Fran Jurga`s Hoofcare + Lameness

Friday, February 18, 2011

No Farrier, No MRI: Diagnostic Imaging Sessions Begin With Careful Un-Shoeing

If you’re a farrier or horse owner who is new to equine MRI, you might be surprised to learn that most horses couldn’t have an MRI without the help of farrier skills.

That’s because horses that are shod must have their shoes removed before the MRI process can begin. This could be done before the horse leaves home, but it is usually done at the vet clinic where the MRI will be done, since the horse may need to be trotted or lunged as part of the diagnostic process.

An MRI session begins long before the horse's limb is scanned. It begins with an exam and the removal of both front or hind shoes, if the horse is shod.

For advice on the gentle art of shoe removal, Hoofcare + Lameness went to one of the world’s best authorities, Dave Duckett FWCF. A former farrier instructor at the national schools in Great Britain and Ireland, Dave is an undisputed expert analyst on the fine points of shoeing and unshoeing a horse, as his many world championships and other titles attest.

Duckett reminds us that a lame horse that is having an MRI may have some resistance to standing on three legs during shoe removal. It may also resent having its hoof walls tapped with the hammer to cut the clinches. For this reason, it may be safest to do the work at the vet clinic.

Pulloffs should be used from the heel forward, gently removing the shoe without harming the hoof wall, but it is best to remove the nails with a creased nail puller. (Michael Wildenstein file photo)

Normally, a farrier might rasp off the clinches and an apprentice would go to work loosening the nails and then wrenching the shoe off the foot. With the shoe will come the nails, but farriers know full well that some may break. It may not happen often, but nail fragments can remain in the foot.

When and if this happens on the day an MRI is scheduled, the fragment will need to be found and removed, since any metal might disturb the magnetic function of the scanning system.

There are many reasons that nails break off. Duckett remarked that nails commonly corrode and break in the feet of horses that have been standing in urine-soaked bedding or manure-filled pens. The longer a shoe has been on, the more likely the nails are to break on any shoe, he added.

The design of the shoe itself can cause a nail to break off; the shape of the nail hole may be wrong for the size or style of nail that was used, so the nail fractures under the head. If the nail hole is too small, the edges of the hole shear the side of the nail as it passes through, weakening the shank, increasing the likelihood of fracture, and possibly creating soft steel dust particles that are carried up into the hoof wall. “The shoe doesn’t give, the nail does,” Duckett said, “and it usually fractures under the head.”

Cross-section of toe nails in foot, showing clinches (Michael Wildenstein file photo)

Duckett also warned about machine-made shoes that are hot fit, then quenched before nailing. This hardens the steel of the shoe around the hole, so the soft steel of the nail is likely to shear more as it passes through.

The constant expansion and contraction of the horse’s foot causes stress to the nail inside the wall, and can also lead to nail fatigue and even breakage, usually on the inside heel or both heels, according to Duckett.

It's safer to cut the clinches and pull the nails through the wall rather than rasping the clinches off and thinning the hoof wall of a horse that may already be lame. (Michael Wildenstein file photo)

So, instead of rasping off the clinches, or even just bending them back, the clinches should be cut off; this can be a challenge for someone not accustomed to finding the clinches in a recently shod foot, especially on the inside wall.

Creased nail pullers allow careful remove of each nail; the jaws can get down into the crease of the shoe. (Michael Wildenstein file photo)

Once the clinches are cut, each nail should be gently pulled through the foot with the creased nail pullers with a continuous pull, not a yank. Vet clinic farriers quickly learn to count their nails, check each one for its full length, and keep them in a little tray or cup to account for each foot’s nails.

Duckett pointed out that some clinches, if not cut, will break off occasionally and be lost inside the foot. This can be an inconvenience if a horse is scheduled for an MRI. He said that an experienced farrier will be able to pop a nail into the old hole and extricate the lost bit of metal.

The unshod foot will be cleaned and examined. As Hallmarq’s Nick Bolas pointed out, metallic dust can also be created by a rasp or by rust from shoes or the horse’s environment.

And that just won’t do for a horse that has a date with a huge magnet. Any sort of metal residue on the hoof wall or inside needs to be removed before the scanning begins.

Nail holes can be flushed with a cleaner—I fully expect a special product to enter the market any day now! A product like Life Data Labs’ Hoof Disinfectant is probaby found in most farriers' trucks and will do the job.

