Walking Horse Breeders Seek Funding for Breed-Specific Gait Studies at University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee and the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association^SM (TWHBEA) have announced that they are working together to develop and secure funding for a balance and mobility study to analyze the natural gait of the Tennessee Walking Horse.

"The Tennessee Walking Horse industry provides a very significant economic impact and much recognition for our state,” said Dr. Alan Mathew, head of the Department of Animal Science at the University of Tennessee. “As Tennessee’s Land Grant University, we are delighted to have this opportunity to collaborate with TWHBEA to provide expertise and science-based information for the benefit of Walking Horse owners, trainers, pleasure riders, and others involved with this unique breed."

Using high performance 3-D cameras and analysis from judges and veterinarians coupled with genetic markers, study implementers would be able to record the gait of today’s Tennessee Walking Horses in different disciplines. Historical films will be used to analyze the natural movements of the breed at its inception. Study implementers will then compare the motion of the breed’s foundation horses to the motion and mobility of today’s Tennessee Walking Horses.

“We are very excited about the information this study could provide us and its potential use to help preserve the historic gait of our breed,” said Chuck Cadle, executive director of the TWHBEA.

The study would also analyze potential differences in horses’ weight distribution based on the way they are shod.

“Certainly there’s a natural evolution in the performance of show horses through breeding and improved training methods, but this study will finally help us determine if today’s horses are still in synch with the natural gait of this breed,” said Dr. Mathew.

Cadle continued, “We base breeding decisions on performance in the show ring, and that may not be the best way to preserve the natural gait of this breed. This study will help us make the best breeding decisions so we don’t dilute our population and compromise the gait that makes our horse famous.

“We hope that with this scientific information, we can all agree on what’s in the best interest of the breed and how to move forward together. If today’s show horses are not functioning the way the breed’s founding sires and mares did, then we as an industry may need to change our expectations for this breed.”

If the study could be initiated within the year, it could be completed by 2011. TWHBEA and UT intend to seek funds for the project and are willing to discuss it with interested parties.

Jackie Thompson, Iconic Thoroughbred Horseshoer, Has Died in Lexington

If anyone is counting, Jackie shod five Derby winners--Dark Star, Proud Clarion, Dust Commander, Gato del Sol and Swale.

More importantly, he taught people to be farriers by taking them on as apprentices. One of the best Jackie stories is when he took on a white apprentice, the first in Lexington. He went around to all the trainers at Keeneland to make sure it was all right with them if a white man helped him work on their horses.

Services are Monday, September 10 at Shiloh Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky.

The Lexington Herald-Leader has a nice obituary of Jackie, who was 81.

I'll never forget him.

Indiana Farrier Jim Keith Receives Clyde Stringer Award

Farrier Jim Keith instructs vet students about the role of farriers in equine health and medicine.

Jim Keith of Wingate, Indiana is the ninth recipient of the Clyde Stringer Award, presented by the Indian Farriers Association for service in education and teaching farriery.

When Jim was the president of the Indiana Farriers Association, he appointed a committee to set the award up. This year, he was chosen by his peers to receive the award.

“It has some significance to me even more so than somebody who didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said in an interview. “I was kind of humble and of course pleased that they were proud of me.”

Jim, who is 61, teaches educational clinics and a yearly class at Purdue University for veterinary students on shoeing horses. He has taught at universities in Romania, and is going back to Romania and Hungary with Christian Veterinary Missions in October to present farrier courses.

Jim has subscribed to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal since 1986. He's a worthy recipient of the award and we congratulate him!

Clyde Stringer is former president of the Indiana Farriers Association. He is retired from shoeing and recently had knee surgery.

The IFA also has the Al Morgan Award, named for one of the organization's foundation who died ten years ago, for volunteer service.

What on Earth Is This?

These photos illustrate the same condition, although these two horses had different ways of displaying it.

Do you know what this is? I didn't, until I read the new book Hoof Problems by Rob Van Nassau. The European answer to Chris Pollitt's Color Atlas of the Horse's Foot has finally been translated into English.

And would you trim it off with your nippers? Obviously some farriers didn't want to touch these growths.

How appropriate that this book should arrive at "back to school" time. It certainly jump-started my curiosity for the odd and unusual problems that affect hooves. All I can think of is that the author haunts the slaughterhouses looking for worst-case scenario hoof problems. And he found them.

This first US copy of Hoof Problems arrived today and I went right to the page where these photos can be found. I had been puzzling over them in the Dutch version and I could finally read the captions so I know what Rob Van Nassau says caused this. Do you?

Hoofcare and Lameness Journal will give a copy of the book to the person who writes the best, most plausible explanation of these photos that is closest to Rob Van Nassau's account...or that makes an argument for another cause. Send your description to fran@hoofcare.com by September 15. (Be sure to put your name on it so I can contact you.)

If you are stumped, as I was, and just want a copy of the book, send $45 plus $6 post by email (Visa/MasterCard) or by check to Hoofcare, 19 Harbor Loop, Gloucester MA 01930. Fax orders to 978 283 8775. Postage outside the USA is $12 to most countries. The books are due here in the next month or so.

Book specs: 225 pages, 1000 photos, all color, indexed, hardcover, 8x11" approx; foreword by Simon Curtis.

"Show me your lamellae"

Australian laminitis researcher Dr. Chris Pollitt was in Brazil last week on a lecture tour when news of the Equine Influenza (EI) outbreak back home hit the news. He was soon on his way back to the University of Queensland to help at the vet school.

The EI outbreak had a double meaning for Dr. Pollitt. It was a professional emergency for the university and the nation but his daughter, Jane, was at an Olympic qualifier 3-day event in Warwick, Queensland. She and her horse were under lockdown orders because horses on the grounds started to show symptoms of the disease. As far as I know, she is still there. Dr. Pollitt donned a sterile suit and went to work at the event.

The red-faced monkey stayed in Brazil. The proper id for this obliging model in Portuguese is Macaco de Cara Vermelha (Red Face Monkey in English).

USDA and Walking Horse Trainers Bury the Hoof Testers at Celebration

What a difference a year makes. One year ago I was posting about a near-riot at the Walking Horse Celebration in Shelbyville, Tennessee when horses failed federally-mandated "soring" inspections. It sounds like this year there was a love-in between USDA officials and the trainers and 97 percent of horses passed inspections.

I highly recommend a summary article about the show, posted on the web site of the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, to which the above photo of one of the amateur classes is linked. (There's also a slide show of images there.) The paper notes that 24,000 people were at the show.