Pollitt Hoof Studies Group Hot on the Trail of Australian Wild Horses

A wild horse pen in the Australian bush.

Researcher Brian Hampson at the University of Queensland in Australia is in pursuit of two lofty goals: a solid database of information about the hooves of “brumby” wild horses and a PhD on the topic of "Improving the foot health of the domestic horse".

Australians are known for their relentless pursuit of goals, as illustrated in that most classic of all horse films, The Man from Snowy River. In that film, we saw a foreshadowing of things to come, as the real-life contemporary Australians established global dominance in the sport of eventing. The riding in that film was so good, it seemed like any number of the cast could have been members of the Australian Olympic team picking up some extra cash.

Pollitt and Hampson are more likely to be pursuing their brumbies from a helicopter than on horseback, but both are more than capable of stepping in as rider extras in the next Australian horse film classic. Pollitt’s equestrian accomplishments include a national heavyweight championship in endurance and Brian competes in cattle working horse events and trains horses when he’s not in the research lab.

“I will be going bush in a few weeks,” writes Brian in an email today. I think that means that he will head into the wilds to check on the "mob" of wild horses outfitted with GPS sensor collars. The foot research group is studying how much movement wild horses do in a day, in what direction, over what terrain and what changes show up in their feet. The project also have video cameras mounted at watering holes to see how much immersion the feet typically experience. The horses are in an exceptionally dry area with access to two watering points.

Each sensory-equipped brumby is funded by a sponsor, including one that originated from the introductory post on this blog. Thank you very much to that donor…whoever you are! It is not too late to become involved in this project and help Dr Pollitt and Brian reach their goals. The cost is approximately $2600 per horse.

Click here to read the original post about the brumby hoof study.

Click here to visit Dr. Pollitt's Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit's in-depth web site.

"You can bid the mob good day": This short clip from the film "The Man From Snowy River" is on everyone's favorite lists for capturing amazing horsemanship (and horses) on film. For a lot of people, this is the ultimate wild horse image. At some special fundraising events for laminitis research, Dr. Pollitt recites the original Banjo Patterson poem on which the movie is based. He wears his Akubra hat and cracks an authentic kangaroo-hide stock whip for punctuation.

Cult or Clown? April Fool's Artistry on British Hillside Landmark Just in Time for Breeding Season

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Can you find the white horse on the Google Map? This is an image of the little town in Wiltshire, England where an ancient outline of a white horse is carved in the hillside; it was captured before the enhancement described in this story. If you are new to Google Maps: Use the directional buttons on the map to move around; use the plus/minus symbols to enlarge/reduce your view. Hint: the white horse is just above the edge of the bordered tilled fields, at the upper center of the photo. If you put the mouse arrow over that spec and hit the "plus" symbol, the horse should come into view. Keep trying, you'll get the hang of it! You should also be able to navigate around the image by holding down your mouse button and dragging across the image. The little "pins" in the map indicate Google advertisers. They're everywhere.

Have you always wanted to visit Stonehenge? Think crop circles are more interesting than "American Idol"? Fancy you'd look great in a hooded cape? Then you probably know all about the white horses that dot the remote countryside hillsides of southern England.

Some of the "chalk horses" trace their origins to prehistoric times.

But one has been in the news lately. The hillside horse above Alton Barnes in Wiltshire was enhanced recently when a creative landscape artist added an anatomical detail to the horse.

Motorists on the motorway glanced up and said, "I've been driving down this road for years and never noticed it was a stallion before."

Well, it wasn't a stallion before.

So far, apparently, no one has climbed up there (this is a steep hillside) to find out if the change is merely artistic or if the ground has been excavated down to the chalk. Apparently once in the past, it was temporarily turned into a zebra. And (I would love to see this) on the summer solstice, the entire horse is outlined by candles--placed there by chanting Druids, no doubt.

Here's a Scrabble word for you. The art and science of carving horses into hillsides is known as "leucippotomy". I guess that means that Alton Barnes has a lewd leucippotomist...on the loose.

Thanks to Horse and Hound, the BBC, and a lot of rather strange but helpful cultish web sites for assistance in assembling this post. I found out that Alton Barnes has crop circles, too, and that the chalk horse there is one of the newest; it was carved in 1812.

Friends at Work: How Many Guys Does It Take to Shoe a Horse?

Some things are the same the world over. People hear that tap-tap-tap of the farrier's hammer and it's like a call to meeting, no matter where you are.

In this case, "we" are in Punjab, one of the four states of Pakistan.

Here's the worldwide formula: One guy has to own a horse. It takes two (at least ) to do the work. And two to stand around giving a running commentary.

Meanwhile, in the capital city of Islamabad, the Olympic torch was passing through...in a horsedrawn wagon. Perhaps the runners were exhausted...and maybe this fellow in the cart was on his way there!

Photo courtesy of Yvonne Stepanow and Stock Exchange photo agency.

