When Good Things Happen to Good People: Hoofcare's Connection to the PanAm Games

The pink ribbon on the Hyperion Farms saddle cloth signifies Judy Guden's long struggle to beat breast cancer. Judy is from Lubbock, Texas and an old friend of the late farrier Burney Chapman.

Al and Judy Guden are the nicest people I've never met.

About ten years ago, I sent out an email announcement to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal subscribers to tell them about the death of Texas laminitis specialist farrier Burney Chapman.

I was surprised to hear from Al Guden, the owner of a Thoroughbred racing stable on Long Island who asked if he could post my bio of Burney on his web site.

I was even more surprised to see that his web site was the first on the Internet to be dedicated to laminitis. It was filled with links and names and where to go and what to do if you had to deal with the disease.

By email, Judy, Al’s wife, was from Lubbock, Texas and they had brought Burney to Long Island back in the 80s to try the heart bar treatment on their foundered horse.

But the contact didn’t end there; I kept sending people to the Hyperion Farm web site. And Al started offering me some friendly advice on web technology. Before long, he had taken over the Hoofcare and Lameness email list and added all sorts of enhancements. And he wouldn’t accept payment, even after he had to hand-sort out all the America On Line addresses.

Al and Judy retired and moved to Florida. They gave up Thoroughbreds in favor of Dutch Warmbloods. They have the farm in Wellington and all the trimmings, but have remained interested in hooves and horseshoes and laminitis and still offer me help and advice (and boy, do I need it) on technology and horses and the international scene.

In the past few years, they have been on the ownership side of some of the top Dutch Warmbloods (KWPN) in the world, including the young dressage breeding champions Uptown and New Holland and now Washington. In Europe, their horses are ridden by Hans Peter Minderhoud.

Al could write a book about the health problems he has encountered with his horses. More importantly, at the same time that his horses were soaring to the top, Judy Guden was on the sidelines, battling breast cancer, in recent years.

Yesterday, Al and Judy's eight-year-old US-based gelding, Sagacious HF, the mount of New Jersey rider Lauren Sammis, flew to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to represent the USA at the Pan Am Games. Lauren has brought this horse from training level to Prix St Georges.

Lauren qualified for the Pan Am Games with a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness sewn into her saddle cloth in Judy's honor. She’ll now trade it for the USA emblem of the US Equestrian Team.

I’m sure Judy approves of the switch.

If you have a minute to turn your thoughts toward Brazil next week, check the web site http://www.hyperionfarm.com. (The Thoroughbreds may be gone but the farm name remains rooted in the racing lore of the great racing sire Hyperion.) Al will keep us filled in on how the horse is doing.

Sagacious HF is shod by Don Later; his vet is Dr Rick Mitchell of Fairfield Equine Associates in Newtown, Connecticut (and the world).

The bad news: Al and Judy will be at home in Florida while their horse competes in Brazil, since Judy is going through another chemotherapy series of treatments.

Hoofcare and Lameness has survived for 20 years because of people like Al Guden: busy people who somehow were never too busy to stop and look and see that the journal/website/blog/bookstore needed help with our educational mission and they had the expertise to give it. People like Al Guden have had answers for me before I even knew I had questions.

I admit that I had to open the dictionary and look up the exact meaning of Al and Judy’s horse’s name. They’ve had him since he was four months old, so I know they named him. Sagacious means having sound judgment and farsightedness, keen perception.

I can understand why Al Guden would know that word.

By the way, Hyperion was euthanized because of laminitis. He remains one of the most influential sires in Thoroughbred history and is at the head of bloodlines like the Northern Dancer line.

Al Guden with his gelding Sagacious HF. If you double-click on the image and view this photo in an enlarged window, you will see that the horse is hooked up for IV treatment. He is not sick; a few hours before the horse was to leave for the airport, veterinarian Rick Mitchell began to hydrate all the Team USA horses with 10000 mL of saline along with some vitamins, according to Al.

Cobra Venom Raises Its Numbing Head at Racetracks

Big news published by the Daily Racing Form today: A recent raid of the tack room of French trainer Patrick Biancone at Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington, Kentucky netted a little vial marked "Toxin". Inside was a small amount of crystallized cobra venom. His veterinarian's truck was also searched.

Cobra venom injections are legendary at US racetracks but there has been little proof until recently that they are anything more than legends.

Think: an injectable temporary chemical neurectomy.

The DRF describes: "Cobra venom is a powerful neurotoxin that blocks the neural pathways that transmit pain to the brain. The substance, which is used by researchers in extremely minute quantities because of its toxicity, is considered a Class 1 drug under the Racing Commissioners International classification system."

Last week, two men pleaded guilty in New York state for the crime of injecting Standardbreds with cobra venom.

Lyndi Gilliam, DVM at Oklahoma State University Center for Veterinary Health Services is working on a test to detect cobra venom in horse urine but apparently there is no current test to detect it.

Another rumored painkiller used in horse's feet is the oceanic cone snail's venom.

Cobras are intensively farmed in Viet Nam; their meat is also eaten. One farm exported 50 tons of cobra meat to China last year. Cobras are almost extinct in the wild because they are so valuable on the Chinese market. In Florida, there are several cobra "farms" as well, primarily producing venom for research use.