Even the tiniest artifacts show up and can be magnified in an MRI scan. In this image, you can see a few glitches along the hoof wall. (Hallmarq MRI image)

10 TIPS FOR MRI SHOE REMOVAL SUCCESS

Working with Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging Systems, Hoofcare + Lameness came up with these tips for horse owners, clinics and farriers for pre-MRI hoof prep:

1. Owner: ask the vet clinic who will be pulling the shoes. Some owners may prefer to schedule a farrier appointment and make sure that the horse's regular farrier does the work. The owner should make sure that this farrier knows what s/he is expected to do so the correct tools will be on hand. It is most convenient to have the work done at the clinic.

2. Owner: Make sure that a farrier with Hallmarq MRI prep experience will be doing the work so that the procedure described above will be followed. The horse owner may also need some supplies. Some owners may prefer to leave the shoe pulling to the farrier working at the vet clinic.

3. Owner: Make an appointment for the horse to be re-shod after the Hallmarq MRI is completed; this can be done at the vet clinic if the farrier is accustomed to working there or makes arrangements in advance. If a diagnosis is expected that might affect the shoeing, delay the re-shoeing in expectation of changes to be made.

4. Owner: Consider the use of padded boots like Soft-Ride Equine Comfort Boots during transport to and from the clinic if the horse is sore without shoes. At the very least, cover the feet with vet-wrap or duct tape to keep them clean. If the horse is traveling to the vet hospital, the feet with be cleaned again but remove any caked-on mud and debris and comb out any feathers and the mane and tail to make sure no metal is hidden in any of the horse's hair.

5. Owner: Do not use hoof polish, gels, sealers or any topical medications on the horse’s legs for 24 hours before the scheduled appointment.

6. Owner: Don’t clip the pasterns unless directed to do so by the veterinarian or Hallmarq MRI technician. The vet clinic staff will usually clip any hair that is in the way.

7. Clinic: Clean the shoes with a wire brush and rinse under running water to remove any dirt and manure. Store them in a plastic zipper-top bag and mark them with the horse’s and/or owner’s name. Sometimes a veterinarian or consulting farrier will ask to see the shoe that was removed from a lame foot to check how the horse “wore” the shoe. Always be careful to properly dispose of nails.

8. Owner: After the shoes are removed and the feet are clean is a good time to take record-keeping photographs of the horse’s feet.

9. Owner: A horse with its shoes newly removed may be a little sore so give plenty of time to load and unload from trailers. If using a commercial service to pick up the horse, make sure they are aware of this. Farriers: make sure that owners or trainers know that this mild soreness after unshoeing is a specific side effect and not part of the horse’s larger lameness issue. Depending on clinic policy and arrangements made in advance, owners should be prepared to receive a partially-unshod horse after the MRI is complete.

10. Clinic, owner, farrier: Education is critically important to the success of the horse’s MRI scan. Learning how to properly use farrier tools and which farrier procedures are considered Best Practices in the preparation of a horse for MRI scanning is a new area where we all have a lot to share and learn from each other.

A carefully unshod horse whose clinches were cut (not rasped) and whose nails were removed with a creased nail puller is a welcome sight to the farrier who will be re-shoeing the horse; if he or she needs to re-use the nail holes, the wall won't be rasped away and if the shoes are re-used, it is not likely to be twisted in the heels. (Gary Huston photo)

In this age of MRI, Hallmarq recognizes that farriers are both needed in this important first step in preparation of the horse for MRI, and that farriers will be involved throughout the process of caring for the horse during its rehabilitation from the lameness that the MRI should help diagnose. For this reason, Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging is dedicated to including farriers in education programs and studies.

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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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Thursday, February 17, 2011

New Oklahoma State Board Would Make Veterinary vs Husbandry Decisions for Professional Practices

There have probably been simpler times to be in the animal care field. Now you not only have to know what you're doing, but if you can legally do it.

As states continue to grapple with definitions of what the practice of veterinary medicine actually entails compared to the routine practice of animal husbandry, national attention turns again to the state of Oklahoma, which was recently wrenched by a battle over whether floating teeth and other aspects of what has come to be known as equine dentistry should or could legally be done by non-veterinarians in the state. That fight spilled over to other routine practices, particularly related to animal reproduction, that are performed at livestock facilities in the state.

It was a short-lived victory for ranchers who don't want to have to hire veterinarians for routine artificial insemination procedures, or for non-veterinarian professionals in the state who wanted the assurance that they were performing their work legally; the governor quickly signed emergency rules proposed by the Oklahoma State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners to prevent non-veterinarians from performing some tasks.

http://www.oklahomafarmreport.com/wire/news/2011/01/02677_Rehash3202AnimalHusbandry01212011_064424.php

This audio report from the Oklahoma Farm Report summarizes steps that led up to this week's action in the Oklahoma legislature.

