Rider Sigurdur Oli Kristinsson, farrier Sigurdur Sigurdsson, and Cornell's Michael Wildenstein pose with a furry Icelandic horse (don't call them ponies!) after an in-depth seminar on shoeing and gait adjustment on the Icelandic horse. The farrier speaker brought a top rider with him to illustrate the fine points of gaiting the fast little island-bred horses that have become very popular in the United States. Below are the finished front feet on this horse. The fine art of adjusting a horse's gaits was covered; the Icelandic horse has five natural gaits, including the four-beat "tolt" which can be trotty or pacey. Adjusting shoe weight behind or in front can have a big effect on the horse's tolt, as illustrated by Siggy and Siggy on two horses worked on the indoor matted horse run at Cornell. The farrier's job is to make sure that the tolt is a true four-beat gait. "Siggy Sig" is director of hoofcare studies at Holar University College, Iceland and is very active as a rider in international competition. Many farriers from the Northeast attended to learn about these horses that are showing up in their practices. It was an outstanding presentation; it's a rare treat to see a farrier pleased enough with his work to ride the horse and there were many points that would have been valuable for trainers or farriers. No one in the audience could say "been there, done that". You know it's a good clinic when I'm not the only one taking photos.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
UPenn's Rob Sigafoos Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
America's "Mad Scientist" of farriery received the lifetime achievement award at the Fourth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday. Sigafoos's career has spanned more than 20 years of innovative thinking that culminated in his important role in the team working on Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro during the colt's long stay at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, where Sigafoos has been staff farrier for more than 20 years.
Among Sigafoos's many contributions to veterinary medicine and farriery have been pioneering the use of PMMA adhesives like "Equilox", glue-on shoes with cloth cuffs, external fixator braces, and many innovative cast and brace designs for orthopedic cases.
If there are giants in the farrier world, Rob is one. He-who-hates-nails changed the way we approach therapeutic options for hoof conditions, and showed us all how to think way outside the box.
Congratulations, Rob!
Among Sigafoos's many contributions to veterinary medicine and farriery have been pioneering the use of PMMA adhesives like "Equilox", glue-on shoes with cloth cuffs, external fixator braces, and many innovative cast and brace designs for orthopedic cases.
If there are giants in the farrier world, Rob is one. He-who-hates-nails changed the way we approach therapeutic options for hoof conditions, and showed us all how to think way outside the box.
Congratulations, Rob!
Monday, November 05, 2007
Million-Dollar Gift from Marianne and John Castle Will Boost Laminitis Research
Several major news stories are in development this morning as I have just returned from the Fourth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Complete details will follow, but let me be hopefully the first to announce to the world that Mr. and Mrs. John Castle of New York, New York and Palm Beach, Florida stunned the audience at the conference with the announcement that they will donate one million dollars to Dr. James Orsini's new Laminitis Institute at the University of Pennsylvania for the study of the causes and treatment of laminitis in the horse.
A more formal article will follow, but I wanted to share the great news!
Some background information on the laminitis initiatives at UPenn are outlined in this file.
Complete details will follow, but let me be hopefully the first to announce to the world that Mr. and Mrs. John Castle of New York, New York and Palm Beach, Florida stunned the audience at the conference with the announcement that they will donate one million dollars to Dr. James Orsini's new Laminitis Institute at the University of Pennsylvania for the study of the causes and treatment of laminitis in the horse.
A more formal article will follow, but I wanted to share the great news!
Some background information on the laminitis initiatives at UPenn are outlined in this file.
Farrier Profiled in Video: Australia's Melbourne Cup Will be Run in the Shadow of Equine Influenza Crisis a State Away
It's Melbourne Cup week at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria, where the equine influenza (EI, or "horse flu") outbreak that has paralyzed New South Wales and Queensland has (so far) not erupted.
Several of Australia's top horses are unable to compete because they cannot be transported out of New South Wales. Runners from Europe and Japan have been affected by quarantines as well, or fear the odds of entering the country. Last year the race was won by a Japanese horse.
But the race, made so famous to foreigner through the legend of the great Australian superhorse Phar Lap, will go on. (You may remember how cruel stewards at Flemington kept piled lead on the gifted horse to "equalize" the rest of the field.) Many top stables and racetracks are located in Victoria and South Australia. Horse that were in Victoria when the crisis began just stayed there.
The Australian Broadcast Corporation has posted a very good video profile of farrier Vaughn Ellis from Victoria and his life as a farrier on and off the racetrack. It's worth a look, and American farriers will chuckle when they see him opening a box from the USA as the narrator describes the hardship of Australian farriers, who depend on foreign manufacturers for almost everything they use.
Vaughn is not being hit too hard by the flu crisis, since it has not hit Victoria, but he does remark that he has fewer horses to shoe because the horses from Sydney are unable to come to Victoria for the spring racing season. (Australia, being in the Southern hemishere, is enjoying spring now.)
