Speed Skater vs. Rough Shod Icelandic Horse: Place Your Bets!

Claudia Pechstein may be in for a surprise on March 8th. The former world champion in speed skating has won five Olympic gold medals, two silver and two bronze...but has she ever skated against a horse wearing studded shoes?

At the European Championship on Ice, which will be held in Berlin, some of the best Icelandic horses in Europe will be tolting at high speed against each other, but there will also be held a very exciting speed duel between Pechstein and a pacing horse.

Pechstein is featured on a video on YouTube skating backwards; she even looks fast that way. I hope they clip those furry Icelandics to cut down on wind resistance. Claudia doesn't seem to have any.

These horse can fly across the ice, it should be a great race! They wear sharp-studded shoes. Not far from here, harness races are held on the frozen lakes in Maine in winter. Those horses allegedly wear shoes with a continuous outside "sharp" rim.

Photos below from the Icehorse event web site.

Too Fat? Too Thin? British Court Faces Conflict Over "Abused" Horse with Cushings Disease

A magistrate in Norwich, England is learning a lot about Cushings disease this week, according to newspaper reports. A pony seized by animal welfare officials had been a family pet for 20 years. Following their veterinarian's advice, the owners kept the pony in a very lean condition score to prevent laminitis as a complication of the Cushings disease that the pony suffered.

The pony had already suffered laminitis.

The owners said they were quite surprised when animal welfare authorities seized the pony, claiming it was emaciated. The pony was sound at the time of seizure.

The pony's veterinarian testified in court that the condition of the pony was not abusively thin, and that the owners were trying to be kind to the pony and avoid a recurrence of laminitis.

According to newspaper reports, the vet representing the animal welfare agency testified that the horse had suffered muscle wastage and fat loss as a result of poor care.

In the USA a few years ago, a well-meaning welfare agency seized two thin ponies in New Jersey. The owner claimed they were being kept intentionally lean to avoid laminitis. The welfare agency, wanting to be kind, plumped up the ponies while they were in custody. The ponies developed laminitis and the owner sued the welfare agency.

In other court cases this year in Britain, horse owners were prosecuted for allowing horses to become too fat, putting them at risk for laminitis.

Politics on All Levels: Smear Campaign in Farrier Election

Mike Miller AWCF of Alabama sent a scan of a post card sent to farriers in the southeastern United States recently. Mike is a candidate for the board of the American Farrier's Association and was the target of a hate-mail campaign designed to cost him votes.

Mike, who is also an M.D., is an unabashed and unapologetic supporter of some type of registration of farriers in the United States.

New Book Announcement: Therapeutic Farriery Available from Hoofcare Books

Therapeutic Farriery: A Manual for Veterinarians and Farriers by Yehuda Avisar has made its way east.

"Yudi" may not have a name that is a household word in vet/farrier circles, but I don't know of many well-known experts who would have the time and perseverance to complete a project like this. He has paid his dues; this Israeli-born veterinarian worked as a farrier at the side of the legendary Charles Heumphreus, longtime resident farrier at the University of California at Davis' vet school, and many of the photos in the book show examples of his work on cases at the school.

This new book is very well-researched and referenced. Many of the photos look dated because they are from the Heumphreus archive, but this is the closest thing we have had to an actual new textbook on farriery in many years. You won't find banana shoes or plastic shoes or inflatable hoof pads or even Natural Balance shoes. There are no justifications for hoof balance theories and hardly a word about wild horses.

If there is such a thing as a subjective science, hoof science is it. Every author is noted for his exclusions and his biases and this book is no different in that respect. And the cases are all illustrative of the dry California hoof, something that has been missing from hoof reference books to date. The author's specific division of hoof problems into subsets is inspiring--he even has separated heel dermatitis from foot mange and defines things like "false quarter". He gives references to people like Don Birdsall, a California farrier who was way ahead of his time in "mapping" the foot and studying coronary contour and dedicates a small section to the oft-overlooked (or misdiagnosed) problem of coronitis. Most interesting to me was a section on frostbite and, conversely, burns in the hoof caused by power tools or resin curing.

One could use this book to reference many concepts in farriery and find both text and clear diagrams to back up a certain technique. It would make an excellent textbook for a college or professional course, and I think that may the author's intent. The book is nicely designed, with references in color to offset them from the text.

The tendency in farrier publishing is for an ever-rising standard of photography and graphics, thanks to the influence of talented visually-oriented people like Chris Pollitt. This book takes a step or two backward, to the text-centric, footnoted reference books of the pre-Internet, pre-PowerPoint age. When you need a reference book, this book can be a treasure on your bookshelf.

Therapeutic Farriery costs $90. You can order it from Hoofcare & Lameness; please include $6 for post in the USA and $13 for post to most other countries. It is hardcover, 292 pages, and is fully indexed and illustrated. Click here for a printable, faxable/mailable order form, or send an email with Visa/Mastercard info and your full name and address to books@hoofcare.com

And how's your book coming?

British Government Seeks to Count, Quantify Hoof Trimming in Lead Up to Regulation of New Paraprofessional Group

A nation with one of the most standardized farrier programs in the world--and an Act of Parliament to back it up--is looking at natural hoof trimmers in preparation for a possible national training and registration program. Equine dental technicians are also on the list of “new paraprofessionals” under scrutiny by LANTRA.

Lantra Equine and Professions Allied to Veterinary Science Industry Partnership Manager, Lisa Jarvis said: “We estimate that around 500 dental technicians and barefoot trimmers work in the UK, but it is an emerging area and very little is known about it.”

Lisa adds: “In order for Lantra to work with the para-professionals and (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) Defra to develop frameworks for training and qualifications we urgently need equine dental technicians and barefoot trimmers to take part in this research.”

The agency has invited people currently making a living as natural hoof trimmers to fill out a survey form about their background, training, horse skills, and levels of expertise at trimming.

The survey questions are grouped into eight main themes:
· Current numbers employed in the industry
· Entry route into current job role (i.e. school, college, university)
· Training route used (length of training, type of training, accreditation)
· Predicted numbers entering the industry
· Job roles – tasks, competencies
· Business – number of clients and horses treated
· Membership in organizations
· Interaction with other professionals (e.g. veterinary surgeons, farriers)

Farriers in the UK are regulated under the Farriers Registration Act, a national law enacted by Parliament in the 1970s. The Act specifically outlaws the shoeing of horses by anyone who is not a qualified farrier listed by the Farriers Registration Council.

Barefoot trimmers have been able to work on horses for pay in Britain up to this point because they are not performing farriery, i.e., applying shoes. According to the Farriers Registration Council (FRC), farriery is defined in the Farriers (Registration) Act 1975 as ‘any work in connection with the preparation or treatment of the foot of a horse for the immediate reception of a shoe thereon, the fitting by nailing or otherwise of a shoe to the foot or the finishing off of such work to the foot’. In the future, in other countries and in other legal documents, farriery may be re-defined as “trimming and/or shoeing”, or it may continue to migrate into two distinct professional groups.

Click here to view the survey (but don't fill it out unless you live in Britain and are a hoof trimmer).

Friends at Work: New Zealand Heat Wave Takes Its Toll on Farriers

The temperature in New Zealand hit 30.7 Centigrade this week; that's roughly 87 Fahrenheit and considered a heat wave in the sub-tropical country.

The local paper in Bay of Plenty chose the job of a farrier as one of the worst to be doing during the hot spell. (It's summer in the Southern Hemisphere, remember.)

Read more about the New Zealand heat wave and a little bit about Peter Huxtable here.