Fran Jurga`s Hoofcare + Lameness

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Can You Explain the World War I Veteran's Hand-Forged, Mysterious Monument to His Military Service?

Welsh World War I farrier veteran horseshoe

The word "souvenir" literally means "memory". This photo is reproduced with the permission of Keith O'Brien, a descendant of Isaac. According to Keith's description, which is a little hard to understand, there is a second shoe, on the other side of the foot.

When World War I ended, how did veterans commemorate their service? Surviving World War I was not easy and one can only imagine the emotions that the troops felt when they returned home. I've written a lot about farriers who served in World War I and how they took care of the horses during the war, but I honestly don't know much about what happened when they returned home to their families and forges.

In north Wales, a young man named Isaac Owen came home and made himself a little icon, or a trophy or a shrine, to his service in France during World War I. Which is it? You can decide. We're looking at it almost 100 years later, and we don't know what he did with it after he forged it and put so much work into it.

Did he put this out for all to see, as a trophy of pride, or did he work on it with great care and then, after polishing it to a glowing finish, did he wrap it in flannel and put it away, thus declaring it--and his experience in France--complete, and done, and get on with the rest of his life? Was this shoe found years later by his descendants, who might have wondered what it was, until they realized what the words meant? And did he make only one?

Ypres, Somme, and Armentieres were three battle sites. There were actually three battles in Ypres, a city in Belgium's Flanders district. In one, it is said that half the British troop involvement of 160,000 was either killed or wounded; all in all, 400,000 troops died there. When you hear the poem that begins, "In Flanders fields..." the reference is to the huge military cemeteries outside Ypres and other Flemish battle locations. I think the web site for the Ypres battles is one of the best military history web sites you can visit on the web.

"In Flanders Fields" was written by a Canadian doctor, John McCrae, who cared for the wounded at Ypres and was later killed in the war.

The battle of Somme in France in 1916 lasted 4 1/2 months and had 1.5 million human casualties. I read today that 100,000 horses died at Somme, and no doubt it was Isaac's job to try to keep them going. At the end of the bloody Somme standoff, the British and French advanced a total of six miles but did not succeed in capturing any towns from the Germans. Still, the British celebrated it as a victory, of sorts, to keep up the morale of the troops.

A relatively recent addition to Somme, France is the "Dying Horse Memorial", a tribute to the 100,000 horses who lost their lives in the World War I battle there. Isaac the Welsh farrier would have known their pain.

Finally, Isaac was part of the British occupation of Armentieres in France. This is the Belgian border town made famous in the racy song, Mademoiselle from Armentières. The Germans shelled the city with mustard gas in 1918, and the British forces had to evacuate the city, which was so badly contaminated that the Germans couldn't enter it.

After all this--four years of the worst battles on the very front edge of the war--did Isaac just go home to Wales, take his apron off the nail, and go back to work in his father's forge? Perhaps he acted like nothing had happened at all. How intent he must have been to keep his hand steady as he stamped the letters, one by one, of those French and Belgian battle sites into the face of that shoe.

Of course there could be much, much more to be told about wartime horseshoe souvenirs. Consider this World War I "trench art" horseshoe:

This shoe was made by a British farrier who served in France. While he was shoeing a horse, the forge was shelled and the horse was killed. The farrier brought home a piece of the shrapnel from the shell and crafted this shoe from it to commemorate his good fortune to be alive.

You can visit Keith O'Brien's web site diary, which explores his family's history as farriers and smiths in a tiny village in Wales. As part of a Welsh language preservation project, the family's story was published by the BBC, but Keith has shared the old photos with captions in English in a slide show.

© 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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Friday, November 12, 2010

After 26 Years of Excellence, Cornell Vet School Cancels Farrier Conference

The greatest tradition in continuing professional education for farriers in the world ended last week with an announcement from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.

The university said that the 27th Cornell Farriers Conference, scheduled for this weekend, had been canceled.