Try clicking on this type to go to the video. This is a very nice piece and is blessedly free of the sentimentality and cliches that usually mar profiles of professional farriers.
Legal strings with ABC forbid posting the video on this blog. To watch the video you need to click on the highlighted type to the right of the main text and under the photo of the horse hanging his head over a stall door.
Several of Australia's top horses are unable to compete because they cannot be transported out of New South Wales. Runners from Europe and Japan have been affected by quarantines as well, or fear the odds of entering the country. Last year the race was won by a Japanese horse.
But the race, made so famous to foreigner through the legend of the great Australian superhorse Phar Lap, will go on. (You may remember how cruel stewards at Flemington kept piled lead on the gifted horse to "equalize" the rest of the field.) Many top stables and racetracks are located in Victoria and South Australia. Horse that were in Victoria when the crisis began just stayed there.
The Australian Broadcast Corporation has posted a very good video profile of farrier Vaughn Ellis from Victoria and his life as a farrier on and off the racetrack. It's worth a look, and American farriers will chuckle when they see him opening a box from the USA as the narrator describes the hardship of Australian farriers, who depend on foreign manufacturers for almost everything they use.
Vaughn is not being hit too hard by the flu crisis, since it has not hit Victoria, but he does remark that he has fewer horses to shoe because the horses from Sydney are unable to come to Victoria for the spring racing season. (Australia, being in the Southern hemishere, is enjoying spring now.)
Try clicking on this type to go to the video. This is a very nice piece and is blessedly free of the sentimentality and cliches that usually mar profiles of professional farriers.
Legal strings with ABC forbid posting the video on this blog. To watch the video you need to click on the highlighted type to the right of the main text and under the photo of the horse hanging his head over a stall door.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Breakdowns Mar First Weeks of Racing on Santa Anita 's New Artificial Surface
The Daily Racing Form is reporting that 11 horses have been euthanized since September 24 at California's Santa Anita racetrack near Los Angeles. The fall "Oak Tree" meet is the first to be run on Santa Anita's new Cushion Track surface and also the first to be run there there since the state of California passed a rule banning toe grabs on front raceplates.
Five horses have died during training and six horses have died during races. The latest death is a three-year-old maiden filly.
Five horses have died during training and six horses have died during races. The latest death is a three-year-old maiden filly.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Tendon Rehab Specialist Adopts Gait Analysis to Monitor Healing Parameters
When War of Attrition, the famous 2006 Cheltenham Gold Cup Winner, suffered a serious foreleg tendon problem in March 2007, an all-out effort was made to aid his recovery and bring him back to compete again in the jump racing world.
A new breed of company in the British Isles was tapped to micro-manage the horse's treatment and recovery. "Tendon Works" operates in-patient equine treatment centers--the equivalent of an intensive-care equine clinic crossed with a layup farm. At a center near Canterbury, south of London, England and a new one in Fethard, Ireland, horses undergo ten-week programs of biomechanical and clinical assessment followed by treatment and rehab.
“War of Attrition presented with an obvious and significant tendon injury to the right fore superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT), and early signs of damage to the SDFT on the contra-lateral side,” says Dr David Chapman-Jones of Tendon Works.
“Following as assessment on the treadmill, (in my opinion) it was clear his front limb loading and hindquarter action were also not right," he continued. "Russell Guire of Centaur Biomechanics assessed the horse using Equinalysis video-based screening, and the results surprised us all by showing a problem with the horse’s left fore and also a problem in his pelvis.
“We assessed the horse holistically and decided to change his saddle to one with a carbon-fiber tree and air flocking, which reduced the pressure on his back. We also adjusted his shoeing, which made a difference to the strain on the forelimb flexor tendons, and used specific exercises to ensure he engaged his back end more productively, which reduced the fore limb loading and gave the tendon treatment the best chance to work," he explained. "War of Attrition is now back with trainer Mouse Morris in Ireland, and I estimate that his tendon injury is nine-tenths recovered – he is currently undergoing an appropriate training regime to manage stress to the limb.”
The combination of Equinalysis’ locomotive assessment and Tendon Works’ cell regeneration treatment, which claims to boost the damaged tendon’s electro-chemical signaling process with stem-cell technology, means equine healing and recuperation can be accelerated.
Equinalysis technology records and collates physiological aspects such as a horse’s stride length and joint flexion, providing owners with a baseline of data; the screening is performed by trained clinicians and data is collected using a laptop computer and single or multiple digital cameras. The screening service is available to all horse owners, and is recommended for ‘benchmarking’ a horse to assess its locomotion when sound.
Going forward, Tendon Works will be incorporating Equinalysis screening into their injury prevention evaluations at the new Fethard Equine Hospital in County Kildare, Ireland.
Please visit: www.equinalysis.co.uk for info about the screening technology, or www.tendonworks.com for details of Tendon Works’ treatment regimen and services.
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