Easyboot Epic Named as Product of the Year!

The Horse-Journal has named the Easyboot Epic one of the their Top 10 Products of the Year. "At the end of each year, we look back on the products that we've used in our test barns," say the editors of The Horse Journal. "

To further quote the editors:

We consider what various manufacturers have brought to the market and how those products make taking care of our horses easier. We select items that have improved our ability to optimize health care especially in ways that we can undertake ourselves. We look for products that keep safety in mind, work economically and/or simply solve problems. Above all, we look for products that make the biggest difference in our barns."

"EasyCare took their well-known Easyboot and made it even better, adding a gaiter to the top. This addition makes the boot stay in place better than ever. Horses easily became accustomed to wearing the boot, and it stayed secure. Lightweight and flexible."

Roadblocks Can't Stop Kazakhstan's Horse Van: Borat Behind the Wheel?

Poor Kazakhstan. Life is imitating art again. (If you can call this film "art"?)

The Asian Equestrian Games are starting December 1 in Doha, Qatar...so where are the Kazak team's horses? This sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit takeoff on the film "Borat", as reported on the Internet.

The cost to fly the horses was not in the budget, and there were issues about visas and quarantines, so they opted to drive...and it took 13 days (six days longer than expected) from their training camp in Germany.

First they drove through Austria to Italy and then by ferry to Greece. Then overland to Turkey (where they had border problems) then on across that huge country to Syria (and more border problems), Jordan, and then across Saudi Arabia to Qatar, a distance of 6700 km.

I would have loved to ride along and written a blog of their day-by-day adventures. But one must wonder: What was the condition of those horses when they stumbled off that truck into the blazing Qatar sun? Let's hope the van was air-conditioned.

The Asian Games are fascinating, and I wish there was more media coverage here in the USA; we might all learn something about how the rest of the world lives (and rides). For instance, equestrian sports are one of the very few events in which women from strict Islamic nations are allowed to compete. Why? Because their bodies are covered, head to toe. Think about it. Iran's women's karate team is boycotting the Games because the rules won't allow them to wear their headscarves in competition.

I'll be cheering for Kazakhstan. There's a good summary of this story on the English-language Chinese site. The Chinese are pumped up for the Asian Games in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, although the equestrian events will be held in hot, steamy Hong Kong instead of Beijing...and they may also be monitoring the equestrian transport issue as more and more countries in Asia are competing at the FEI level and must figure out how to get their horses to Hong Kong (and have them be healthy enough to compete).

Hopefully the Kazaks won't have to drive there...just think if they received some small portion of the profits from that movie!

AAEP Convention: Late Announcements

Thanks to Dr. Steve O'Grady for checking in on Friday and providing some new information for farriers and veterinarians (and anyone else) attending the American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention in San Antonio December 3-6.

Here are some updates from Dr. O'Grady and from Hoofcare & Lameness Journal:

1. On-site registration will offer a one-day registration fee for $175 to anyone who wants to attend, for instance, Monday or Tuesday, and not the entire convention. This fee includes lunch and the trade show as well as all lectures and table topics.

1a. This just in from AAEP trade show manager Debbie Miles: "If someone wants to attend just the trade show, it is $25.00 a day. This will not allow them to work (in a) booth or attend any scientific sessions, just allows them to visit the trade show."

2. Farriers who register should identify themselves as farriers so a tally can be kept. Farriers are welcome (and encouraged) to attend any and all lectures offered at the convention in addition to the farrier-specific program on Tuesday morning.

3. Hoofcare & Lameness is publishing a "Survival Guide" to the convention specifically for those interested in the hoof programs. It will list all events, lectures, table topics, etc. with relevance to working with hooves. (Did you know there is a special program on endocrine problems, i.e. Cushings syndrome and the relation to obesity?) With a little luck, this will be posted on hoofcare.com for you to download by Thursday of this week.

4. Dr. Tracy Turner has replaced Dr. Andy Parks at one of the table topics discussions, according to Dr. O'Grady.

5. Hotel rooms are still available; the online rates for Homewood Suites and the Omni are both around $130 and both are near the convention center. All the "official" hotels (Marriott, Menger, etc.) are sold out as is the new LaQuinta. There are some very inexpensive hotels on the outskirts of San Antonio if you have a car.