Held in the highest esteen and featuring stellar farrier and veterinarian speakers in a world-class academic environment, the conference attracted a list of the virtual "who's who" of the farrier academic world over the years while sticking to a strict education-only policy that was embraced by attendees and supported by sponsors and trade show exhibitors.

A quick check of the (incomplete) files here shows the speakers over the years to have included Mark Aikens, Mike Ball, Philippe Benoit, Roy Bloom, Dan Bradley, Doug Butler, Christina Cable, Mark Caldwell, Victor Camp, Hans Castilijns, Brent Chidsey, Jacqueline Cilley, Meredith Clarke, Buster Conklin, Janet Douglas, Dave Duckett, David Farley, Gene Fletcher, Laura Florence, Don Gustafson, Chris Gregory, David Hood, Vern Hornquist, Betsy Keller, Steve Kraus, Scott Lampert, Jeffrey LaPoint, Jack Lowe, Neil Madden, Bruce Matthews, Kelly McGhee, Myron McLane, Dallas Morgan, Scott Morrison, Tia Nelson, Charley Orlando, Andrew Parks, Bob Pethick, Chris Pollitt, Haydn Price, Jeremy Rawlinson, Pat Reilly, Dave Richards, Mike Savoldi, Judith Shoemaker, Rob Sigafoos, Sigurdur Sigurdsson, Meike Van Heel, Gary Werner, and Pamela Wilkins.

Over the years, I became very interested in the history of Cornell's vet school and especially the many ways that farriery (and farriers) had always been deeply integrated into the veterinary education program. I was surprised to find out that the farrier department had once even endorsed a brand of horseshoes in an ad in the Horseshoers Journal. Did you know that Cornell once was the home of fine Percheron horses?

Farriery has been an integral part of Cornell's veterinary school since its inception and Cornell opened a much-heralded school to educate farriers in 1914. The opening of the school was the front page story of the Horseshoers Journal. Instructors of farriery at the vet school have been leaders of farrier education ever since, in particular professor Henry Asmus, whose work was published by the US government and distributed to horse owners and farmers all over the nation in the 1920s and 1930s.
Michael Wildenstein, who led the farrier program at Cornell until August of this year, took up Asmus as a role model and built up the conference to bring in leading lecturers from all over the world. He took pride in the number of repeat attendees at the conference, who returned year after year after year, and said that these people were the best-educated farriers in America because of their exposure to the talented and generous speakers who had been part of the conferences.

In the lighter-fare Saturday night programs at Cornell, farriers raised money for memorials, auctioned things off (like Professor Chris Pollitt's Australian Akubra hat), read poetry, tossed horseshoes and anvils, told stories about their mentors, played instruments and sang (among many unforgettables: a farrier opera singer, the Welsh national anthem a cappella, and three Australians who sang a "Waltzing Matilda" chorale), and there was even an Anvil Chorus karaoke one year.

I don't know what I'll do this weekend.

But I would like to thank Cornell for the 20 or so conferences that I attended. I can't think of any event that was so educational, where I learned so much, felt so welcomed, or looked forward to so much.

I will especially remember using the incredible Flower Sprecher Library at the vet school, and walking through the rows of shelves, finding farriers on their hands and knees reading books (old and new), or making copies of pages of books, or using computers to find articles and search databases. Cornell really did open its doors to farriers for that weekend each year. It was a gift and I hope you were able to benefit from it, in some way, while it lasted. I know I did, in a big way.

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Sunday, November 07, 2010

Equine Sport Science, ESPN-Style, Looks at Zenyatta

During today's Breeders Cup broadcast, ESPN took a stab at trying to explain Zenyatta's superior performance ability. They put together great graphics and computer images but understandably had to take some shortcuts to "dumb it down" for the casual national television audience.

I can just see Professor Hilary Clayton, the leading biomechanics expert in North America, pursing her lips and shaking her head, "Well, noooo, not exactly..." and Professor Jean-Marie Denoix over in France, rolling his eyes, throwing up his hands and sighing, "Oh, mon dieu! The Americans just don't understand..."