To the state lawmakers and vet board's credit, a compromise has been put forward in the form of House Bill 1310, which would create a new board, tentatively called the Animal Technology Advisory Committee, made up of three veterinarians and three non-veterinarians, and chaired by a non-voting veterinarian. This board would examine procedures and decide whether they fall under the practice of veterinary medicine or animal husbandry.

HB 1310 passed out of committee yesterday and now is headed to a vote by the entire legislature.

The legislature has not made the text of HB 1310 available to the public on their web site yet.

The composition of state veterinary boards varies from state to state. In some states, the board includes non-veterinary members. In Oklahoma and Florida, five of six members are listed as veterinarians; in Ohio, four of six; in Massachusetts, four of four; in California, four of eight.

© 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.

Necropsy Report: British Horses Died of Cardiac Arrest; Signs Consistent with Electrical Shock from Leaking Cable Under Paddock

The British Horseracing Authority has provided a summary statement following the completion of necropsy studies on the bodies of two horses that died at Newbury Racecourse in Berkshire, England on Saturday. The horses collapsed and died as the jockeys were preparing to mount; two other horses fell but were able to recover.

Professor Tim Morris, Director of Equine Science and Welfare for the British Horseracing Authority, issued this prepared statement today:

“The Authority has been officially informed that there was leakage of electricity from a cable under the parade ring in the area where the incident occurred. There was immediate veterinary attention, and our enquiry on the day noted the racecourse veterinary surgeons felt a tingling sensation when examining the horses, and that the veterinary surgeons noted particular clinical signs such as muscle contractions.

“Both horses that died, Marching Song and Fenix Two, have undergone postmortem examinations which showed sudden cardiac arrest as the cause of death. Samples taken from the horses affected have shown no evidence of substances that could have caused this incident. These findings are all consistent with the cause of death being accidental electrocution and at this stage we are not investigating any other cause of death.

“I can also confirm that, contrary to speculation, no evidence of any burn marks around the mouth was found on post mortem examination, neither were such marks found by the veterinary surgeons on the horses at the start.”

The necropsies were performed by pathologists at the University of Liverpool’s School of Veterinary Science with additional services from the British Horseracing Authority contractor HFL Sport Science.

Much speculation has surrounded whether the horses' shoes were part of the formula that led to their death. Metal horseshoes are known to conduct electricity; horses are especially susceptible to electrical shock. Some people have speculated that the fact that the horses who died were shod with steel shoes, while the horses who survived were shod with aluminum, may have been a factor in the tragedy.

So far, there is no proof that that is the case.

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Monday, February 14, 2011

A Hoofcare and Lameness Valentine to You

The richest source of old advertising art featuring horseshoes is not from a horseshoe company at all. Many people think that Drummond Horseshoe brand was meant for a horse's hoof, but it was actually a tobacco company from St. Louis, Missouri.

Fortunately for us, the company employed some of the best advertising illustrators of their day, and they left a rich archive of ads showing horseshoes, farriers, and horses' hooves. Someone should do an exhibit of their art!

So, thanks to some long-gone artist who created this cherub at the anvil long ago. Maybe he or she would be happy to know that, a century later, some of still appreciate the artistry in the company's ads.

And to all of you, enjoy your champagne, chocolates and roses, all around the world!

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Silent Anvil: Bob McCarthy

Bob McCarthy, the senior statesman of Boston-area farriers, has died.

Farrier friends: The late Allen Smith, left, with Bob McCarthy, right, circa 1988.

Wake 4:00 - 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 17
Funeral Friday, February 18 at 10:00 a.m.
Roberts Mitchell Funeral Service
15 Miller Street, Medfield, Massachusetts 02052
508 359 2000

"The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

--T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

There was a time when I might have been guilty of assigning a high degree of respect for people that was in some sort of direct proportion to the number of hours it would take me to fly to where they lived. As exciting as it is to travel the world, most people stop somewhere, and find a place that they'll call home. I always kept coming right back here, right where I started and like TS Eliot, who grew up spending summers on the road where I live, it has taken me years to understand what my homing instinct was all about: there was simply no better place on earth for me to be me or to do what I wanted and needed to do.

It had something to do with the people. A lot to do with the people. And I am finally beginning to see it, and know it, for the first time. Just as some of them are slipping away.

I've written a thousand stories about farriers in the Boston area and the Southern New England Farriers Association, which began here in the early 1980s and still carries on. But until the late days of Allen Smith's life, I didn't really understand how it all worked. Or why it worked. I didn't want to analyze something, for fear of jinxing it, and losing Allen was like a spring breaking through a sofa cushion.

