimum price."

Thus began an historic court case that came as close as the United States has ever come to defining the work relationship under which a horseshoer earns a living. The racehorse owner sued both the IUJH and the shoers themselves, and charged that they were acting in violation of the Sherman Act, that most famous of labor relations legislations that you haven't thought about since an American history class back in high school or college.

It all came down to a few questions: are farriers employees or independent contractors? And do they sell only their service or are they actually selling shoes, since they can, in theory, be considered "manufacturers" if they make their own shoes, in the eyes of the law. So were the unions actually a trust protecting a group of manufacturers? On which side of anti-trust laws did they truly fall?

The Sherman Act ("The Anti-Trust Law") had one of its most unusual tests right there in the blacksmith shops of Maryland racetracks. The horseshoers didn't strike, they kept on shoeing. They just didn't shoe for that one owner because he wouldn't agree to their terms.

Did this film just happen to be made in Maryland or was it intentionally made there, perhaps even to be shown in court, and to illustrate exactly what the horseshoer does and how important s/he is to the functioning of the racetrack? Was it made to gain the support of other unions and politicians who might be sympathetic to the horseshoers' union?

It appears to have been made to be shown on television or perhaps in movie theaters as a short feature, since the credits at the end mention that it is part of a series that will continue "next week".

There is probably no one left alive who can tell us, but finding this video was like finding another clue in that tumultuous time in American labor history and especially in the history and tradition of horseshoeing.

The horseshoers' unions operated under, or around, the terms of the Sherman Act, Taft-Hartley and the Clayton Act. Horseshoers didn't write the laws, but they tested them more than once and will always hold special footnotes in American labor and legal history in remembrance of cases like the Maryland one, which had the courts learning about the difference between machine-made and manufactured shoes, and what that meant--or might mean--under the law.

No matter how you look at the records, it seems that the horseshoers were able to use to their advantage their unique status as a small, necessary, but ill-defined and undocumented trade that defied being classified. To some extent, that same fuzzy focus survives today and, depending on who is doing the talking, either serves or paralyzes the advancement of the profession.

You can watch this film as a simple educational film or you can watch it as a classic example of labor propaganda.  It's up to you but this is another example of the depth of history surrounding the farrier profession.

However, like so many other things, that history has not yet been written about from the point of view of the shoers and it is equally unclear whether this court case was a victory for the horseshoers' union, or a defeat.

The real issue--whether the shoers were breaking the law by refusing to shoe one owner's horses--was lost in the shuffle and the case is referenced forevermore in legal history annals because it is so hard to define what horseshoers do, not how they do it or for whom.
 

To learn more:

IJHU current web site and history

Labor Law: Union Not Exempt from Suit for Sherman Act Violation If Its Members Are Independent Contractors and No Employer-Employee Relationship Exists in Virginia Law Review, May 1966

Horseshoers Union May Be Tiny, But Members Stand Proud from the Chicago Tribune in 1987

© 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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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.

Hoofcare University: Biomechanics of Racehorses' Lower Limbs and Track Surface Interface Video Lectures with the University of Guelph's Dr Jeff Thomason

Dr Jeff Thomason

Go get a cup of coffee or a sandwich or start popping the corn. Hoofcare + Lameness is happy to share a new video series with you from the University of Guelph's Jeff Thomason BA, MSc, PhD, professor of biomedical sciences at Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College.

Dr Thomason is widely known for his research, which currently looks both at the biomechanics of the horse's foot and distal limb as well as the mechanical properties of the track itself, and how they influence the function of the foot.

Recently, Dr. Thomas was part of a group of authors that created an extensive "white paper" reference document for the Grayson-Jockey Club Foundation's Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit on this type of dual research, which will ultimately benefit the safe travel of horses over optimal racing surfaces.

Plan to spend the next 15 (or so) minutes absorbing Dr. Thomason's lecture points, which have been broken down into bite-size videos.

Introduction:

How do you examine limb mechanics?

How do banked surfaces affect impact?

Can optimizing track surface reduce catastrophic injury:

Who will benefit from the racing surfaces 'white paper'?

What is the best track surface for racing?

How does climate affect track surfaces?

How does maintenance affect track surfaces?