Note: “Friends At Work” is a regular feature of the Hoof Blog. When newspapers and web sites alert us to features on our hard-working readers and farflung friends, I sometimes can figure out how to link to the story and share the photo with blog readers. Preference is given to people who aren’t normally in the news…and the more exotic the locale, the better! Scroll down the blog to read more "Friends at Work" posts from all over the world. You could be next!

"The First Saturday in May" Will Be on the Third Friday in April! See you there!

Click on the "play" icon to launch the movie trailer. Turn up the volume!

Something special is coming to a theater (possibly) near you on Friday, April 18th.

That's the date of the premier of the exciting new documentary "First Saturday in May" about the Kentucky Derby. Made by the New York born-on-the-track Hennegan Brothers, the film whirls you through the excitement surrounding two Kentucky Derby winners and includes a great deal of previously unseen footage of our ill-fated friend Barbaro at New Bolton Center.

But it's mainly about the horses and people who make the Kentucky Derby such an unforgettable event, one that we look forward to each year because it is strong enough to endure and capture our hearts, year after year.

We may forget who won, but we never forget the thrill. And this film is full of thrills, colorful characters (maybe you're in it!) and of course, the horses on whose hooves the hopes of the horse world run.

Here's a list of the cities hosting premieres: Atlanta, Austin, Berkeley, Boston (you bet I'll be there!), Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Lexington, Louisville, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Saratoga, Seattle, St. Louis and Washington DC.

The Grayson Jockey Club Foundation for equine research (including laminitis) will be the charity beneficiary of the opening night festivities.

The official premiere was in Louisville this past weekend, with a press screening in Manhattan, and there's also a special showing next week in Saratoga. So far, the film has gotten great reviews.

This one's about the world we live in, on the best day of the year. It's about the horse world that the public needs to believe in if horse sports, especially racing, are to survive.

There's a big wonderful web site about the film here.

And some amazing raw out-takes of Barbaro here.

A great way to celebrate finishing your taxes!

Greetings from the Gluegrass: Will Big Brown and Pyro Choices of Designer Footwear Turn It Into the Ken-STUCK-y Derby?

Risen Star and Louisiana Derby winner Pyro impressed a lot of people this winter. He did it wearing glue-on shoes called Polyflex, shown here on stakes winner Malibu Mint. Little Belle won the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland wearing these shoes last week; that's the track that Pyro will run on today. The shoes are more or less transparent, with a yellowish hue. They have a steel wire core which is shaped like the foot in a special mold, then urethane is poured in to the ideal shape. A steel toe insert completes the kit. (Hoofcare and Lameness Journal photo)

Glue-on horseshoes are the stuff of legend this year as at least two of the Derby favorites flaunt their footwear on the road to the Triple Crown.

In the Southeast corner, we have Big Brown, winner of the Florida Derby by a landslide in spite of recovering from heel wall separations in both front feet. The photo (bottom of this post) shows a typical injury of this type, usually caused by a subsolar abscess, trimming too short, or training and racing on hard tracks (or a combination of these factors).

Ian McKinlay, the New Jersey quarter crack specialist who repaired the detached wall on the first foot, said that the colt "is not a bad-footed horse" and just needed cushioning on the inside heel where an abscess had been. "Chances are, it will grow down, on both feet, and he'll be fine going into the future," Ian said yesterday. "His trainer knows what he's doing."

Ian's solution, which we hope to show on the blog, is a standard one; he says the injury is quite common among both Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds. He cleaned up the wall from the quarter back to the heel and put a gum rubber insert under the deficit. There's one heel nail holding the glued shoe from slipping, along with a copper clip (the PMMA adhesive sticks very well to copper) on the outside. The gum rubber material is like window caulking; it acts like a gasket. The glue-y shoe is a regular race plate.

(To read more about Big Brown's fancy footwork, see photo below and scroll down to posts and photos from earlier this week, marked April 8.)

And in Kentucky, all eyes will be on Pyro in the Bluegrass Stakes today. I didn't know until this week that Pyro won the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby wearing Curtis Burns' Polyflex all-urethane shoes, and he will apparently have them on today, as well,to run on Keeneland's Polytrack. Pyro's gluesmith is Steve Asmussen's regular horseshoer, David Hinton.

What's in a name? Polytrack seems to agree with Polyflex; you'll agree if you watched Kiaran McLaughlin's trainee Little Belle win the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland last Saturday, with Curtis's see-through shoes glued on her fast little feet.

And who gets the last word in this sticky story? That maven of the media, 2007 Belmont Stakes winner Rags to Riches. It seems R2R, who now resides at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Kentucky, was bred to Giant's Causeway last week. To celebrate her future marehood, farrier Steve Norman pulled her raceplates and replaced them with glueons which will stay on for a cycle or two. This is called "transitional shoeing" and is meant to encourage sole growth before she goes barefoot.

Traditionally, fillies and mares coming from the track have their shoes yanked off and they go straight to a barefoot lifestyle. This usually means gimping around the breeding farm for a number of weeks, since the feet are often cut quite short at the track, and the soles can be thin, until the feet toughen up.