Bob McCarthy was a big reason why things worked in the farrier world around here, Allen explained to me one day. I'm hoping that one of the farriers who was close to him will write something about him for the blog but I can tell you what I saw of his character over the years, which was that Bob absolutely had the respect of all the farriers in the Boston area. He didn't demand it, they gave it.

When I came along, there were two senior farriers working who knew the farrier business and had the best accounts: Dick Ham and Bob McCarthy. They were both friendly and generous to the younger farriers, and encouraged them. Dick died quite a while ago, but Bob was helpful in forming the Southern New England Farriers Association, served as its president for many years, and advised behind the scenes for many more. I wonder now how different things might have been if Bob hadn't agreed to be part of SNEFA.

Hardly a politician, Bob served as a stabilizer and a peacekeeper, because no one would ever want to be seen in a bad light in his eyes. Bob was very soft-spoken and made most of his points with a curl of his lip, a raised eyebrow, or a soft grunt. He was gentlemanly, but with a twinkle in his eye; he always seem bemused by what went on around him.

If you saw Bob at a horse show, you'd think he was an owner, not the farrier, until he put his apron on; and when the farrier organizations began talking about establishing vet-farrier relations years ago, Bob was already on a first-name basis with everyone they needed to know.

Bob McCarthy didn't have to say much, and when he did, it would usually have a punchline. He personified the difference between being influential and wielding klout; he didn't seem to have anything to gain, so malice wasn't part of his brand--although mischief certainly was.

Democracy is a wonderful thing. Equality among peers is admirable. But every truly successful civilization recognizes and values its elders. And certain elders accept that they have a responsibility to step forward, or stay accessible, to serve as mentors and role models. With grace and a sense of duty, they impart their wisdom, along with their technical knowledge, to benefit the next generation.

And some, like Bob, never lose their sense of humor, or take themselves too seriously, which makes them very easy to be around.

As sad as I am tonight, I'm sadder still for Myron and Owie and Garth and Freddy and John and Dave and Tom and Alvin and all the others who had a special friend for the past 30 or more years. Someone who was not just a very fine horseshoer--which he certainly was--but who understood all about the challenges they faced trying to make a living.

The Boston area may be a tough place to raise or train or keep horses, but Bob McCarthy helped make it a great place to be a horseshoer. And to be me.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Electrocution's Shocking Effects on Horses

From the annals of Hoofcare and Lameness Journal and the Hoof Blog, here are some memorable accounts of horses who have lost their lives or been injured or at least caught my attention by their ability to conduct electricity:

In 2004, Horse and Hound told us about a horse that really got a warmup before the cross-country phase at the Blenheim Petplan International Horse Trials in England. Special Agent Wal had his studs in when he perforated a power cable with one of them. It gave him such a shock that he was thrown to the ground. The veterinarians still cleared him to go and he jumped a clear round. Way to go! Is that what the Brits mean with those "Keep calm and carry on" signs?

In 1999, a seven-year-old Manhattan carriage horse named Jackie stepped on a steel Con Edison service box cover on East 59th Street. She reacted by kicking her driver in the head, then collapsed and died. A spokesman for Con Edison said that the use of salt in winter may have corroded wires underground and that humans wouldn't feel the electricity because they don't wear metal shoes. But poor Jackie felt it on a rainy day, in a big way.

In Ireland in 2005, the Dublin Horse Show champion Dimmer Light and a stablemate were electrocuted when a short circuit from a light switch in their stable yard electrified the ground and gates, according to a very sad news report in Horse and Hound that I have kept tucked away. I think the ironic match of the cause of the short circuit and the horse's name always intrigued me as much as the electrocution angle.

One of my favorite all-time horse safety articles is from Windy Meadow Farm in Maryland. Eventer Michael Hillman was challenged by his water trough. Little did he know that every time his horse tried to take a drink of water, he was getting a shock to his lips! Michael's article, Dear Diary, I Almost Electrocuted My Horse Today is a classic. So is everything he writes!

My friend Cyrstal Kimball, editor of The Equiery in Maryland, told me a story about a time when she was out hunting and the entire field came upon a hot spot. "It was a downed electric fence, still hot, that electrified the wet ground in the surrounding area, and when the field hit it at a dead run, horses were winging off in all directions..." (But it sounds like they lived to tell the tale.)

None of us can remember exactly where or when the show was, but a dressage show in the Northeast had a hot spot inside the arena. Every time the horses came to the spot in the ring, they reacted.

And then there was the one about the horse owner who was driving down the road and had his trailer struck by lighting, leading to an electrical fire in his horse trailer. So it seemed like a really smart idea to drive right into a carwash. The horse was electrocuted and died.