To learn more:

Download the Grayson Jockey Club Foundation's Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit White Paper on Racing Surfaces, authored by Drs Mick Peterson, Lars Roepstorff, Jeff Thomason, Christie Mahaffey and Wayne McIlwraith.

Be sure to visit and subscribe to the University of Guelph's YouTube channel with complete "Report on Research" video series

The surest sign of an outstanding lecture is when you go back into the lecture hall half an hour later and the lecturer is still brainstorming with attendees and other speakers. Here's Dr Thomason two years ago at the University of Pennsylvania's  New Bolton Center farrier seminar. With him: Dr Bryan Fraley of Kentucky and farrier Jaye Perry of Georgia. (Hoofcare and Lameness fuzzy file photo)

Learn about web-based courses in equine anatomy taught by Dr Thomason

Read Mechanical Behavior and Quantitative Morphology of the Equine Laminar Junction by Dr. Thomason and researchers Heather McClinchy, Babak Faramarzi, and Jan Jofriet as published in Anatomical Record in 2005. (Free web paper)

Dr Lisa Lancaster, Michigan State University's Dr Robert Bowker and Hoofcare + Lameness teamed up to produce this award-winning anatomy chart. Order yours today!

© 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.

Travers: Shackleford Sticks with Glue-on Shoes for Summer's Biggest Thoroughbred Race; Horseshoe Technology Exciting Area of Track Safety, Health Innovation

The feet of a survivor: Shackleford ran in all three Triple Crown races in 2011, and provided some exciting memories. He won the Preakness in May wearing polyurethane glue-on Polyflex shoes, thus becoming the first Triple Crown winner to cross the finish line first in non-metal glue-shoes. The shoes appear rather amber-colored in this photo taken by Sarah K. Andrew (Rock n Racehorses) last week at Saratoga. The urethane is transparent, and shows a thin metal wire embedded in the plastic; the shoe also has a wear plate at the toe. Shackleford is shod by New York-based horseshoer Brad Dewey. The whitish patch on the colt's heel quarter is adhesive. Shackleford is a very large colt, an imposing equine specimen who could have a second career as a photo model. His face is marked by a wide white blaze with a triangle at the top, giving his face the appearance of a arrow pointing to the sky. He's easy to spot in a race. His namesake, an island off North Carolina populated by wild horses, is probably underwater right now.

News just in: That handsome Shackleford will race in today's Travers Stakes at Saratoga in his favorite high-tech run-a-red-streak horseshoes. Trainer Dale Romans confirmed this morning that his big red colt will stay in his Polyflex glue-on shoes, in which he won the Preakness Stakes in May. That was the first win of a Triple Crown race by a horse in plastic glue-on shoes. Let's look at it again:

2011 Preakness Stakes: first Triple Crown race won by a horse wearing glue-on and/or plastic horseshoes; Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness with his aluminum shoes glued on.

There was some uncertainty, apparently, in the Roman camp that Hurricane Irene might arrive in time to turn the Spa to soup, but Irene is busy elsewhere and the rains aren't predicted to begin until long after the sun sets in upstate New York. A wet track, however, didn't impede Curlin when he won the Jockey Club Gold Cup in the same type of glue shoes in 2008. I still miss that horse. Just for old times' sake, watch him win that race, which catapulted him into the #1 spot in all-time money-earning racehorses:

2008 Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes at Belmont Park won by Curlin in plastic glue-on horseshoes over an off track; Curlin also wore the shoes when he won the Woodward that year.

The first stakes horse to run in glue shoes was Afleet, back in the 1980s; his trainer opted for the Mustad Easy-Glu. Since then, horseshoers at racetracks have had success with a variety of raceshoes adapted for glue, and in even directly gluing aluminum raceplates to the foot. Experimentation with glue shoes (rather than nails) goes back to the 1800s. Most experimentation has been done in Germany, which also gave rise to the newest era of glue shoes when the Glu-Strider emerged there in the 1980s. That shoe was developed by a creative engineer and horse owner named Peter Steubbe; the technology was quickly purchased and continued in research and development of a full line of shoes by hoofcare giant Mustad International.

