10 Years on The Hoof Blog: A Little Bit About You

The 10th anniversary of The Hoof Blog almost slipped by unnoticed. There were no stars on the calendar, no reminders popped up in email. Time just flies by and there's way too much to do and it's far too risky to stop and reflect on all that's happened or all that may happen, so let's celebrate by sharing some statistics about you, the ones who make it all possible!

New Statistics: Lameness Most Critical Health Problem for British Horses; Laminitis Increased in 2014

A new study published today in Great Britain sorts out what is likely to send horses to vets and farriers for treatment there, and you have to look pretty far down to find hoof-related problems (other than laminitis) on the list. 

Great Britain's National Equine Health Survey (NEHS), held annually every May, has confirmed for the second year that lameness is the most common syndrome affecting the UK’s horses and ponies. This year’s top results, compiled in this report, have also revealed an apparent increase in laminitis compared with previous years.

What You Read: Most Popular Hoof Blog Stories of 2013

There are lots of ways of looking at a horse's foot. The Hoof Blog offered a lot of them in 2013. Some were more popular than others. What were your favorites? And what kind of a screen did you use to view them?

Statistically Speaking: What Was the #1 Keyword on the Hoof Blog in 2011?

The most-used terms on The Hoof Blog; you should be able to double-click on the image to see a larger size  and read the small type. You might recognize a few words and names!

All the statistics in the world won't show what 2011 meant to The Hoof Blog. It was another great year, and I hope you were either along for the ride, or that you'll take the time to look back at some of the year's 172 stories.

The economy may be down but blog
readership is at an all-time high.

October and Decemeber 2011 were two of the highest visitor months ever in the history of the blog.

The Hoof Blog has grown in scope a bit--somewhat unintentionally. While this blog has always been a way for Hoofcare + Lameness to stay in touch with subscribers and supporters, some stories in this year's arsenal just wouldn't stay in the hoofcare world.

They went far and wide, and brought in a lot of new people who were interested in glue-on shoes for US racehorses, 3-D Italian roller motion shoes for dressage horses, historical insights to some of the hoofish customs displayed in the British Royal Wedding, and news about research and technical developments, particularly in the area of hoof function and barefoot trimming.

Gift-horses like assisting The New York Times with an article on glue-on shoes during the Triple Crown should not be looked in the mouth. The traffic that links like that one brought just kept coming--whoever those people were.

One article about Molly the Pony 
brought over 100,000 people 
to the Hoof Blog in 2008

If you're interested in what gets read on the Hoof Blog, this post is for you. If you're not, a new post will come along soon.

Of particular interest, besides the overall growth of the blog's visitor stats, was the list of most-read articles published in 2011.

The all-time leader is still the announcement of Molly the Pony, a book about an amputee pony who survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The post was published in April 2008 and someone (I still don't know whom--was it you?) forwarded the post. The email went viral, and over 100,000 people clicked into the blog.

Chaos ensued. Molly's post still garners a huge number of visitors every month, but taking Molly out of the mix, here are the runners-up.

Maybe Totilas beat Fuego in the World
Equestrian Games, but the Spanish
horse ruled on The Hoof Blog, thanks to
Hans Castilijn's intriguing shoes.
(Erin Ryder photo)

Top Hoof Blog Stories of 2011

1. Dressage, Fuego-Style: It's What's Underneath That...
2. Totilas: Heart Bar Shoes for the Dressage Champion...
3. Foot Photos: Totilas Used His Shoes at German Dres...
4. Why Is That Guy Following Prince William and Kate ...
5. Laminitis in a Moose? Vermont's "Pete the Moose"
6. Shackleford's Preakness is First Triple Crown Win ...
7. Polydactyl People and Ponies: A Gallery of Extra D...
8. British Racehorse's Story Touches a Nerve

These statistics are totals of visits by people who came to the Hoof Blog by following a specific link to a specific story. They did not type in the web address of the Blog or visit from a browser bookmark.

Most of these people were visiting only to read that one story and had little interest in hoofcare, but more in dressage, racing, the Royal Wedding or, in the case of polydactyl people and ponies, kinky anatomy.