How do you squash a PhD into three minutes? Well, you don't. But at least they tried.

Of course ESPN can't go into detail--John Brenkus only had three minutes to explain the whole thing! Anyone who knows about horses will know that it's not just about stride length and height at the withers--if it was, the big horses would dominate, and we'd have no way to explain Goldikova, Smarty Jones, Northern Dancer, Mine That Bird (he did win the Derby!) and all the smaller, more compact Thoroughbreds who are, after all, the more common horses running in our races. And the more commonly found horses in the winner's circle are not over 17 hands.

The same is true of jumpers; it might seem like bigger horses would be better jumpers but it's not a given. There are many factors to consider.

The great 18th century racehorse champion Eclipse is believed to have excelled because he was extraordinarily "normal". His body parts were in harmonious proportion to each other, which scientists believe facilitated speed.

Studies have been done that show that the most successful racehorses are not the largest or the smallest or the most anything but the most "average"--the ones whose proportions are average. Take Eclipse, for instance. That most successful of original racehorses left us his skeleton, which has been analyzed by Professor Alan Wilson and his researchers at the Structure and Motion Analysis Lab at the Royal Veterinary College in England.

Based on Eclipse and other racehorses, Wilson's data analysis determined that it was not size that mattered in champion racehorses but proportion. The champion racehorses like Eclipse had all their body parts in proportion to each other--no one body part was out of a statistical range in proportion to others. Their skeletal systems demonstrated a balance of dimensions.

(By the way, the great Eclipse went down in history in the 1700s for winning 18 races--one less than Zenyatta. It is said his jockey never used a whip or spurs.)

The formula for speed is not just the distance covered in a stride, but the stride length x the stride frequency. There is also the x factor of efficiency--how straight are the limbs, how much excess motion is there, how efficient is the respiration, etc.? How easy is it for the horse to reach his hind limbs underneath his body, and how far under his body do they reach? There are many ingredients to a racehorse's stride and speed formula.

So a horse with a shorter stride but a fleeter, more efficient turn of foot can potentially run faster than a long-striding large horse, although one wonders if the smaller horse may tire sooner if taking more breaths and more strides. But they may be more efficient strides.

This is where shoes come in. A horse that can't "get hold" of the track loses stride efficiency and, often, even stride frequency if the foot is delayed in breakover or the horse struggles to re-orient the foot to land in a certain pattern to avoid pain or limb interference or simple fatigue from sinking too deep into sandy footing.

It's probably harder and more time-consuming to train a huge huge with a huge stride like Zenyatta's, and the racing public should remember and respect that John Sherriffs opted to delay her start in the races until she was ready, probably because of her need to finish developing physically and no doubt "find her balance" when running at speed. Most big horses would not be given that luxury to develop first, race when ready.

Those are just some of the factors that enter into the equation of why Zenyatta excels. You can do formulas and analyze her all day but there are some intangibles. One them is called "heart". Not the heart in the chest, but the heart in the spirit. Zenyatta is loaded with that.

We saw that heart today.

A great racehorse will always be just out of the reach of science. If not, there'd be no reason to go to the races. Handicapping would be an exact science. But thankfully we still have that x factor.

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Saturday, November 06, 2010

Can You Name Five Breeders Cup Champions Who Died Because of Laminitis? Can You Name Ten?

It's Breeders Cup weekend and Hoofcare Publishing hopes you are enjoying the spectacle at Churchill Downs, as the world's best racehorses compete for fame and glory and riches. For many, these will be their last races, and the vans will take them straight to Lexington and a new life on a breeding farm on Monday morning. In the meantime, this is their chance to make it into the history books.

Many who made it into the history books at the Breeders Cup lost their lives prematurely to the terrible disease of laminitis. You may know about Kentucky Derby winners like Secretariat, Sunday Silence, and Barbaro, but many other famous Thoroughbreds couldn't beat the disease, either. And many of them were Breeders Cup champions.