One horse who I cannot imagine in gimp-mode is Rags to Riches.

Note: There are special shoes for gluing on racehorses, such as the Polyflex shoes or Sigafoos shoes, with cloth cuffs. Farriers can also glue on or glue-and-nail normal plates or shoes. There are some amazingly creative people working on these horses.

Thanks to all the farriers and trainers who contributed to this and other posts. I know they had a lot to do this week but most took the time to talk because these new shoes are past the "experimental" stage and are now considered creative equipment adjustments. We've come a long way.

This foot has been cleaned up after being blown out by a subsolar heel abscess, similar to the problem that necessitated glue-on shoes for Kentucky Derby hopeful Big Brown. Ian McKinley padded the exposed heel with gum rubber and glued window caulking like a gasket to hold it in so the area is cushioned. At this stage in the procedure, dead or hangnailish wall has been removed. This is NOT Big Brown, who is now well on his way in the healing process. (Ian McKinlay photo)

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"Slo-Mo" Normal Video vs. "High Speed" Video: Why HS Counts in Gait Analysis

People love to take videos of their horses and then play them back in slow motion, but are ultimately disappointed when their clips don't have the detail that you see in a presentation by Drs Hilary Clayton or Alan Wilson, or in the toe-grab research footage shot by farriers Mitch Taylor and Scott Lampert. And why can't you see that twisting hock action in your videos that Haydn Price shows in his lectures? You know it must be there. Worse yet, speakers at conferences are horrified when their videos project as pixelated blurs in motion on the big screens. "It looked great on my laptop," they mumble.

What's the problem? With digital cameras, it's easy enough to understand the concept of "resolution", or pixels per inch. In an oversimplified nutshell: The higher the resolution, the more pixels per inch. The more pixels per inch, the sharper the image looks when printed on paper. Low-res images usually look ok on computer monitors because the monitors are low-res, too but they won't print in a magazine.

With video, if you want to slow something down, you need a lot of "frames" to see the phases of motion. High speed video delivers those frames, but it is very expensive, and also the very best way to look at a horse's foot in motion.

In the clip above, you are seeing the exact same footage, shown at three different speeds.

My favorite video clip, along with the Danish mousetrap, is one that Dr. Clayton likes to show when she speaks. She shows it first at normal speed: a horse trots across a force plate. There is a little glitch in the action, you see his head lower but you might not give it a second glance.

There's always some clever farrier in the audience who, as this juncture, blurts out: "He pulled a shoe". Most people don't realize it happened.

When she slows the high speed down, you see the hind foot reach forward and catch on the heel of the front shoe. For several tortured frames, front and hind are locked and the horse careens forward in a sliding motion--that would be when the horse's head goes down for a split second.

Then the shoe comes ripping off the foot and the entire lower limb is wrenched so that you would think the pastern would come unhinged. You swear the shoe will take half the hoof wall with it. It flies through the air, somersaulting in slow motion, much like the mousetrap in today's video.

Some barefoot advocates have to leave the room at this point.

And the horse keeps going, as if nothing happened.

High speed video has been a great gift to anyone interested in how horses move. The name is deceptive, since it is not speeding up at all. What it does is allow us to slow motion to a crawl and see every exaggerated detail. We see that little twisty rotational move before breakover. We see the slip in landing. We see that horses rarely, if ever, land symmetrically, even though it may look that way on normal video in slow motion.

Do you need a megabucks camera to record horses in motion? Certainly not. I know of people doing very clever things with decent cameras bought on sale day at Best Buy. Out of the box sports coaching programs like MotionCoach can get you started and if Nokia's cell phone Golf Edition will video-capture your golf swing and analyze it in the palm of your hand, can a stride-length cell phone or a railbird accelerometer be far behind?

At the Badminton Horse Trials in England next month, and at other advanced events there over the summer, a special fence will be in use. Designed by an engineering project called "Competitive Measure", the ascending spread obstacle will have an accelerometer attached to it. If the horse touches the fence, the accelerometer will measure how fast the horse was going when it hit. But that's only half of it: the fence is rigged with a built-in high-speed video camera that will record the horse's approach, the rider's position, the trajectory of takeoff and, should it go down, every detail of the fall.

There's no doubt that motion capture is looming in the future for riders and for their support teams. Just like the early days of the Internet, the best advice is to jump in and get your feet wet. Splash around at the shallow end of the pool and learn to use the cameras and editing software like iMovie, if you're lucky enough to have a Macintosh computer, or Final Cut.

By studying high speed clips from the pros, we can get inspired and we can relate to how difficult and time-consuming the work of true gait/motion analysis is, when proving or disproving lameness or a biomechanical syndrome is at stake. Video analysis will soon enhance the sales value of horses and track training progress. We'll take it for granted, but professional high-speed footage will still be the Holy Grail.

The way I describe it: It's like seeing a hoof--or a mousetrap--for the very first time.