Top referring outside web sites

1. Chronicle of the Horse (and its forum)
2. Equisearch and the AIM Equine Network of horse magazines
3. Eurodressage.com
4. Horse and Hound (Great Britain)
5. Eventing Nation

These web sites linked to specific stories on the Hoof Blog and brought in a lot of the casual one-time visitors who inflated the statistics for specific stories. These horse-related site links were unsolicited and completely voluntary. Links from farrier, veterinary and natural hoofcare sites also resulted in plenty of incoming traffic, but in smaller numbers than the large equestrian-related sites generate with a single mention. Many also came from Google (overall, the biggest source of traffic), Bing, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, although those referrals are calculated separately.

Top search keywords

After every possible spelling of Fran Jurga's name and "Hoof Blog" and "Hoofcare and Lameness"--there were some very creative misspellings of all--came some surprises.

Totilas and Fuego, the two dressage horses whose choice of hoofwear dominated the drop-in visits, were nowhere to be found.

The #1 horse searched for: Zenyatta. Back in January 2011, The Hoof Blog chronicled how the great American champion racehorse Zenyatta had been reunited with the horseshoer of her youth, John Collins, when she returned to Kentucky's Lane's End Farm to begin her life as a broodmare. People searched for anything and everything about Zenyatta and her hooves, and found a big archive of articles here.

Top 10 countries

Where in the world are you reading this?

1 United States

2 United Kingdom

3 Canada

4 Australia

5 Germany

6 Slovenia

7 Netherlands

8 France

9 Russia

10 Spain

This is quite a big change this year. Russia was never on the list before. It worries me that Japan is no longer on the list at all. I can't explain Slovenia but I think a good will tour there is in order. Bring on the Lipizzaners...

Browsers and Operating Systems

Internet Explorer is still the #1 browser used, but then it gets interesting. Explorer's share has dropped precipitously. It is followed by Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

Looking a little closer, iPads account for 4% of visits and 10% of visits to the Hoof Blog are on an iPhone, Android (catching up to iPhone!), Blackberry or Nokia mobile systems. Only 68% of visitors used Windows; 17% were on the Macintosh OS. There's also a loyal clan of Linux, iPod and Ubuntu users.

The Hoof Blog seems to be trending mobile...just like the rest of the world. I hope everyone knows that there is an iPhone app-type version of The Hoof Blog that works on all smart phones and displays the blog in a single narrow column. The icon shows up on your phone's desktop once you favorite it.

Top search people

Most searched for farrier: Rob Renirie

And two farriers' names were in the top ten: The leading search term was for Dutch farrier Rob Renirie, who has been featured many times on The Hoof Blog.

In 2011, however, the blog featured a little video of him shoeing the great dressage star Totilas, before the world champion was sold to Germany. People couldn't get enough of that video; it was part of the #2 most-read story of the year, about the switch to heart-bar shoes on the horse under his new flag--and, as a result, new farrier--in Germany.

Most immortal farier: Jack Miller

There was another farrier searched for in the top 10; perhaps our search box goes to another level in the spiritual realm. The Hoof Blog has published many obituaries but none come close--or show up in the search box--like the one for the late American farrier Jack Miller, who is still being searched for more than a year after his death. Jack Miller will live forever on the Hoof Blog.

Statistics are just statistics, in the end. What matters is that you keep reading and sharing and forwarding and emailing and tweeting and Facebooking the information that you find here.

The hoof world is changing around us, and you'll read about it through Hoofcare Publishing. Maybe The Hoof Blog can't always explain it, but we'll make sure you'll know about it, and you can decide what it means to you and what to do with or about a new development.

And as the statistics show, there's a good chance The Hoof Blog will report on that, too!

Click on the ad to order your copy of this award-winning educational reference poster!

© 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.

Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging Looks at the Statistics of Equine Foot Lameness: New Diagnostics Document More Precise Damage to the Feet of Sport Horses

The only “sure thing” number in the horse world is that most of the horses treated for lameness have four feet. Statistics quoted in the horse world range from the antiquated to the inflated, and professionals around the world are calling for more accountability of claims quoted in sales pitches and more quantification of the numbers that are quoted.

Once upon a time, someone somewhere said that 90 percent of equine lameness is in the foot, but does anyone know the original source of that quote? Would you say that is still true today? We can diagnose lameness a lot more precisely now than ever before.