Some great champions lost to laminitis may come to mind: Bayakoa, who won the Breeders Cup Distaff (know called the Ladies Classic) in both 1989 and 1990; Kip Deville who won the Breeders Cup Mile in 2007; and Sunday Silence, who won the Classic in 1989, and Black Tie Affair who won it in 1991.

Some whose deaths weren't quite so well publicized but who should not be forgotten are Arcangues, who won the Classic in 1993; Barathea who won the Mile in 1994; Flanders who won the Juvenile Fillies in 1994; Outstandingly who won the Juvenile Fillies in 1984; and In the Wings who won the Turf in 1990.

So there you have at least ten champions. Who knows how many more there may be? All had their greatest moment winning at the Breeders Cup. All probably had their worst moments experiencing the pain of laminitis; most were euthanized because of the disease, to end their suffering.

Each could beat the best racehorses of his or her generation, but couldn't beat laminitis.

Perhaps if you win big on a bet today or maybe if you just dream big of living in a horse world where laminitis is at least manageable and preventable, you'll send a donation in the memory of a fallen champion to a laminitis research charity.

The Hoof Blog recommends The Laminitis Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.

Learn how to make a donation--no matter how large or small--to the Institute by sending an email to Institute administrator Patty Welch: laminitis@vet.upenn.edu

Learn more about the Laminitis Institute at www.laminitisinstitute.org.

And, if you'd like to mark your calendar, the 6th International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot will be in full swing one year from today. The conference returns to West Palm Beach, Florida on November 4-6, 2011. Watch for news at the conference web site:

www.laminitisconference.com.

See you there.

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Friday, November 05, 2010

Breeders Cup Humor: Pitfalls of Interviewing Irish Jockeys in the Winners Circle

If you're ever been to the races in Britain or Ireland, especially National Hunt races, you know that the interview with the winning jockey can be a bit mysterious. Whether the jockey is Irish or Scottish or Welsh or from Yorkshire, they always seem to have deep accents of one sort or another, and the reporters never have any idea what the fellow said. This can be a problem when it's a big stakes race.

The Irish do speak English and they understand each other. But if you're not tuned into the accent, you might not have any idea what an Irishman is saying because he'll say it at about triple speed. I tried watching the news once in an Irish pub in the West Country and finally asked the landlord if he'd mind switching to a channel that gave the news in English. I was convinced the announcers must be speaking Gaelic. They weren't. It was English. I couldn't recognize my own native language.

So, I hope you enjoy this little skit, from Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show, a brilliant but short-lived American television show; this is a re-do of a skit from the original British tv show The Sketch Show; both are equally funny. The American version stars Lee Mack as the jockey, interviewed by sit-com actress Kaitlin Olson.

This could easily happen to reporter Jeannine Edwards later today or on Saturday on ESPN! (And you have to admit, the set designers found a clever way to make a big fellow into a tiny jockey!)

© 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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Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Hoof Pathologist and Educator Dr. Roy Pool Honored by American College of Veterinary Pathologists

Dr. Pool Bestowed Honorary Membership by the ACVP

Today the American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP) will bestow an honorary membership to Roy R. Pool Jr., PhD DVM, director of the Surgical Pathology Service and director of the Osteopathology Specialty Service at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM).

This award -- only given to a select few individuals -- will be presented to Dr. Pool for his many important contributions to his professional discipline over his more than 40-year career as a veterinary musculoskeletal pathologist at the ACVP's annual meeting.

Honorary membership is bestowed upon a nonmember by a majority vote of the Council, and confirmed by a majority vote of the membership of the College.

Over the years Pool has contributed a great deal to the understanding of the causes and pathological diagnosis of musculoskeletal diseases of domestic animals. A list of his research topics includes research on many species and especially the pathogenesis of biomechanical lesions of bone, joints, tendons, and ligaments of athletic horses.