Asmussen horseshoer David Hinton working on Curlin's foot, shod with a urethane Polyflex shoe. (photo courtesy of Polyflex)

Glu-Strider technology was based on a Super Glue type adhesive, while the current generation of shoes uses two-part PMMA-type adhesives. PMMA is the family of adhesives that includes the glue used by women to hold artificial fingernails to their nailbeds. The innovation and experimentation in footwear is one of the most exciting areas of developing health and safety innovations in racing today. At the same time, the Association of Racing Commissioners International is considering a model rule to allow horses to run without shoes. Currently, barefoot racing is outlawed in about half the jurisdictions in North America. The Grayson Jockey Club Foundation's Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit has kept shoeing and hoofcare in its sights since the consortium was founded in 2006. The Summit has an ongoing and active Shoeing and Hoof Care Committee that meets regularly and consults on shoeing-related matters affecting Thoroughbred racehorses. A sub-committee is tackling the possibility of a uniform, nationwide racetrack shoeing licensing program and test, and is currently seeking input from the industry. Mucho Macho Man and Nehro are two other Triple Crown contenders who ran in glue shoes in 2011. Top older stakes horse and candidate for Horse of the Year Tizway, winner of the Metropolitan and Whitney, also wears the Polyflex shoes.

The racehorse Shackleford has probably never been anywhere near the Shackleford Banks off the North Carolina coast. And with Hurricane Irene in the neighborhood, he wouldn't want to be there. The area is famous for the wild horses, called Banker Ponies, that freely roam the dunes there. Photo courtesy of Kurt Repanshek and NationalParksTraveler.com.

Glue-on shoes are now so ubiquitous  at the track that it's hard to find out when horses win in them. We found out about Shackleford in the Preakness, after the race was over; he was shod by Brad Dewey. Horseshoes aren't as visible as a tack change or new style of blinkers or Zenyatta's ear plugs, so the news of innovative horseshoes isn't always obvious.

Here's a partial list of stakes horses who won their races (some set track records) wearing the Polyflex glue shoes: Ambitious Cat, Bargain Baby, Big Booster, Brother Derek, Buzzards Bay, Charitable Man, Cry and Catch Me, Cowgirls Don't Cry, Cubera, Divine Park, Dream Play, Eldaafar, Essential Edge, Ever Elusive, Foxysox, Fredaville,Golden Yank, Greeley's Conquest, Hold the Salt, Hot Dixie Chick, Indian Blessing, J Be K, Kandar Du Falgas, Kensai, Lantana Mob, Little Belle, Lucky Island, Luna Vega, Major Rhythm, Malibu Mint, Mo Cuishle, Mr Fantasy, Nehantic Kat, Noonmark, Octave, Osidy, Pray for Action, Present Danger, Pyro, River's Prayer, Roses 'n' Wine, Secret Gypsy, Set Play, Seventh Street, Shaggy Mane, Silent Name, Sok Sok, Stormin Baghdad, Stream of Gold, Student Council, Total,  Teuflesberg, Uno Mas, Wow Me Free, and Zanjero. (Names harvested from the Polyflex web site.) Favorite little known fact about Polyflex glue-on shoes: Both Curlin and his beloved stable pony Pancho wore them! Nothing but the best for the champion's best friend! Watch Shackleford and all the top three-year-old Thoroughbreds entered in today's Travers Stakes at Saratoga on NBC Sports at 5 p.m. Lots of news about the race and the track on www.nyra.com. To learn more about Polyflex shoes, visit www.noanvil.com. Photo of Shackleford's feet courtesy of Sarah K. Andrew and Rock 'n Racehorses. Sarah is a frequent contributor to the Hoof Blog and keeps a key eye on the hooves at the track. Her track and sport horse photography is nothing short of phenomenal; Sarah is also a key ingredient in the success of Camelot Weekly, the all-volunteer program at the New Jersey horse auction that channels racehorses, sport/recreational horses, and companion horses into new homes instead of the killer pen--via Facebook! Sarah photographs the horses available each week, without compensation, and I wish a book publisher would make a coffee table book of these portraits of horses in need. They have saved thousands of horses from slaughter; not one horse from that auction has been re-routed to slaughter since they began.

Click on ad for easy ordering of this spectacular, award-winning graphic reference poster featuring image from the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine's Equine Foot Laboratory, Dr. Robert Bowker, and Dr. Lisa Lancaster.

