The Big Event: 25th Cornell Farrier Conference This Week Features Mark Caldwell

by Fran Jurga
Exclusive to Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog; published November 2, 2008.

British farrier instructor Mark Caldwell FWCF (Myerscough College and the University of Lancashire) began his lecture once with this slide. He said this was the group of shoes he had made up for the week ahead. Looking at them lying on his shop floor, he realized that there were no normal shoes among them. Was he doing something wrong that the horses he shod required ongoing orthopedic support? (Mark Caldwell photo)

On Saturday and Sunday, November 8-9, Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine will celebrate its 25th annual farrier conference. The college welcomes farriers from all the US and Canada, and provides a first-class setting for a range of speakers and demonstrators.

The two "lead" speakers this year are two farrier instructors from Great Britain, Mark Caldwell and Neil Madden. Both have earned the FWCF level of recognition from the Worshipful Company of Farriers and are currently at work as the instructors of the world's first official Bachelor's degree program in farriery.

Additional speakers are Steve Kraus and Bruce Matthews, along with Cornell's Dr. John Lowe.

On Saturday, Caldwell and Madden will compare video-based gait analysis and sensor-embedded pressure mats to demonstrate hoof balance quantification. Sunday will be a full day of lectures in the high-tech lecture theater.

Cornell is located in Ithaca, New York; it is approximately in the center of the state. There is a very good reason why this conference has succeeded and lasted for 25 years: it is simply excellent. Hoofcare and Lameness is proud to be associated with this event.

Click here for more information or call 607-253-3200 to speak with Amanda Mott about registration. A full conference brochure can be downloaded from the Cornell web site.

Caldwell's lectures can ask as many questions as they answer. Here you see two views of the right front foot a horse brought to him "to be fixed".

I've heard Mark Caldwell speak several times and it's hard to say what the audience at Cornell should expect. I remember one video example shown by Caldwell was a time delay over four strides. As the load came over the medial heel, the medial heel became a fulcrum point around which the hoof rotated outward, slightly.

Video analysis showed that over the four strides of the two-beat gait, synchronization of the loading feet was delayed by .020 seconds. As we all know, synchronicization is crucial to a horse. Without it, he is likely to forge or interfere, or even stumble. At the very least, the horse falls out of the collected frame.

At this point in farrier science, we probably don't know how much variation in timing a horse can compensate. In Caldwell's sample case, by the fourth stride, the horse had to compensate for his imbalance by “hanging” on the left rein while it re-collected itself. With a lot of horses, that's one "long side" of the ring. Horses can get away with a lot and keep trying; it takes an experienced rider (or, sometimes, a bigger arena) to sense what is really going on; a good rider can help a horse.

Caldwell's example makes a good case for not evaluating a horse based on a single isolated stride on high-speed video...or even several strides. Even with the best scientific aids, farriery still requires the art of looking at a horse in motion and recognizing rhythm and cadence, before one can even begin to dissect the horse's problem. You just might look in the wrong place.

Caldwell talks a lot about the marriage of art and science that is necessary for good farriery. His and Madden's lectures at Cornell this weekend should be a great update for new ways to approach studying the hoof.

See you there!





© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. Permissions for use elsewhere are mostoften easily arranged.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

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Favorite Photo: A Fine Smithy

I have an idea to publish my collection of photos of blacksmith shops, smithies, smiddies and forges but I keep finding photos of ones that I haven't seen yet, so I guess I have to keep traveling for another decade or so. I'd like to have a war room type of map with the location of all the old shoeing shops marked on it. What a lofty goal that is: an architectural treasure hunt!

Of equal interest to the ones that survived are the ones that didn't. What has replaced the old blacksmith shops? A busy shop once stood in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan!

But as fast as shoeing shops crumble and decay from abandonment or are rehabbed into restaurants and condominiums, clever people are building new ones. Or dressing up the old ones.

So we come to this image from the bulging "favorite photos" file. This fine shop is in Gonalston, Nottinghamshire, in Great Britain. As fine as the smithy may be, the phone booth just puts the frosting on the cake.

There's a verse over the door that reads:
"Gentlemen, as you pass by,
pray on this shoe cast your eye.
If it's too strait we'll make it wider.
Twill ease the horse and please the rider.
If lame by shoeing (as they sometimes are),
you can have them eased with the greatest of care."

The photo above is generously loaned by Iain Paterson who adds that he dedicated it to his wife, Jodi, "who is descended from a line of blacksmiths." She must feel right at home.