Cobra venom is deadly, of course, if a human or horse is attacked by the snake. But did you know that cobras themselves are immune to the venom? Their bloodsteams contain molecules that neutralize the venom. And the molecule is based on a single amino acid. That's the only difference. The amino acid creates a sugar molecule that prevents the neurotoxin from affecting the snake. National Geographic has a great article about cobra venom research and all it may teach us about human medicine.

Tell me this: if cobras are valuable snakes, who has the job of milking them? And how do they do it?

Who in the World Is Reading This Blog with You?

Today's a holiday here in the USA, but you wouldn't know it if you peeked behind the curtain of this blog. I just did and I thought I would share with you the Top Ten of nations from whence hoof-curious readers seek out this blog:

1. USA
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. France
5. Ireland
6. Hungary (surprise!)
7. Finland (another surprise!)
8. Switzerland
9. Australia
10. United Arab Emirates

Almost half of North American visitors are in the eastern time zone; 25 percent are in the Pacific time zone of North America. I guess I'll have to work on Central and Mountain time zone states and provinces!

If anyone's keeping track, the busiest month ever was May 2007, with June close behind. The busiest single day was on Tuesday, May 1st. That was the day we covered the sad death of Le Samurai, the horse with ruptured suspensories at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event and described what an elevator shoe was. It wasn't enough for Le Samurai, I guess.

Message from Down Under: It's a Smaller World Tonight for Farriers

I didn't understand the message at first, but now I get it.

There was a little blip on the world map of farriery. It shone brightly and then was gone.

Many of you knew Paul Mitchell because of the beautiful loop knives he made at his Pinehurst Forge in Tasmania. Others of you knew him because he travelled the world to fuel his love for farriery. He might have been sitting next to you on an airplane or in a hotel bar at a farriery competition or convention. He probably epitomizd what you always thought an Aussie would be like.

Get out the world atlas and look up Tasmania. Don't stop looking until you find it. It might not be where you think it is. Remember that a farrier came all the way from there...to take the world by storm. Put your finger on that little dot on the map and it might still be warm from the last fire in his forge.

Maybe some more details will find their way here, maybe not. The basic message is: Paul Mitchell died on Tuesday, June 26 in Tasmania, half a world away, or half a world closer, depending on how you look at a map.

Remember him. I will.

Get Well Wishes to Dr Scott Morrison

We might all have to mobilize and head to Lexington, Kentucky to help our friends at the podiatry clinic at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital there. A few weeks ago, founding farrier Manfred Ecker was hospitalized with a heart ailment, and has been recuperating.

Now comes the news that clinic director Scott Morrison DVM required an emergency appendectomy on Tuesday. Maybe they could share a room?

At last count, the clinic employed four vets, five farriers, a legion of technicians, a nice new secretary (Heather), and at least one intern vet. The fleet of farrier trucks outside the clinic looks like a Miracle Mile showroom for Stonewell Truck Bodies.

Scott has built an amazing center for the innovative treatment of horses of all kinds. You might see any sort of disease or disorder and meet most anyone in the hoof world, if you go there.

Let's all wish Scott a speedy recovery, after he's rested for a little while.

The picture was taken at the Luwex Symposium in Germany last October, where Scott was a lecturer/demonstrator. They had him shoeing horses day and night. I remember them leading this horse out onto the stage. Scott looked around, wide-eyed (of course, I was the only English-speaking person within earshot) and said, "Um, did anyone notice that this horse is foundered?" He looked around for a schedule. "Is this horse supposed to be foundered?" he asked again. I remember thinking that was a pretty funny question to ask. He paused for a second, as if someone might answer or give guidance. A hundred or so German farriers in the audience just stared back at him. They didn't blink. Scott chuckled, shrugged and went to work.

Planet of the Lost Hoof Picks: Canadian Organization Expert Tackles One of the Horse World's Most Pressing Issues

I have a dryer that eats my socks and, to prove it, a drawer full of odd socks waiting for their mates. I optimistically believe that the lost ones will show up again some day but in my heart of hearts, I know that the dryer ate them.

It's much the same for hoof picks. No matter how brightly colored or how big and visible, hoof picks disappear around the barn and you can never find one when you really need it.

(The exception is my PowerPick, designed by farrier Doug Ehrman of The Sound Equine. I keep it in my car to use as a weapon in case I am carjacked or need to break the glass to escape if my car falls off a bridge. I'm sure it is great for cleaning hooves but I love it so much, I can't bear to bring it near a horse, which would guarantee its disappearance.)

The disappearing hoof pick problem distresses a professional organizer in Montreal who is also an avid rider whose horse lives in a boarding situation. Jacki Hollywood Brown is determined to put her organizing talents to work in the barn and has written a hilarious post on her "Well Organized" blog.

I think I agree with one of her points: Why do we bother to microchip our horses? They are big enough to find and their stalls are labeled. Let's microchip the hoof picks and track them by satellite: it would fascinating to find out where they go!

I hope you'll take a minute and read Jacki's hoof pick theories and share the post with your boarding-barn clients. I thought it was hilarious...but I think she might be serious!