Horseshoes and thunderstorms don’t mix: This old photo shows what was once an unsettlingly common occurrence in America: multiple horse deaths due to electrocution in thunderstorms. This six-horse hitch of Percherons owned by the Christy Brothers Circus was struck by lightning on September 1, 1923. They were hitched up for the circus parade when lightning hit a transformer nearby. The wet mud surrounding each horse’s shoes provided a perfect field. In addition to this team, four horses pulling the calliope and eight horses pulling the lead circus wagon were killed. And a few people, too. Thanks to the Wisconsin Historical Society and Circus World Museum for the loan of this photo.

Speaking of lightning, that is probably the most common way that horses are electrocuted. I'm still struck by the imagery in this amazing story about a polo player's horse trailer and his ponies being struck in New Jersey in 2008. They all survived but I just can't forget the description of the ponies going down "like dominoes". For your own safety's sake, read the article, which has a lot of good information about lightning strikes.

A horse named Sadie survived being struck by lightning in 2001. Her owner looked out the window and saw a cloud of orange smoke where her horse should have been. She ran out and found the horse on the ground; the horse got to her feet after a while and staggered around. After a few weeks she was fine, except for lingering foot soreness. Her vet attributed her survival to the fact that she wasn't shod.

We all live in a tangle of wires, in an environment with increasingly severe weather and crazy service problems for our utilities. Our horses, even if they aren't shod, have plenty of metal on their tack, hang out by metal gates, live behind electric fence, and require heated waterers in their paddocks in winter and electric fans in their stalls in the summer. The possibilities for any of us to be zapped at any time, in any barn, are high.

Think about what you're touching, especially with your bare hands on a wet day, and keep an eye out for horses that might need help. And if a horse is acting completely out of character, there might be a good reason why.

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Aluminum Shoes May Have Saved Two Horses' Lives as Two Steel-Shod Horses Die in Possible Electrocution at British Racecourse

Video by ITN.

The worlds of both sport and horses were rocked today when news came from England that four horses had become agitated for no obvious reason in the paddock before the first race at Newbury Racecourse in Berkshire. The horses began rearing and falling as the jockeys were mounting. Within minutes two horses had died while two others rose back to their feet.

The rest of the horses continued to the start and the race was run, but track officials canceled the remainder of the program for the day. Rumors began immediately that the horses had been electrocuted, and that a groom had felt a shock come through the horse's body, and a lead line showed burn marks.

According to the Racing Post, unconfirmed reports suggested that some of the runners who actually took part in the race appeared to have burn marks around their mouths when their tack was removed.

In an interview late on Saturday, Joint Managing Director of Newbury Racecourse Stephen Higgins commented on the shoes worn by the four horses affected in the incident. He said that the two horses that died were shod with steel shoes. The two horses that went down and got back up were shod with aluminum shoes. The two metals would conduct electricity differently if a shock was transmitted through the grass.

He also mentioned that because horses have four legs instead of two, they are much more sensitive to electricity in the ground, and that that would explain why humans might not have noticed the electricity. There were also rubber mats on the ground which the horses were stepping off onto the grass when the incident occurred.

Commenting on the incident, Professor Tim Morris, Director of Equine Science and Welfare for the British Horseracing Authority, confirmed that a full investigation is under way: “Following the tragic events at Newbury today, our sympathies go out to connections of the two horses that died, Fenix Two and Marching Song.

"We have launched a full investigation into the events before the first race. Whilst there are suspicions that an electrical fault was the cause and this is being looked into by the racecourse and relevant authorities, it is important that we investigate other possible causes.

"Both horses have been sent for post mortem examinations and samples from both horses, and from the other two horses involved in the incident, have been taken and will be analysed. We will also be testing a sample of the water supply and have secured and will review all of the CCTV footage from the racecourse stables and footage from the parade ring itself at the time.

"We have gathered evidence and statements at the racecourse from the connections involved with the incident, including trainers, jockeys, stable staff and owners, the racecourse and BHA veterinary officers, and the racecourse executive including the health and safety officer."

On its Facebook page, the racecourse posted this message to the public:

"The whole team here is totally devastated and our condolences are with everyone connected to the horses and those that saw this happen. The Electricity Board are carrying out investigations now and a further statement will be issued tomorrow."

The British Horseracing Authority quotes Jonjo O'Neill, trainer of Fenix Two, as saying: "Kid Cassidy was in front (leaving the paddock) and he took a turn. We thought he was bucking and kicking and he went down on his knees then he seemed to be OK. Mine reared up and we couldn't get him back, it was like he was stuck to the ground. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life."

Marching Song's part-owner Graham Thorner said: "I was very fond of him and he had great potential. To a layman with no evidence, you would say it was electrical. The lad who was with him was saying 'I'm getting an electric shock off this horse'. It can't be coincidence four horses have done the same thing and two have died, all in the same area."