 TO LEARN MORE

Hoof Blog coverage of Shackleford's Preakness victory and shoes

Hoof Blog: Laminitis-survivor Overdose sets European track speed record wearing American-made glue-on shoes

Hoof Blog: Shoes for Thought: Prototypes Put to the Test (introduction of Polyflex shoes in 2006)

Glue-on shoes at the 2006 Breeders Cup

The Unshod Racehorse: Racing Commissioners Table Model Rule on Barefoot Racehorses

Hoof Blog article on barefoot horse racing during California rule change 

Research: Clayton and Bowker's “Effects of Barefoot Trimming on Hoof Morphology” Focuses on Incremental Heel Recovery

Click on this link to go to the licensing survey for racetrack horseshoers.

© 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.

Racetrack Horseshoer's Survey Launched by Grayson Jockey Club's Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit

The Shoeing and Hoof Care Committee of the Grayson Jockey Club Foundation's Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit has compiled an online survey to collect data from horseshoers at US racetracks. Information from the survey will be used to assist the committee's efforts to study how horseshoers are licensed by states or racing jurisdictions, and what changes horseshoers feel may be warranted in the system to improve the education of horseshoers and the welfare of the horses in their care.

A sub-committee of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit's Shoeing and Hoof Care committee will use the results of this survey to gain information on topics, ideas and structure for a uniform national racetrack horseshoer test for state licensure. The committee feels that this step, which is similar to the Jockey Club's efforts in unifying Thoroughbred racetrack trainers' tests, will raise the bar of horseshoer qualifications and thereby boost the overall safety of the racehorse.

Hoofcare Publishing and The Hoof Blog have been asked to help disseminate news of the survey into the Thoroughbred racing shoeing community.

The survey is primarily an online questionnaire, and should only take a few minutes to complete.

To preserve the integrity of the survey, only those directly involved with racetrack horseshoeing should fill out the survey. This means: professional horseshoers who earn part or all of their living at the racetrack and are affected by state or track licensing.

An alternative path through the survey is available for trainers, owners, stable employees, racing officials, veterinarians, non-track horseshoers or others who are interested in expressing opinions about the practice of racetrack horseshoeing, but only racetrack shoers should answer the shoeing questions to preserve the survey's validity.

The committee has been collecting information for the past few years on state licensing and tests administered, and has sought the input of racetrack shoers in improving the process of testing new farriers. It is hoped that this survey will be able to reach many more horseshoers at tracks across the country.

A word about the survey: it is an automated program. Once you start to take the survey, you should finish it; you cannot go back and finish it later. The program will also prevent you from answering the survey more than once.

While the survey is anonymous, the Committee would like to hear more opinions from racetrack shoers, and has provided a comment section at the end of the survey for general feedback. Horseshoers are also invited to contact the committee directly to become involved in the efforts of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit and the Shoeing and Hoof Care Committee.

Please click on the red survey badge to open the survey:

If viewing on a text-only or mobile device, the direct address of the survey is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/farriersurvey

If you have any questions before you attempt to complete this survey, please contact Cathy O'Meara at comeara@jockeyclub.com. If you know someone who does not have Internet access but who should take the survey, Cathy will be able to help.

The Foundation has not provided a deadline date for completing the survey, but you should not delay in submitting your answers if you want to have an impact on the decision-making process.

Notification of this survey is provided as a public service by Hoofcare Publishing. Comments left on this blog post, by clicking on "comment" at the bottom of this article, once published, will be visible to anyone visiting this blog but will not go directly to the Grayson Jockey Club Foundation, so please make comments on their survey feedback area as well.

 © 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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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.

Favorite Video: New York Racing Association Salutes Racetrack Horseshoers

What makes a racetrack a racetrack? Horses running. And horses won't be running without a legion of horseshoers swinging their toolboxes down the shedrows each day. They squeeze in their hoof duties between a horse's  hotwalking and feeding and vet treatments and gate schooling and all the other important appointments in a Thoroughbred-in-training's day.

But the horseshoer's visit is important. It's the one that aligns the wheels of the runner, fixes the flats, re-balances the imbalances, patches the punctures, checks the valves.

No one knows that better than the shoers at the New York Racing Association tracks. They drive back and forth across the intersection of Long Island and Queens as the meets move between Aqueduct and Belmont. These are suburban blacksmiths, who are more likely to shoe a horse in the shade of a highway overpass instead of a chestnut tree. That is, until July comes and they move to bucolic Saratoga.