Pool is the last of the original five veterinary musculoskeletal pathologists still active today in academic practice in this country. He has taught numerous courses, in several veterinary institutions across the United States and Europe including the University of California at Davis, Cornell University, and Mississippi State University.

Dr. Pool was recruited by the Texas A&M seven years ago where, in addition to his diagnostic duties, he teaches lectures in his specialty to professional students in the veterinary curriculum.

"Although I am a clinical professor of pathology with primary diagnostic and teaching responsibilities, I continue to be involved in orthopedic research (e.g. healing of defects in articular cartilage and in tendons facilitated by stem cells)," said Pool.

I will never forget meeting Dr. Pool. He was so interested in Hoofcare and Lameness, and I was so interested in a project he was working on, related to navicular disease. One of the first sentences out of his mouth was, "I just love the navicular bone!" and I could tell he meant it. He went on to tell me that he had collected hundreds of them, and that he never tired of looking at them. Over the years, he also has never seemed to tire of answering my questions, and offering advice for deeper reading or where to find someone who might know the answer to my question.

Dr. Pool opened his lecture at the AAEP convention in San Francisco with one of the best lines ever: "Some people collect stamps. I collect navicular bones!"

Hoofcare and Lameness has tried to keep up with Dr. Pool's research. In 1996, Hoofcare published a summary of 15 years of his equine research, Equine Joint Mechanics: An AAEP/H&L Report, after his presentation at the AAEP convention in Lexington, Kentucky.

In the 1980s, Dr. Pool was the first to notice the incidence of what was then called degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis (DSLD) when he was at the University of California at Davis. What may have been an observation on his part helped veterinarian Jan Young DVM formulate the first articles on the conditon, which were published in Hoofcare and Lameness. In 2002, he was the co-author with Dr Jeanette Mero of the paper, Twenty Cases of Degenerative Suspensory Ligament Desmitis in Peruvian Paso Horses, presented at that year's AAEP Convention in Orlando, Florida.

Not only students and the research community have benefited from Dr. Pool's research, his studies and his affection for the navicular bone--we all have benefited from his generosity and his curiosity. We should all give him an award for helping us understand what happens when something goes wrong with the musculoskeletal systems of athletic horses.

Thanks to Texas A&M University for assistance with this article.

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

"Wave Your Flag" New Breeders Cup Music Video

Are you excited about the Breeders Cup yet? This new take on the classic FIFA World Cup unofficial theme song from k'naan leaves me scratching my head, but it's fun to watch.

In case you were under a rock and missed the excitement from South Africa that was the biggest sporting event in the world, here's the Coca-Cola version of the song:

What are the lyrics, saying, anyway? Their sentiment could inspire hard-running young horses from outside the blueblood Bluegrass as much as they did the soccer-loving street kids in Soweto and Somalia, Asia and all the stops all over the world where this video was shot.

They'd inspire anyone, for that matter. Listen and read the lyrics here.

I never thought I'd hear African music on the Breeders Cup web site!

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Preview Zenyatta and Mike Smith on 60 Minutes: Breeders Cup Anticipation Begins in Earnest NOW!

Double click on the square icon (to the right of "share" below the window) to view the video in full screen mode.

The racing world has begun its countdown to the historic moment when Zenyatta runs in the 2010 Breeders Cup Classic and attempts to repeat her 2009 victory against the colts and preserve her unblemished career racing record at 20 straight victories. That's right: Never a loss, not even a second place, no matter who else was in the race.

It all happens next Saturday around 6 p.m. at Churchill Downs. The Classic is the richest single horse race in the world and, in turn, the Breeders Cup is the richest sporting event in the world.

But around 7 p.m. tonight (Sunday, October 31) we should all take a break and sit down with some Halloween candy to watch Zenyatta on 60 Minutes on CBS. That's mainstream tv in the USA, no cable subscription needed.