Press assistance from the British Horseracing Board was instrumental in preparing this report.

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Monday, January 31, 2011

Buck Brannaman Documentary: Real Life Horse Whispering at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival

Congratulations to Cindy Meehl and Cedar Creek Productions. Their documentary "Buck" was not only selected to be shown at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival this week in Park City, Utah--it has won the Audience Award!

Buck chronicles the horse training phenomenon Buck Brannaman. Or should I say non-training. Or anti-training. Or alt-training.

Whatever you call what Buck Brannaman does, you can be sure that this film will spread Buck's non-violent horse handling word.

It will spread it around the world, as a matter of fact. The documentary was acquired by Sundance Selects for distribution in North America; it was also picked up for theaters in Australia and New Zealand by Madmen Entertainment.

I'm sure a lot of blog readers who've been around the horse world for a while will see the irony in this story. Buck Brannaman was the inspiration for the 1998 Nicholas Evans novel, The Horse Whisperer. When that novel was made into a film, it starred and was directed by Robert Redford. Technically, I guess you could say, Robert Redford played Buck Brannaman.

And Robert Redford is the man behind the Sundance Film Festival.

And so it goes.

Buck Brannaman and Robert Redford at the Sundance Film Festival last week. Buck's the star of the film this time. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images North America, mirrored from Zimbio.com)

The trailer gives a hint at how the film approaches who Buck Brannaman is and what he does. Once it gets to the theaters (unless you happen to be in Utah this week), take people to see it. Horse people, non-horse people, just people. They might learn a lot, so might those of us who think we know it all already.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Vet-Span: Watch an Arkansas Legislative Committee Consider a Bill to Clarify the State's Vet Practice Act

Legislative committee hearings are the first step in the life or death of a bill introduced at the state level. In the most basic process, it happens like this: a state representative or senator files a bill, it is referred to a committee, the committee approves or disproves it, and the bill either goes forward to another committee or goes to the vote of the House or Senate. If turned down, the legislation may be abandoned or it may be modified and brought before the committee again.

Each state has a veterinary practice act. Most are modeled after a draft document provided by the American Veterinary Medical Association, but there is variation among the 50 states. One of the most contentious parts of the newer practice acts has been the definition of veterinary medicine to include all acts of prevention and treatment of disease in animals.

At various times, the veterinary practice acts have been challenged with requests for changes or interpretation in different states and it is quite often the horsecare field that is the battleground. Equine massage and equine dentistry are two professions that the veterinary profession seems to have identified as trying to cross over into the practice of veterinary medicine. Horseshoeing, farriery, equine podiatry and the practice of providing hoofcare by any number of other names are often lumped in with other gray-area professions from dog grooming to acupuncture. Horse trainers in some aspects of their work may even cross over the line.

Some states have attempted to clarify or modify veterinary practice acts, but of course it is much harder to change something after it has already been signed into law. Arkansas is one of the states that tried to change, or clarify, its practice act to allow professionals besides veterinarians to legally provide their services to animals.

The Arkansas proposed change was introduced with the new 2011 legislature and had its first committee hearing on January 19. Quite unrelated, the state of Arkansas at the same time introduced live video streaming of its committee hearings. As a result, the entire meeting of the House of Representatives' Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Committee could be downloaded and preserved on the Hoof Blog.

At the end of the video, you will see that the bill failed its first hearing. Jim House, a horseshoer from Fayetteville, Arkansas and former state legislator who introduced the bill, hopes and believes that it will be modified and reintroduced.

I've been in touch with Jim House extensively about his attempt to clarify and/or change the Arkansas Veterinary Practice Act. The presentation of this video is not to embarrass Jim or to publicize the bill's defeat or to criticize the way the bill or the Veterinary Practice Act in Arkansas or any other state.

The purpose of posting this video is to give you a clear view of the legislative process and how the care of horses and careers of professionals (whether veterinarians or not) can be affected by men in suits sitting around tables who may or may not know what the care of a horse entails. This is democracy in action, because these men were elected by the people of Arkansas. Think about that the next time an election rolls around.

If you are planning to begin or continue a career in the horse industry, spending the time to watch this video would be a good investment. It could be any state. It could be yours.

I've known Jim House (left) for many, many years. He is a horseshoer who has always been passionate, thoughtful and enthusiastic about his work. A former state representative in Arkansas, he said that he actually didn't undertake this project to benefit himself, or even his fellow horseshoers in Arkansas, but to benefit all who work with horses, and those who own them.

