Why Horses and Bicycles Never Mixed Well

Veterinarians and farriers shared a hatred for bicycles and bicyclists in the 19th century.

Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a 19th centuary Scottish blacksmith from the border county of Dumfries, is credited with the invention of the two-wheeled rear-propelled bicycle.

MacMillan’s first bicycle was made of wood and had iron wheels. But it didn’t make him popular with other smiths.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, there were anti-bicycle protests, with farriers leading the protest line. Bicycles frightened horses they said, but in reality, the problems opened by bicycles were worrisome on another level: they provided inexpensive transportation that replaced horses and also caused a drop in value of saddle horses. And they were ridden by "dandies", the precursor of today's metrosexual male, who demanded smoother manmade roads that would make the automobile a more viable option.

An interesting twist of urban history is the role that the railroads played in the horse populations and value of horses in urban society. If farriers hated bicycles, they loved railroads. Every city needed an army of freight horses to serve the docks and railway yards. Every store and factory relied on horses to get their goods into the hands of customers or onto waiting ships or trains. Horses pulled the street cars, the hearses and the snowplows.

Both farriers and veterinarians felt the pinch caused by bicycles. In 1850, only 46 people in the United States census said that they were "veterinarians"; and 20 of them lived in New York City. By 1910, more than 11,000 veterinary surgeons practiced primarily urban equine medicine in the USA. And they weren't pleased about the popularity of bicycles.

Oddly, the popularity of the bicycle is benchmarked as heralding the migration of veterinarians into specialization in species other than horses. In 1897, an article in the American Veterinary Review claimed that horse values had dropped so sharply because of bicycles that owners were letting horses die rather than seek treatment.

Resentment toward the bicycle was shared by both vets and farriers. In this 19th century illustration kindly on loan from Scotland’s Wellcome Library, you see a veterinary surgeon and farrier have just smashed a bicycle and the vet is dosing the dandy cyclist. Double-click on the image to view it at a larger size.

Statistics quoted in this article are from the interesting new book The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the 19th Century by Clay McShane and Joel Tarr. The authors have created a trove of facts and figures about the role played by horses in urban life.

New Treatment for Pain of Lam-"Mint"-Itis?

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) Veterinary College in Scotland are turning to ancient medical traditions to help horses deals with the pain of laminitis.

Professor Sue Fleetwood-Walker, with researcher Rory Mitchell, is taking a clear, scientific look into Chinese and Greek traditions using mint to treat pain, in hopes that mint therapy might be key to the nerve-damage pain that is part of the complex response that horses have to the damage in their feet when laminitis strikes.

Previous research by Fleetwood-Walker, also conducted at Edinburgh and published in the journal Pain, chronicled evidence for a neuropathic component to the chronic pain state associated with equine laminitis, indicating that anti-neuropathic analgesic treatment may well have a role in the management of laminitic horses. In that study, electron micrographic analysis of the digital nerve of laminitic horses showed "peripheral nerve morphology to be abnormal, as well as having reduced numbers of unmyelinated (43.2%) and myelinated fibers (34.6%) compared to normal horses", according to the study's abstract.

Fleetwood-Walker has researched "phantom" pain in human amputation patients and also horn pain response in small mammals; her team discovered that cooling chemicals with the same properties as mint oil had powerful painkilling effects when applied in small doses to the skin.

The receptor molecule TRPM8 is responsible for the sensation of moderate cold and it has long been known that cooling eases pain. However, the Edinburgh researchers have shown that this receptor acts to induce a pathway of responses that ease the crippling effects of neuropathic chronic pain which is very different from the acute pain associated with direct trauma. Substances such as icilin or menthol, known activators of TRPM8 which mimics the sensation of cooling, may then be used to treat neuropathic chronic pain.

The compounds were likely to have minimal toxic side effects, being applied externally, and were likely to prove ideal for patients with chronic pain who found conventional painkillers ineffective. The next test is to find a way to test mint medications on horses with laminitis.

This research is funded by The Horse Trust, a leading British horse charity.

