Do You Not See What I Don't See? Unorthodox Shoeing Takes Reiner to the Top

I love high-resolution digital photography. Finally, I can enlarge images on my computer screen and see details of feet that my old magnifying glass could never show me.

I thought I would share this image with you. These are the front feet of a reining horse called Walla Walla Whiz, ridden by reining superman Shawn Flarida of Springfield, Ohio at the NRHA's big competition in Oklahoma City last weekend.

This horse was in the vet clinic with colic symptoms and a fever less than 24 hours before this photo was taken. The horse left the clinic and loped right into the arena, where he blasted to the top with a score on his last round of something like 231...and Shawn brought home another big paycheck. He has won more than $2 million in reining competition.

I was kindly given a high-res image of Shawn and Walla Walla Whiz in their winning slide. I opened the image on my computer and immediately reached for the phone to ask Shawn what he had on his horse's front feet.

I hope you can see what I see. In order to upload the image to this blog, I had to convert it to low resolution, so the feet may not be clear the way that they are in high-res on my big monitor.

Shawn's solution to the lost shoe woes of the reining arena was to half-shoe the horse. This would be what we used to call a "tip" shoe or a "grass tip" for racehorses. The shoe only extends back to the widest part of the foot. From there back the heels are filled with in with adhesive. Shawn's brother does his farrier work (sorry, I forgot the brother's name!) and he used two nails on each side.

I'll try to get a close up photo of the bottom of the foot too. Don't look too closely at these feet...this is not a post about hoof balance! Also, Shawn did not say how long the horse had been shod this way, and you can't say if what you see is really the contour of the hairline or if the horse's walls were blackened unevenly. Reining photos like this one always are like a can of worms!

I don't know what the footing is in this arena--obviously it is something ideal for reiners, given that Oklahoma City is their home town. But one thing is for sure: if a horse did lose a shoe in this red dirt, it would be a lot easier to find than the usual dirt-colored footing.

Thanks to Shawn (and congratulations!) for sharing his shoeing secrets with Hoofcare and Lameness Journal.

All HoofBlog text and images © Hoofcare Publishing 2007 unless otherwise noted.

To learn more about new research, products, and treatments for the horse's hooves and legs as reported to veterinarians and farriers in the award-winning "Hoofcare & Lameness Journal",
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Book Review: Horses, Owners, Vets, Farriers and Therapists All Live Happily Ever After In New Book "Back to Work"

I wish you could fold me up like a bookmark and store me inside this book.

The lovely volume "Back to Work" arrived from the printer this week and I eagerly sat down for a critical review of the fat (389 pages!) hardcover about rehabbing horses from colic surgery, laminitis and soft-tissue injuries.

The first thing I noticed was how many friends of Hoofcare and Lameness Journal are featured in this book. Farrier Paul Goodness, vets Ric Redden, Cooper Williams, Bruce Lyle and Liz Maloney...the names jump off the page. It's like old-home week.

But the stars of this book are the owners. The author judiciously profiled each one--riding level, job and time and budget constraints, personality flaws and all, as she analyzed the techniques and timelines used to bring each horse back to performance.

And that's no mean feat. These injuries are severe but each horse's story that I read had a happy ending. Every vet and every farrier was a hero. The horses all eventually seem to have recovered, and some even surpassed their pre-injury level of performance. Each owner overcomes the challenges to handwalk their horses through the depths of winter and somehow manage to afford ACell treatments, chiropractics, heart monitors, magnetic blankets, and serial ultrasounds and radiographs. Vet clinics like Fairfield Equine in Connecticut and Palm Beach Equine in Florida and consultants like Ric Redden are in the budgets of these riders: lucky horses!

I admit to being mesmerized as I read the tales. After the first few, I started to realize that the horses were not going to even come close to pasture-ornament status, let alone see the dreaded "Entering New Holland" sign. And each of these dedicated owners kept the horse, obviously feeling a lifetime bond with it after the ordeal of hands-on rehab. I'd like to live in this world.

What's disturbing about this book is the lack of illustrations. Each horse and rider are pictured together, often during competition. Everyone looks happy. What we don't see are the horses themselves during rehab. No ratty stable blankets, no knotted manes, no soiled bell boots. We read about the therapies, but we don't see any treatments. There are no closeup images of bulging bows or abscessing soles. No radiographs, no ultrasounds. Everyone's smiling. Life is good.

Authors of technical chapters include veterinarians Mary Brennan, Barb Crabbe, Bob Grisel, Nancy Loving, Richard Markell, David Ramey, W. Rich Redding, Jeanne Waldron, Cooper Williams. Massage therapy section by Richard Valdez, human psychology by Janet Sasson Edgette. Each rider lists veterinarians and therapists who assisted.

One criticism: It's hard to understand how farriery as a subject could be left out of this book, but Texas farrier Ron Marshall and Hoofcare and Lameness consulting editor Paul Goodness are mentioned as individuals who played roles in helping foundered horses.