One thing we do know: Hallmarq reports that, worldwide, almost 80% of lame horses referred for MRI at equine hospitals equipped with their MRI units have a problem located in the foot.

Where do you look for numbers when you need to prove a point? There is no “Fact Book” of equine lameness that collects statistics in one place. Instead, we all tend to trust certain authors or universities or studies. And everyone seems to have healthy skepticism for “the Internet”.

The deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT) is the most common site of damage in the foot identified by standing MRI scanning of sport horses. As you know, this tendon runs down the leg and attaches to the bottom of the coffin bone (P3). The three arrows added to this scan are directing the eye to the DDFT which, in this Irish horse, has a lesion that looks like a split. Normally tendon would be solid black. (Photo courtesy of Troytown Equine Hospital, Co. Kildare, Ireland.)

But it’s not all black and white, as two recent studies pointed out. In 2004, England’s Sue Dyson FRCVS reviewed 199 foot lameness cases at the Animal Health Trust. These cases had been evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and her analysis of the data showed that 33 percent had deep digital flexor tendonitis and a total of 60 percent of cases had some form of abnormality of the deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT). Desmitis of a collateral ligament of the coffin joint was found on 15 percent of the MRIs; it should be noted that Dyson’s practice is heavy on referral sport horses.

A high percentage of lame horses in both Great Britain and the United States have been found to have damage to the deep digital flexor tendon within the foot when standing MRI scans were analyzed.

On the US side of the Atlantic, Rick Mitchell DVM of Fairfield Equine Associates in Connecticut did a similar review. He looked at the results of standing MRI in 98 American jumping and dressage horses with foot pain.

Mitchell found the most common defect in the lame American sport horses to be navicular bone lesions, which were seen in the Hallmarq MRI scans of 77 percent of the horses examined. But 64 percent of Mitchell’s horses had deep digital flexor tendon damage in the foot, as seen on their MRIs. Coffin joint collateral ligament damage was much less common in Mitchell’s group than in Dyson’s.

But the glaring damage to the tendon is a critical warning sign to sport horse owners and trainers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ten years earlier, diagnosing damage to the tendon in the foot was almost impossible. Now, Dyson and Mitchell can even break down the tendon damage into types of injuries.

Dr Laurie Goodrich of Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine sums up the need for MRI when diagnosing horses with foot pain: “Of horses with caudal heel pain, 60 to 70 percent have soft tissue injuries that we won’t see with radiographs because they only determine bone structure.”

New imaging modalities like MRI are making earlier and more precise diagnoses possible; another number we like: information gleaned from images obtained via standing MRI resulted in a diagnosis in almost 90 percent of the cases referred, according to Hallmarq's data analysis of cases.

So, when you quote numbers in the equine lameness world, also mention your source, the year and the type of horses that were tallied. If the study covered a specific type of horses and if the study was conducted since the advent of diagnostic imaging like MRI, it may make your numbers mean a lot more. And someone else may end up quoting you.

To learn more:

The largest and most accessible body of quotable statistics is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) “Equine ’98 Study”, which collected facts and figures on the health of horses on farms and ranches in 28 states. This was amended by updates in 2000 and 2005.

USDA, 2000. Lameness and Laminitis in U.S. Horses. USDA:APHIS:VS, CEAH, National Animal Health Monitoring System. Fort Collins, CO. Link to free download: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/equine/downloads/equine98/Equine98_dr_Lameness.pdf

Dyson, Murray. Lameness associated with foot pain: results of magnetic resonance imaging in 199 horses (January 2001- December 2003) and response to treatment. Equine Vet Journal, 2004

Mitchell, Edwards, et al. Standing MRI Lesions Identified in Jumping and Dressage Horses with Lameness Isolated to the Foot, AAEP Proceedings, 2006.

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Watch for more in the Hallmarq-sponsored article series on The Hoof Blog, and check their social media system and especially their info-deep web site for lots more information.

To learn more about Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging and standing MRI technology for horses:

• Become a fan  of the new Hallmarq Equine MRI Facebook page;

• Follow @HallmarqMRI on Twitter;

• Subscribe to the hallmarqvetimaging channel on YouTube.com;

• Watch for a growing equine distal limb Hallmarq MRI image gallery on Flickr.com;

• Visit the Hallmarq.net web site. (Plan to spend some time there!)

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