What you are likely to hear is what her fans will tell you: that it's not just that she wins--although her record speaks for itself. It's how she wins. With equal amounts of style--ears pricked forward, dancing in the paddock and the post parade like a grand prix dressage horse--and drama. She comes from dead last and seems to use her massive hindquarters to motor out of the racetrack like a supercharged Hummer when it's time to make her move. But she also seems to know exactly where the finish line is and she runs just far enough and fast enough to beat whomever is in her way. Ears up, she just gallops on by, often winning by half a length, just enough to seal the victory.

Zenyatta has caught the imagination and the affection of the nation. Whether she wins or not, she has been a shot of adrenaline for horseracing, a sport that so many had written off as dead, dying or diseased beyond repair. Churchill Downs next Saturday will be filled to overflowing to see her, and hopefully some of her fans will just happen to fall in love with some of the other races and some of the other horses while they're hanging around waiting for her race.

Ahead of us lies a week of Zenyatta fun and media antics. She takes it all in stride. Her trainer and owners seem to chuckle right along while you know they are deep in the important business of insuring her health and safety and fitness as the big day approaches.

Yesterday Zenyatta had her final workout at her home base at Hollywood Park in California. On Tuesday, she will fly to Louisville, Kentucky.

You can watch two full days of Breeders Cup races on ESPN and ABC. As crazy as this sounds, it looks like Zenyatta's race will only be shown on cable television. ABC probably has a more important (to them) football game.

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Friday, October 29, 2010

USDA Audit Recommends Abolishing DQP System, Shows Would Hire Veterinarians to Inspect Horses for Soring Violations Under Horse Protection Act

The United Stated Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently performed an audit of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS) oversight of the humane treatment of Tennessee Walking horses at shows as mandated by the Horse Protection Act. The audit also addressed the long-distance transport of horses destined for slaughter outside the United States.

To quote the audit document: "Concerning the treatment of show horses, we found that APHIS’ program for inspecting horses for soring is not adequate to ensure that these animals are not being abused. At present, horse industry organizations hire their own inspectors (known as designated qualified persons (DQP)) to inspect horses at the shows they sponsor. However, we found that DQPs do not always inspect horses to effectively enforce the law and regulations, and in some cases where they do find violations, they deliberately issue tickets to friends or family members of responsible individuals so that the responsible person could avoid receiving a penalty for violating the Horse Protection Act."

The report said that APHIS employees attend very few horses and that, when they do, APHIS employees routinely bring armed security or the police with them in the interest of their personal safety.

In the executive summary of the audit, OIG recommended that APHIS "seek the necessary funding from Congress for the Horse Protection Program, as the current level of funding does not enable the agency to oversee it adequately. Given the weaknesses in the inspection process, APHIS employees need to attend more shows to ensure that horses are inspected adequately."

OIG's review of the slaughter horse transport program found that, in their view, APHIS needs to improve its controls for ensuring that horses being shipped to foreign plants for slaughter are treated humanely. At present, the summary said, "APHIS does not deny authorization to individuals with a record of inhumanely transporting slaughter horses to ship other loads of horses, even if unpaid fines are pending for previous violations. Regulations simply do not address denying this authority, and so APHIS provides the authorization, regardless of the owner’s history. Without regulations or legislation to establish more meaningful penalties, owners have little incentive to comply with regulations, pay their penalties, and cease inhumanely handling horses bound for slaughter."

Finally, OIG found that there were "control deficiencies in how APHIS tags horses that have been inspected and approved for shipment to foreign slaughterhouses. The agency requires shippers to mark such horses with backtags, which are intended to allow APHIS employees to trace horses back to their owner and also to verify that the horses have passed inspection by an accredited veterinarian. We found, however, that the agency’s controls over these tags were weak, and that owners could easily obtain them and apply the tags to horses without APHIS’ knowledge."

In addition, APHIS "does not currently have an effective control or tracking system to trace all backtags used to transport horses to slaughter. Without regulations controlling the distribution, use, and tracking of these tags, owners can transport horses that do not meet the requirements for shipment. APHIS needs to seek the appropriate legislative and regulatory changes to ensure that only qualified individuals (such as APHIS personnel or USDA-accredited veterinarians) apply backtags to horses being shipped to slaughter. It also needs to obtain the resources necessary to adequately oversee the Slaughter Horse Transport Program."