The Pandora's Box that Jim opened in his state is wide open, cracked, or at least being talked about in almost every state. No one but lawyers and opportunists will benefit from much of this until the vets and the professionals get together on their own, with the men's suits left hanging safely in their closets and with women, who predominate in both the horse industry and in the veterinary profession, joining in the conversation.

Finding and agreeing on common ground is the most important first step forward, if any of the three groups (owners, veterinarians and horsecare professionals) really wants, as Jim House says, to help the horses and not just themselves.

Meanwhile, the American Veterinary Medical Association is in the process of collecting comments for a new, revised Model Veterinary Practice Act (MVPA), as announced here on The Hoof Blog in November 2010. Once completed, the new MVPA will be presented to states and the AVMA will hope that state veterinary boards will adopt some or all of its tenets and present them to their state legislatures for approval, thus replacing the existing VPA in each state that adopts it.

So, any changes made to language in the MVPA would stand a good chance of being widely adopted across the United States. And those changes are being solicited right now.

TO LEARN MORE:

Download the Arkansas Veterinary Practice Act.

Download Arkansas House Bill 1055; click on "full text" to read the entire bill proposed to clarify the Veterinary Practice Act in Arkansas.

Jim House's passion for clarifying the Arkansas Veterinary Practice Act is presented in this article for Arkansas animal owners.

Read comments from horse owners in Arkansas (both pro and con) about House Bill 1055.

Read about the AVMA's call for comments on the new model Veterinary Practice Act.

Hoofcare Publishing provides these resources as information for our readers and does not have an interest in the outcome of the legislation in Arkansas or any other state. Our goal is to pique the interest and involvement by our readers in all matters affecting the betterment of individual and collective groups who care for horses. Be informed. Get involved. But work proactively and collaboratively; remember the words of John F. Kennedy: "A rising tide will lift all boats."

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Video: Equine Biomechanics Integrated with an Icelandic Horse's Disco-Rhythm Hoofbeats by Swiss Researchers

Are you awake now?

This video is your wake-up call. It's a fast-cut peek inside the high-tech equine performance testing laboratory at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where kinematic- and kinetic-research are undergoing an exciting fusion under the direction of biomechanics research professor Michael Weishaupt PhD DMV. Where the disco beat came from is anyone's guess!

Are the researchers trying to turn this Icelandic into an Olympian or a racehorse? No, there are no Frankenhorses in biomechanics labs. "The application of knowledge pertaining to sports medicine does not aim to increase the speed of the horse or allow it to jump higher, but to keep the athlete sound, prepare it optimally for a specific event, and to recognize detrimental influences early in order to avoid an untimely end to an athletic career," wrote Dr Weishaupt along with Zurich's esteemed professor of equine surgery, Dr Jorg Auer, in an explanation of the research at Zurich.

To do that, Weishaupt and his colleagues are combining kinetic and kinematic research in the same evaluation system. Two formerly exclusive branches of biomechanics research are now under the hood of the same laboratory testing matrix.

Kinematics is nothing new to Hoofcare + Lameness readers. Kinematics is simply the study of motion. A student of dressage could be said to be an equine kinematics scholar, on some level. But in the world of clinical evaluation of horses, we have typically talked about kinematics as the two-dimensional recording of a horse's movement in order to gain insight into a horse's stride's length or velocity or frequency, or to determine lameness. It works very nicely to prove or enhance what we think we see with our naked eyes or what the rider thinks he or she feels from the saddle.

For the past five years or so, kinematics in the laboratory has been moving ahead. Three-dimensional gait analysis has been used in research to delve deeper into the horse's movement so that joints can be analyzed for the complex structures that many of them are. A hinge joint like the fetlock might be analyzed in two dimensions, but what about the hock or the spine? And what about the coffin joint, a complex structure with three types of motion patterns--flexion-extension, abduction-adduction and axial rotation?

And what if a specific location in the limb could be isolated, such as the distal end of the cannon bone, where so many racing injuries occur? If the forces there can be measured over different track surfaces, aren't we light years ahead in preventing breakdowns?

When studying the motion of the horse, it's not just about the legs. The neck and head and back are critical components so gait analysis has expanded to putting markers all over the horse. The angular motion patterns (flexion-extension, lateral bending and lateral excursion) of six vertebrae (T10, T13, T17, L1, L3 and L5) and the axial rotation of the pelvis are calculated by the software used in the research--in the case of our friends in Zurich, that would be the Qualisys system.

In this video, provided by Qualisys, researchers used a similar system at the University of Agricultural Science in Uppsala, Sweden; 12 cameras recorded the horse in three dimensions on a sensitized treadmill so that the movement of the head and neck could be studied with each footfall and with the movement of the rider. Notice that the horse's center of gravity is always clearly marked on the screen.