6. Hoofcare & Lameness will have hourly special guests at our booth (#354), including Dr. Chris Pollitt, California farrier John Suttle, Bob Pethick, Michael Wildenstein, etc. We will provide bar stools and a table to lean on, plus maybe some napkins to draw on so you will feel right at home. We will also have free copies of the Animal Health Foundation's DVD, featuring Chris Pollitt and Katy Watts. We will also have a museum display (sorry, not for sale) of plastination anatomy models (a la the "Body Worlds" museum exhibit) from Dr Christophe Von Horst of Germany.

7. Southwest still has some cheap flights to San Antonio!

8. The trade show is huge (over 300 companies) and includes many companies (Delta, Mustad, HoofJack, HorseScience, Vettec, etc.) that you would normally see at a farrier convention. And some that you wouldn't see there, but whose products or services are interesting. The American Farrier's Association will have a booth, with president Dave Ferguson in charge, according to Mike Nolan, AFA executive director, and Jack Millman, the AFA's new marketing committee chairman.

Please contact Hoofcare & Lameness if we can help you make plans!

Patrick Reilly will be New Bolton Center's New Farrier

Patrick Reilly of Chester, New Hampshire will be changing his address on Monday, when he begins work as the new farrier at New Bolton Center, the site of the large animal clinics of the University of Pennsylvania's College of Veterinary Medicine.

To quote a memo from the administration: "(we) announce the appointment of Mr. Patrick (Pat) Reilly as Interim Director of the Farrier Service at New Bolton Center....thanks to Rob Sigafoos for helping to recruit Pat to New Bolton Center as we know Pat's work will compliment the excellence in the Farrier Program that has been established by Rob."

Rob's role at New Bolton is a little gray at the moment, since he is suffering from back problems but as far as I know, Rob has neither retired nor resigned, but is taking some time to recover.

Both Rob and Patrick will serve on the faculty of the 4th International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in Palm Beach (aka "Palm Beach Laminitis") in November 2007.

Patrick has worked as consulting farrier at the New England Diagnostic Imaging Center (Myhre Equine Clinic) in Rochester, New Hampshire and also as a contract farrier for the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Massachusetts. Until the hospital closed, he was consulting farrier at the Rochester Equine Clinic in New Hampshire.

Patrick is known for his expertise (and preference) for adhesive shoeing. I heard him say once at a conference that he had applied more than 300 pairs of glue-on shoes,primarily of the Sigafoos design, that year. He is also an early-adapter of technology, and was the farrier who taught me about Metron software. He has loaned me his laptop when mine was smoking from system overload. Patrick also has a fascination with biomechanics research; he actually reads all those charts and graphs, and has experimented with the interesting Tekscan pressure measuring system.

No word yet on whether Patrick will be working on New Bolton's most famous patient, Barbaro.

Please scroll down to posts from earlier in November or click here to read our "hail and farewell and hello again" to departing resident farrier at New Bolton, Laura Florence.

Good luck to Patrick! Get well to Rob!

Photo: Patrick Reilly (left) chats with Rob Sigafoos (right) at a recent conference. Fran Jurga photo, © Hoofcare & Lameness Journal.

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Pony Found with Meter-Long Hooves in Wales

The BBC has posted an RSPCA story from the UK which stimulated some discussion today. A pony stallion was found in Wales with neglected hooves, one of which was over a meter long. I wondered simultaneously at the cruelty of the owner to ignore the poor horse, but also wondered if there is a Guiness Book of World Records for the longest pony hooves? Amazingly, it doesn't sound as if the horse had laminitis. He grew quite a mane too, but doesn't look hungry.

If you take a good look at the photo, it is obviously the right front that grew to the great length that it did a spiral; the left front is growing in with much wider radius...and straight up in the air. After listening to or reading Meike Van Heel's research on asymmetric stance and foal development, this difference jumps right out at you.

Read all about this pony's rescue by the RSPCA (but not much about the hooves) at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/6177606.stm

Conformation Conundrum at the Brookfield Zoo: But Can She Trot?

What do you get if you cross a giraffe and a zebra? And what if you throw in a little moose and, um, maybe some Oldenburg warmblood genes? Chances are, it would look a lot like Sauda, the new Okapi calf born this fall at the Brookfield Zoo in Wisconsin.

A shy native of the dark forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the okapi makes you want to sit back for a minute this Thanksgiving day, and thank Nature for not providing too-easy answers to all the questions we have about life on earth.

Read all about Sauda and see more photos at http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/0.asp?shttplink=../pgpages/pagegen.295.aspx&nsection=2