Recommendation Summary

1. Abolish the current DQP system and establish by regulation an inspection process based on independent accredited veterinarians, and obtain the authority, if needed, to charge show managers the cost of providing independent, accredited veterinarians to perform inspections at sanctioned horse shows, sales, and other horse-related events.

2. Implement a control to ensure that individuals suspended from horse shows, sales, or exhibitions due to Horse Protection Act violations do not participate in subsequent events.

3. Seek the necessary funding to adequately oversee the Horse Protection

4. Revise and enforce regulations to prohibit horses disqualified as sore from competing in all classes at a horse show, exhibition, or other horse-related event.

5. Revise Slaughter Horse Transport Program regulations to allow APHIS to deny shipping documents to individuals who repeatedly violate humane handling regulations and who have fines outstanding.

6. Develop and maintain a control (database or list) of all individuals who have violated the regulations of the Slaughter Horse Transport Program and have not paid the associated fines.

7. Revise regulations or implement adequate controls to ensure that APHIS provides backtags to qualified personnel who can inspect horses bound for slaughter and apply, or oversee the application of, backtags when approving transport documentation.

8. Develop and implement an appropriate control to track individual horses by backtag number on all shipping documents approved so that reconciliation can be performed, violations can be investigated, and enforcement action can be initiated against the horse’s owner and shipper.

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

What Do Zenyatta and Mister Ed Have in Common?

The San Francisco Giants look like they want to make quick work of the Texas Rangers and have a short 2010 World Series. If baseball season ends early, that will leave plenty of time on the news and in the papers for coverage of next week's Breeders Cup, and our favorite horse Zenyatta, who graced a billboard for the Dodgers in Los Angeles. She's based nearby at Hollywood Park.

The question was: What do Zenyatta and Mister Ed have in common?

As it turns out, they both seem to have registered themselves as baseball fans. LA Dodger fans, to be exact. And as the sun sets on the 2010 MLB season, we can have some fun with the baseball exploits of Zenyatta and Ed in the midst of the World Series.

Champion Thoroughbred Zenyatta is the queen of good news, whether she's at home at Hollywood Park or mixing with the media at Churchill Downs, site of next weekend's Breeders Cup. The stories about her personality and her antics make even the most hardened racetrackers chuckle. And next week she'll be the queen of this blog, as she prepares for the Breeders Cup Classic and what we all hope will be a repeat win and her 20th consecutive lifetime victory--with never a defeat!

Zenyatta is the best thing to happen to racing since...well, for a very long time, let's just leave it at that. But how does racing take advantage of this great horse so that some of the affection for her might possibly benefit the rest of the sport? Can Zenyatta bring people back to the track? Can some of those warm and fuzzy feelings for Zenyatta transfer to other horses running in this year's Breeders Cup? Couldn't Quality Road or Blind Luck or Blame or Goldikova or even Workforce be portrayed as likable as Zenyatta?

If there was any doubt that that warm and fuzzy Zenyatta feeling was going mainstream, look back in time no further than back in July when National Public Radio aired a special interview about the supermare. And whom did they choose to interview? None other than Laura Hillenbrand, the author of the bestselling book Seabiscuit,another champion racehorse who captured imaginations and won hearts.

Take a few minutes to listen to Laura's interview and then post a link to this blog story on your Facebook page and forward this to your friends, especially if they aren't already racing fans. I bet Zenyatta will convert them.

Zenyatta is not the first horse to promote the Dodgers. Back in 1963, Mister Ed showed Leo Durocher, Sandy Koufax, Moose Skowron, Willie Davis and Johnny Roseboro how it's done. Imagine how Zenyatta could round those bases! But knowing her running style, she'd definitely win it for the team on the last out of the ninth inning...by hitting a home run!

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