What you don't see in this video is the ghosts. The ghosts of horseshoers past. New York has a great tradition of fine horseshoers, solid craftsmen who shod the best racehorses in American history for the best trainers who based themselves at Belmont to be close to their wealthy New York owners. The legends range from John Dern who flew around the country working on horses like the tender-footed Assault with legendary trainer Max Hirsch (who actually lived right on the grounds at Belmont Park), to Elmer Campbell who shod the last winner of Triple Crown, Affirmed, back in 1978. Going back even further would be the ghost of Irishman Andrew McDermott, who shod the horses of August Belmont, including Man o' War. And hundreds more, each a legend in his own way, as horseshoers tend to be.

The nonchalant attitude of the New York shoers in this video belies the high-pressure stakes that are played each day with valuable horses and a year-round racing schedule that is breathing shallow breaths, exhaling toward Albany with a cough now and then.

At the top of the politicians' heap, with the power to influence the fate of hundreds of horses as well as the jobs and livelihoods of many hundreds of people and entire communities, sits Governor David Patterson. If you think New York's first African-American legally-blind governor is out of touch with New York racing and the important role it plays, think again: Patterson is the grandson of a New York racetrack blacksmith. His grandfather's skill and hard work helped him to an advanced degree and a career in politics.

Would he know a Queen's Plate from a Clydesdale shoe? Maybe not, but maybe it's not too late to teach him, either. Wake up some repressed genetic memory code and Governor Patterson could build a new plan for New York racing starting on the backside, with the welfare of the horses and the people who care for and about them at the top of the list. He might feel right at home.

A morning on the backside with the horseshoers might put the whole thing in perspective. It always works for me.

15 May 2010 | © Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

Racetrack Surface Research Video: Building a TTD for the Track in a Box at the University of California

3 February 2010 Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

(Caution: You might want to turn down the volume on your computer before you play this video. The soundtrack is loud!)



This video shows the development and constrution of the University of California, Davis, J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory track-testing device (TTD). The TTD is instrumented with a load cell, accelerometer, and laser displacement sensor, and is used to compare the dynamic properties of Thoroughbred racehorse racetrack surfaces as part of the lab's "Track in a Box " project to simulate racetrack conditions in the laboratory.

The "box" in the lab acan be filled with layers of dirt, stones, asphalt and racetrack surface materials that could include wax, fibers or other materials. A drainage system allows the effects of rain to be testing. The spring-loaded mechanism simulates the impact of pounding hooves up to 100 times the force of gravity while measurements are taken to characterize surface behavior.

The finished TTD positioned over the box

The "Track in a Box" project is the work of Jacob Setterbo, a PhD candidate in the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group, and Dr. Susan Stover, director of the school’s JD Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory. The project is funded by the Grayson Jockey Club, the Southern California Equine Foundation, and the Center for Equine Health with funds provided by the State of California pari-mutuel fund and contributions by private donors.

I asked Jacob Setterbo about the fact that the TTD contained everything exect a shoe, and wondered about adding a shoe to the TTD, or even using it to test how different shoes load in different footing. Setterbo and Stover worked on a sensor shoe for racetrack testing which was featured on the hoof blog in an article last fall.

"That is a possibility we considered," Setterbo answered. "So the TTD was designed so that a new interface to the load cell can be machined so that a shoe can be added, and things such as toe grabs can be compared. Because we first need to establish the functionality of the TTD we decided to first start with a simple impacting part, which is an aluminum piece which is approximately the same area of the hoof. But the answer is yes, it is possible to modify the TTD to test different shoes."

© 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.

California Statistics Reveal Dangerous Trend in Hind Limb Breakdowns on Artificial Tracks

by Fran Jurga | 28 August 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Data on racing breakdowns compiled by the University of California at Davis tracks the incidence of injuries, the seasonality of injuries and which limb is affected, among many other data points recorded. A publication of recent statistics presented to the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) reveals a disturbing prevalence of hind limb injuries that led to the death of racehorses last year.

