Cornell Vet School Appoints Wildenstein to Faculty Position

Cornell University Resident Farrier Michael Wildenstein CJF, FWCF (Hons) has officially been promoted to the position of Adjunct Associate Professor of Farrier Medicine and Surgery in The Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University.

The university is also announcing plans to enlarge the farrier shop and to expand the student enrollment to four per semester. This includes farrier students and veterinarians who wish to serve a podiatry internship at Cornell with Mike.

In 2008, Cornell will also be hiring another farrier to work with Mike for six months of the year, and Mike will be encouraged to lecture and teach outside of Cornell.

Michael Wildenstein CJF FWCF (Hons) has served as Cornell’s resident farrier for more than 15 years. Over that period he set goals for his career and exceeded them, culminating with the award of a Fellowship with Honors from the Worshipful Company of Farriers in England. Only three other farriers can boast of that degree with honors; the fellowship alone is akin to a PhD in farrier science. Having the fellowship awarded "With Honors" is the ultimate recognition.

Along the way, Wildenstein authored a book, hosted conferences, lectured around the world, was inducted into the horseshoers’ hall of fame—while somehow managing to train farriers in the farrier school and tend to all the hoof-related medical and surgical support needs of the vet school. He also serves as a consulting editor to our own Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. One of his H&L articles, on deep sulcus thrush, was the first place award winner in the category of "horse care education" in the American Horse Publications awards in 2006.

Wildenstein announced his resignation from Cornell this winter when it looked like he had hit the ceiling for his job description. Offers were coming in from other schools and private industry, so he submitted his resignation and looked around the world to see what might be out there. Now, he’s looking at new opportunities within Cornell.

In Cornell’s early years, farrier Henry Asmus was assistant professor of surgery at the vet school. Henry was a German immigrant and protege of the great farrier Anton Lungwitz in Dresden, Germany, as was John W. Adams, the farrier lecturer and professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania who translated Lungwitz’s “Textbook of Horseshoeing” into English. (It’s still in print!)

While Adams migrated into medicine, Asmus put Cornell on the world map of horseshoeing by making a mission of educating rural blacksmiths and farmers and by authoring papers filled with progressive and innovative solutions to hoof problems. He established the farrier school at Cornell, which is still operating and is the oldest school in the USA, and wrote pamphlets for the US Government on shoeing and farm horse care. Until the 1930s, Cornell vet students were required to study farriery and one of their "lab" hours was time spent working in the forge with Professor Asmus.

Henry left a legacy at Cornell for leadership in the farrier profession. The legacy was at times endangered, and Asmus’s faculty position disappeared after his retirement. Later farrier instructors--legendary farriers Eugene Layton, Harold Mowers and Buster Conklin--held staff positions and upheld the school’s reputation for excellence. Cornell has always educated farriers from within the vet school and has continuously offered a conference open to all farriers for the past 24 years.

So Mike Wildenstein’s new position at Cornell is nothing new in the rich historical annals of the esteemed university. But in our changing times, when farriers are working so hard to contribute to the welfare of horses, the fact that one university is reopening the faculty to a farrier is a meaningful milestone to thousands of farriers who spend their days crouched under horses, studying the hooves in their hands with equal intensity to any scholar in a laboratory.

As an added boost, Mike's appointment received a vote of confidence from the polling of the entire Cornell vet school faculty.

Hoofcare & Lameness sends warm congratulations to both Mike and Cornell. As a post script, I can tell you that Mike did not attain his advanced degrees with the goal of this recognition and a promotion on the job. He did it because he wanted to be the very best at farrier that he could be. That will always be the best formula for success, in any job, in any life. The rest, if Mike's experience is any proof, will follow.

Photo courtesy of Cornell University. Please link to this blog or share this post with people in the horse world who should know this great news. Click on the envelope icon below to email this post to others. You may also leave comments here, which will be shared with Mike. Just click on the word "comments" below to leave a comment or read comments left by other readers.

American Farrier's Association's Executive Committee to Meet in Nashville, Tennessee in June

(May 24, 2007) Lexington, Kentucky--In an effort to reach out to the AFA members and chapters and increase input to the organization, the American Farrier's Association's Executive Committee has decided to take it‚s five annual face-to-face meetings on the road. Traditionally, these meetings have taken place at the association's headquarters at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

"After the first face-to-face in Lexington, it was decided that we should use these meetings as an opportunity to reach out to our membership in each of the new regions as we conduct business on their behalf," said Dick Fanguy, AFA Vice President. "The meetings will take place over two days with one being a Œtown hall‚ style where we can answer any questions members might have and hear first hand what each of our members expects from our association and officers."

In Nashville, Tennessee, hosted by Music City Horseshoers Association, the EC will hold its executive meeting all day Thursday, June 7 and will host a Town Hall meeting on Friday, June 8 along with a clinic for all interested farriers and enthusiasts alike.

The venue for the meeting will be Saddle Up Therapeutic Riding Center in Franklin, TN. Meetings are slated for 9am-5pm. All farriers are encouraged to attend, regardless of their affiliation with the AFA. The clinic is free of charge. Locally, contact Steve Davis at 615-945-9575.

(This post is edited from a press release.)

Australian National Farrier Championships Will Be Held at Equitana Asia Pacific

The Victorian Farriers and Blacksmith Association will host the Australian national shoeing, forging and blacksmithing championships at the Equitana Asia Pacific horse exposition at the Melbourne showgrounds on November 15-18, 2007.

Boasting top competitors from all over Australian and New Zealand, the competition will be judged by internationally recognised judges, Danny and Steve Mallander from Yorkshire, England.

The culmination of state-based competitions, the winner of these championships will be crowned the National Champion for 2007.

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)