The story of Karen O'Connor's plagued-with-injuries event horse Upstage was a highlight of the book for me. She competed on him at the Rolex 4* in Kentucky last month. After seeing his medical history, that is nothing short of a miracle.

Vets, therapists, and farriers may not have the patience to read this book from cover to cover but the index is helpful in locating information buried in the text and it might be worthwhile to gain the author's insight into what sorts of owners are willing to go the distance to bring their horses back from injury and illness. Each horse's story has a timetable outlining how and when medical and therapeutic treatments progressed.

This book would make a superb gift to inspire an owner who is undertaking a suspensory rehab or a bowed tendon or whose horse needs to recover from colic surgery or laminitis.

Favorite quote from the book, attributed to David Ramey DVM on laminitis therapy: "If someone tells you that if he or she had started their particular approach to rehabilitation 'in time', your horse would be much better, you're either dealing with a charlatan, an egomaniac, or a fool. Laminitis is a humbling disease and anyone who claims universal success simply hasn't treated enough horses."

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Mustad Talks Up the Street Sense Derby Connection in Minneapolis Daily Newspaper

From the May 15 edition of the Pioneer Press, daily newspaper of Minnesota's Twin Cities:

Begin quote:
"By the way, the aluminum horseshoes Street Sense wore during his victory were distributed through a Forest Lake firm, St. Croix Forge. Street Sense will wear the aluminum shoes Saturday in the Preakness Stakes.

'(The Kentucky Derby) is the American icon of horse racing, and anytime you have a set of American companies contributing to that, it's always very exciting from a marketing perspective,' St. Croix Forge director of marketing and sales Glen Hause said Tuesday. 'It speaks to the quality and design and the trust that the horseshoer has in our products.

'It's like a tennis-shoe company trying to get a pro athlete doing something that's well recognized.'

(end quote)

Street Sense Update: Exact Shoes Clarified by Mustad

This just in from Alex Cook, public relations voice of Mustad Hoofcare Center:

"Fran, Street Sense was wearing St. Croix Forge Aluminum Racing Plates — they were low toe plains on the front and plains on the hind feet."

Please see the following post (May 15) for a full article about the Kentucky Derby winner's farrier and the use of St Croix racing plates and Capewell nails.

St. Croix's Street Sense: Farrier Says Derby Winner Was Shod with Mustad Family Shoes

This just in from Mustad, via press release:

Veteran Horseshoer Richard McChesney shoes his second Derby winner

FOREST LAKE, Minn. – May 15, 2007 – Babe Ruth had his bat, Michael Jordan had his high-tops, and now Street Sense, winner of the 2007 Kentucky Derby, has his shoes.

For the greatest American horse race, Street Sense – and his Shoer Richard McChesney of Mt. Washington, Ky. – trusted his hooves to St. Croix Forge’s Aluminum Racing Plates and Capewell nails from Mustad Hoofcare Center, the hoofcare people.

McChesney has been shoeing horses for 39 years. He has shod two Kentucky Derby winners: 1990 Unbridled and now, 2007 Street Sense. “It’s taken me 17 years to come up with a second Kentucky Derby winning horse,” says McChesney. “But there have only been 133 Derby race winners, and I’ve done two of them, which makes me feel good.”

He switched to St. Croix Forge shoes a year and a half ago, when he decided to try St. Croix Hinds, because “the samples were a little beefier, with room for extra nails,” he says. “You can put four nails right close together, and it seems to hold better. It eliminated problems so well in back, I decided I might as well use them on the front.”

“Street Sense’s come-from-behind win in less-than-ideal conditions speaks to his championship spirit, assisted by Richard’s horseshoeing skills,” says Mustad Hoofcare Center President Carlos Xifra. “We salute them both, and are very proud that Richard trusts our products for the most celebrated American horse race, the Kentucky Derby.”

McChesney replaces shoes once a month on his horses. Street Sense will run the Preakness Stakes May 19 wearing the same St. Croix Forge shoes, secured with Capewell nails.

People News: Get Well, Manfred!

Put your hand over your heart today (Tuesday, May 15) and think of our friend, Manfred Ecker, the original farrier at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital's podiatry clinic in Lexington, Kentucky. Manfred was hospitalized a few days ago with a heart problem and will be undergoing a "procedure" at the University of Kentucky's medical center today.

I'm sorry to say that I have hundreds of photos of Manfred's exquisitely-crafted shoes and braces and tools, but this is the closest I could come to a photo of Manfred himself. I remember this day very well: a big Belgian pulling horse (foundered, of course) was in the clinic for shoeing. Manfred fired up the beautiful stainless steel forge and before long he was striking for Aaron Gygax (shown here on left), as they went to work creating handmade shoes for the giant horse. On that day, there was no glue, no high-tech fiber and no support material in sight, just two highly skilled farriers doing the job as farriers have for hundreds of years. What impressed me was how easily they switched gears--or centuries--in their work.

We're thinking of you today, Manfred.