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French Study Compares DOD in Thoroughbred, Standardbred and Warmblood Foals

An example of a French warmblood sport horse; photo provided by the national stud system of France.

A new study from France compares developmental orthopedic disease (DOD) in three breeds of horses raised with similar environmental and farming conditions. Warmblood, Standardbred, and Thoroughbred foals were compared. The study’s authors include Hoofcare and Lameness Journal consulting edition Jean-Marie Denoix of the CIRALE Center in Normandy, France. The study is published in the February issue of ANIMAL, The International Journal of Animal Biosciences.

Developmental orthopedic disease (DOD) affects all breeds and is a common cause of pain and lameness for horses in sports. The authors remark that no comparison studies have ever been conducted between breeds that included consideration of the conditions on the breeding farms.

The study examined the limb joints of 392 weaning-age foals from 21 participating stud farms. The foals were radiographed on the front- and hind-limb digit, carpus, hock and stifle joints. X-ray data were analyzed by three experienced equine veterinarians who gave a common assessment about the entity and the severity of radiographic findings.

Distribution of breeds in the study was 25.0% Warmblood, 41.1% Standardbred and 33.9% Thoroughbreds.

To quote the authors in the findings of the study:

“DOD was present in 66.3% of the foals (95% confidence interval = 61.6% to 71.0%). The most severely affected sites were the proximal part of the hock and the femoro-patellar joint (of the stifle region) for Warmblood and Standardbred foals, and the fore fetlock and the distal part of the hock for Thoroughbred foals.”

Finding such prevalence in the breeds of horses should make it easier for veterinarians to confidently use radiographs of specific sites to monitor growing horses for developmental problems.

Perhaps the most shocking news of the study was that two-thirds of the foals showed evidence of DOD, in the first place.

Freedom!

DSC_9308kopie Jumper, originally uploaded by Ton van der Weerden.

Ton van der Weerden was in the right place at the right time. The place was the North Brabant region of Holland and the time was a split second when a huge Brabant draft horse (one of the the foundation breeds for American Belgian) took a flying leap over a two-strand wire fence.

Did he make it? Did he see the top strand at all? Ton's not telling.

But this horse got some air under him. He probably could have just leaned on the wire and stepped over it.

Thanks, Ton!

End of an Era for Kentucky Horse Park Farrier

Farrier, originally uploaded by XianRex.

Harlan Pennington told me today that his last day as farrier at the Kentucky Horse Park will be February 24th. That's Harlan in the nice photo with this post.

Harlan has been farrier at the Horse Park outside Lexington for more than eight years. His job is to shoe the Park's 100 or so horses--including 20 draft horses--and also meet and greet the public who wander through the shop as they tour the grounds.

He said he did not know who his successor would be or what the hiring process would entail.

The farrier shop is centrally located on the grounds and will soon be expanded. Harlan will still be associated with the project, as he is chairman of the American Farrier's Association's Kentucky Horse Park Visibility Committee.

Harlan said that the front part of the shop, where the public enters, will be enlarged into a 10 x 20 foot room that he hopes will become an educational display area to explain blacksmithing and the American Farrier's Association. The AFA national headquarters is located in a nearby building.

By my count, Harlan is the fourth farrier to work at the Horse Park since it opened. The first farrier, John Bodkins, had two assistants...and only 20 horses to shoe. Bodkins was followed by Saddlebred expert Shorty Roberts, who in turn yielded the anvil to Dave Gibson. Harlan came in to help Dave with the draft horses when he was hurt...and never left.

The farrier shop should be open during the upcoming American Farrier's Association convention, to be held in Lexington at the Lexington Center downtown and the Horse Park arena February 28 to March 1.

The centerpiece of the shop is no doubt the huge framed photo on the wall, showing farriers from (probably) England or Ireland shoeing a light draft with roadster shoes.

Double-click on Christian Lipski's photo to see an enlarged view of this wide-angle shot of one of America's most talked-to and photographed farrier icons. What you are seeing on the blog is a cropped version of the original photo.

Harlan is president of the Bluegrass Horseshoers Association and will serve as the host association's convention coordinator for the AFA.

We'll miss you, Harlan.