While the report is not available at present, the Los Angeles Times today reported that the study presented to the CHRB yesterday reveals that 19 horses died on California tracks from hind limb injuries in 2008, and that those injuries were split pretty evenly between left and right hinds. Only one horse died from a hind limb injury on a dirt track.

Breakdowns on the front limbs were somewhat more comparable between dirt and artificial tracks, but the artificial breakdowns still exceeded the dirt tracks: 74 horses broke down in front on artificial tracks while 59 broke down in front on dirt tracks.

Some people feel that this is an invalid comparison, and that trainers will often work a horse on a synthetic track that they would not work on a dirt track.

UC Davis examined 351 cadavers of breakdowns in its search for new insights into why racehorses are so susceptible to fatal injuries.

California has a 4 mm limit on toe grabs on front shoes and allows horses to run barefoot.

© 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 York Court Rules That Racetrack Horse Dentists Need Not Be Veterinarians

by Fran Jurga | 17 January 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

UPDATE: Click here for a new link to new information on this story, thanks to a more in-depth article in Sunday's Saratogian newspaper by Paul Post.

The Daily Racing Form reported this morning that an appellate court in New York has upheld a 2007 ruling by the Nassau County Supreme Court that horse dentists should be considered providers of routine care of horses similar to blacksmith and groom duties and that a veterinary license should not be required.

Click here to read the brief announcement in the Daily Racing Form, as provided by the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

The lawsuit lists the state wagering board as the plaintiff; the Board had appealed the earlier Supreme Court decision, which stemmed from the banning of a dentist from a racetrack.

Presumably, this decision applies to the the state board's jurisdiction at racetracks. It's not clear if this decision affects how the state's veterinary medicine practice act might be interpreted off the premises of the state's racetracks.


© 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.

What I Was Going to Write About Today

Nonchalent carriage horse on Marine Drive in Mumbai, with the Taj Mahal in the background; photo by Bernard Duvernay.

For the past few weeks I have been following the course of a strain of Equine Influenza in India. It has been traveling from the high mountains of Kashmir down through the western side of the country. Recently, the racetracks in Mumbai were closed.

The disease was hitting working horses and racing horses and polo ponies. It has shut down racing in the country just as it did in Australia last year. But because it is India, we are not hearing so much about it.

When I heard that it had hit the carriage horses that are lined up outside the Taj Mahal in Mumbai, I thought of this photo, one of my favorite images by the great globetrotting farrier Bernard Duvernay of Geneva, Switzerland, aka "The Flying Anvil". He is also a superb photographer whose photos show that he cares as much for people as he does for horses' feet.

His fascination and affection for India are contagious.

Click here to read an interview with Bernard Duvernay about the state of farriery in India for the burgeoning Thoroughbred breeding and racing industry. (Remember that English is not Bernard's native language.)

I hunted down this image from my files and had it ready to go. Then I heard the news on Wednesday that the area around the Taj Mahal and other sites in the great teeming city had been attacked. I wondered if I should publish this photo or not.

The lastest count is 125 people dead and more than 300 wounded.

I can't imagine how the police have handled this situation. Mumbai is probably the largest single city on earth. More people life in that one city than on the entire continent of Australia. The streets aren't just crowded, they are full.

I know a lot of veterinarians and farriers who have gone to Mumbai and the outlying stud farms or to Pune to work on valuable horses with quarter cracks or laminitis. Bernard is the one who goes there to teach the local farriers and to help upgrade their skills. He convinces the stud owners that their future lies in the farriers they have, not in the farriers who come through the airport.

Non-equine footprint in a farrier shop in India, where farriers work in bare feet. (Bernard Duvernay photo)

How ironic that Danny Coyle's great (I hear) new film "Slumdog Millionaire" has just opened. It is about Mumbai. The old Mumbai. The one before this happened. I was going to see it this weekend. Mumbai in technicolor. Mumbai in action. People told me that the city was the star of the movie.

Until a week ago I couldn't have found Mumbai on a map. I didn't know if it was on the coast (or which coast) and I probably wasn't sure how to spell it. Now I can't get it off my mind.

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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).

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.

Track Vets Irritated by Congressional Hearing Charges; Protest Lack of Reprsentation on Panel

Veterinarian Phil Tripp, left, with assistant Alfonso Quintero, work at the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky. Photo by Bill Luster, The Courier-Journal; story link below.