So now the leading research labs may use three or many more cameras and create almost realistic moving horses on computer screens. Wireless technology has also improved the operations in the equine research laboratory.

If kinematics is the study of motion, kinetics is its alter ego, the study of force. Kinematics might not care if you were a ballerina or a gorilla crossing a Broadway stage--you'd just be a pattern of dots for it to interpret. And kinetics wouldn't care how synchronous or straight your limbs worked as you crossed; kinetics would worry instead about what happened when your feet hit the stage. Did you slide? Did you hit with enough force to break through a board? How long did each foot stay on the floor?

Researchers explore kinetics with force plates and, more recently, the alternative of pressure-sensitive materials such as mats and walkways embedded with sensors. In Zurich's case, it is an instrumented (sensor-embedded) treadmill (photo, above), or "TiF": a "Treadmill-integrated Force" measuring system able to record the vertical ground reaction forces of all four limbs simultaneously and report it instantly.

The buzzwords of kinetics are ground reaction force and center of gravity. A foot in water finds little resistance, but a foot usually lands on somewhat solid ground, depending on the nature of the footing. If the surface was rigid and foot was a wine glass, it would shatter, but it's designed to deform and store energy when it meets the ground. How to measure what happens during that meeting is the goal of kinetic research.

So the scientists at the University of Zurich wanted to analyze how the Icelandic horse on the treadmill in the video is moving (kinematics) while intermittently impacting the ground (kinetics) with his hooves. One of the new advantages of hoof-related research is the integration of the kinetic and kinematic tools. As the video screen draws the dotted horse that the cameras see, the pressure sensors simultaneously are recording the data of the impact of each footfall. The integration of these systems is relatively recent.

But there is a third entity going on here. The addition of a saddle and rider will affect the kinematics of the horse and no doubt the kinetics as well. So the researchers are measuring the pressure and movement of the saddle. Last year the same lab studied dressage horses at the collected walk--a deceptively simple gait that is a challenge to many upper level horses--and measured how much and in what direction at what phase of the stride the saddle moved.

Believe it or not, little research on the walk had been done before, and in particular, no one had tested how the rider and saddle might affect the horse's score at the walk. Since racehorses tend to trot, pace or gallop for a living, you will find a deep history of studies on those gaits over the course of equine biomechanics history. Sport horse kinetics and kinematics is a far less investigated field of study.

In the Zurich tests, all the dressage horses' saddles moved in the same directions at the same phases of the strides, and the rider's movement was the same as well.

And what about the hooves? Labs like Zurich have conducted comparative studies of how a horse moves while unshod, shod normally, and shod with rolled toe or "four point" shoes to study the effects of shoeing changes on kinematics and kinetics--in particular, the timing of the phases of the stride. Does a particular shoe cause a horse to keep its foot on the ground longer than another, and might this be associated with an increased potential for injury?

So now the dressage horses have gone home and the Icelandic horses are being tested. A research project in progress is Kinetics, kinematics and energetics of the tölt: Effects of rider interaction and shoeing manipulations. The tölt is the amazing fast gait of the Icelandic horse; it is their signature show gait, and possibly unique to the breed. Will changing the shoes on an Icelandic horse change its ability to perform the tölt?

Since no one has studied an Icelandic horse with the resources that are available today, no one really knows.

But someone will. And, by extension, the world will know soon after that.

Thanks to BartMedia Designs for this video.

Here's a little video about using similar but more simplified equipment for testing humans. I hope this helps you understand biomechanics research a little better! The concepts mentioned in this blog post are vastly over-simplified but once you understand the basic concepts, it will all start to make sense.

To learn more: BYSTRÖM, A., RHODIN, M., Von PEINEN, K., WEISHAUPT, M. A. and ROEPSTORFF, L. (2010), Kinematics of saddle and rider in high-level dressage horses performing collected walk on a treadmill. Equine Veterinary Journal, 42: 340–345. doi: 10.1111/j.2042-3306.2010.00063.x

Anyone interested in learning more about equine biomechanics would be well-served by attending the Equinology biomechanics course with Dr. Hilary Clayton at the McPhail Equine Performance Center at Michigan State University's College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall of 2012. A combined course in biomechanics and lameness evaluation with Dr. Clayton will be offered in England in March 2011 at Writtle College.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Share the Hoof Blog's Success with a Banner Ad or Sponsored Post!

Your Ad Here, originally uploaded by EJP Photo.

It's time to open up the Hoof Blog and share the fun and wealth of more than 1000 articles and news items about hoof health, farrier science, research and the art, culture, and history of those who care for horses' feet.

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