"Ouch!" "Zing!" "Wham-o!"

Racetrack veterinarians were under the gun last week at the Congressional sub-committeee hearing on racetrack drug abuse and breakdowns. Reading the transcript makes it clear that owners and trainers were seeking to place some of the blame for the problems in horse racing on the shoulders of racetrack vets.

To paraphrase one recent comment by a racetrack old-timer: "Years ago we had twice the horses and half the vets. Now we have half the horses and twice the vets."

Racetrack veterinarians have always had a separate reality. Unlike most veterinarians, they are bound by laws and rules and have to be pharmacologists to know how long a medication will remain in a horse's system, what the allowed levels are, and what the implications may be of a horse shipping to a different state where laws may not be the same. Ever wonder how it's possible to stable fillies and colts next to each other on the shedrow? Ask the vet.

There are two types of veterinarians at the track: practicing vets and regulatory vets, who are employed by the racing jurisdiction, usually the state. In addition to tasks related to testing horses for illegal or excessive medication, veterinarians inspect horses before races, interact with stewards, and work double-duty when an outbreak of herpes virus or strangles shuts down a track.

Consider this quote from the Washington hearing: owner Jess Jackson told the subcommittee that in Seabiscuit's day there were three veterinarians at Santa Anita and all drove Chevrolets, compared with perhaps 26 today who "all drive BMWs and Cadillacs now". (I didn't realize Mr. Jackson was old enough to remember Seabiscuit.)

Veterinarians at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky found a willing ear in reporter Jenny Rees of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Her compilation of their comments and more hits against track vets formed a feature story in today's paper. Read it here.

It seems like blame for everything in the horse world is like a big game of Tag. This month, track vets are It. Tomorrow it could be you, or me. Big Blame keeps getting passed around and around; where it stops, nobody knows.

It's Saratoga Time!

My fingers are itching to flip the calendar over to August, because that will mean it is time to head to Saratoga, where Hoofcare & Lameness will have a satellite office this summer.

Be sure to let me know if you will be in Saratoga, and let's get together.

Plans are for a series of Tuesday night gatherings in the out-back function room at The Parting, a favorite traditional Irish restaurant and pub on Lake Avenue, just a block off Broadway.

Here's the schedule:
8 August--"New Product Night"--lots of samples and information on new products from our advertisers, or just come and say hello! We'll have plenty to talk about!

15 August--Come by after the dedication of the farriers memorial at the Oklahoma track; later in the evening, a wonderful presentation on new laminitis research for prevention, causes and treatment by Dr Don Walsh of Pacific Equine Hospital and the Animal Health Foundation. He raises the funds for Dr Chris Pollitt, Katy Watts, Phil Johnson and other leading researchers.

22 August--"Make history, not horseshoes". This is a marathon event; daytime events a few miles away at the Burden Iron Works in Troy, site of the world's largest horseshoe factory back at the turn of the century. I will post more about that event. In the evening, come by the office at the Parting Glass and meet Ada Gates, the first woman to be licensed as a farrier on a USA racetrack. She now owns Harry Patton Horseshoeing Supplies in Los Angeles and guess what! Her great grandfather was Henry Burden, of Burden Iron Works fame. This evening fun is sponsored by Life Data Labs, who helped us launch the Tuesday evening sessions last year.

What to expect: This is one Saratoga night out where you won't need a black tie, a designer dress, or big wads of cash. You can help me post to this blog, maybe, or show me photos of your boat or your horse or your latest work project. Meet some other people, see some new things, maybe have a laugh. I travel a lot in the winter and see people at trade shows and events, but these Tuesday nights are a chance to slow down and just enjoy your company!

The phone number for the satellite office in Saratoga is . Look for me in the morning on the backside or check our ad in The Saratoga Special. I'll be the one taking photos of feet. I will also post updates on this blog.

Clones Fail to "Kick Ass"

It was nature vs nuture in Winnemuca, Nevada yesterday...and nature prevailed. It wasn't even close. The two cloned mules, first ever to race, and genetically identical to each other, finished third and seventh in an eight-mule race yesterday.

(See yesterday's post for more on this story.)

Wait a minute. Maybe the story here is that there were eight mules entered in one race at all. Around here, eight horses entered in a race would be big crowd.