This snowy smithy in Poland has always been on my list of favorites.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing for Iain Paterson. No use without permission.

Insulin-Resistant Horses Sought for British Researcher's Study

Dr. Robert Eustace of the Laminitis Clinic in Wiltshire, England has developed a new feed supplement that he believes will be helpful to horses suffering from insulin-resistance and its complications of laminitis.

Dr Eustace writes:

"We are beginning a trial to evaluate the use of a feed supplement to control Metabolic Syndrome / Equine Cushing's Disease. Our preliminary results from animals at the Laminitis Clinic are very encouraging. The trial is conducted through your own veterinary surgeon and poses no risk to your animal.

"We pay for the laboratory fees to analyse two sets of blood samples taken, by your vet, at the beginning and end of the trial. We pay for the cost of the supplement during the 28 day trial period. You have to pay your vet's fees to visit and collect the samples. We give you, and your vet, a free gift for participating in the trial.

"We will be measuring endogenous ACTH, cortisol, insulin, glucose, NEFA and triglycerides from the samples you submit. These should give us an excellent profile of your animals energy metabolism.

"Dependant upon the results of the first blood sample we will let you know whether your animal is eligible for inclusion in the trial. If your animal's results indicate that it is developing Cushing's disease we will contact you and your vet to disucuss your options.

"So your first step is to discuss the trial with your veterinary surgeon. If you both agree to participation then please ask your vet to contact us on 01249-890784. We will then send your vet the necessary paperwork."

This study is only open to horses in Great Britain.

© 2008 Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. 

Oregon Farriers ID Wounded Horse by Its Shoes, Shooter Arrested

Note: if you read this blog in the email digest form, you will need to click here to go to the real Hoof Blog to watch this video .

KTVZ, an NBC affiliate in Oregon, has provided a video clip from their news last night that would make any amateur detective smile.

Like the rewarding finale of the wonderful 1980s film, "My Cousin Vinny", two Oregon farriers came forward this week and identified a highly publicized horse crime victim...by identifying its shoes.

For the past week, an emaciated, abandoned horse has been recovering from two gunshot wounds to its head at the Bend Equine Medical Center in Bend, Oregon. Hunters found the horse wandering in a mountainous area.

Legal authorities in Deschutes County set out to find the gunman, and to find the horse's owner. Could they be one and the same? A private citizen offered a reward. The skinny dark brown Arabian looked a lot like half the horses in the county, with few distinguishing characteristics. The vets scanned the horse, but he had not been microchipped.

There was one thing, though, and one thing only to go on: the anonymous horse was wearing shoes.

Who would care enough to pay to have a horse shod, and then abandon it, let alone shoot it?

Farriers Laura Felder and Kyle Deaver came forward and provided photographic evidence that the horse was wearing their shoes. Their shoeing business records identified the horse as one they had shod this summer for a children's camp.

Watch the video to see where this trail leads...and then put that digital camera to work recording the horses you own or work on in your business. Thanks to KTVZ for making the video clip available.

These farriers deserve a medal!

© 2008 Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. This article was originally posted on October 31, 2008 at www.hoofcare.blogspot.com

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online or received via email through an automated delivery service.

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness, please visit our main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Boo! Halloween Hoof Face in German Farrier Shop

There's nothing funny about a keratoma but German farrier Loic Entwistle couldn't resist the temptation to turn this hoof into a jack o' lantern. Or is it the face of a ghost that made this photo suggest Halloween?

It looks like this foot may be growing out after a keratoma (hornsaule in German) in the toe of the hoof wall was surgically removed, and was brought back to the hospital for a trim and clean-up of the wall defect. The veterinarian probably marked the hoof wall area to be cleaned up with a marker...and it became a face!

A keratoma is a benign or non-cancerous tumor made of horn. I think they are either more commonly found in Europe or they are more aggressive in removing them as European farrier textbooks always have lots of photos of keratomas and they even explain the different types based on where in the wall the tumor is located and describe the common shapes the tumors will take depending on location.

Even though a keratoma can reside uneventfully inside a horse's hoof wall for a long time, it can also sometimes grow large enough to press against soft tissue and/or the coffin bone, or cause chronic abscessing.

To learn more about keratomas, read "Hoof Wall Resection and Reconstruction for a Tubular Defect" by Andrew Poyntom FWCF in Hoofcare and Lameness #78, and the chapter on different types of keratomas in the book Hoof Problems by Rob Van Nassau, available from Hoofcare Books. (Click here to learn more about this book and order your copy.)

If you read German, another excellent treatise on keratomas is in Uwe Lukas's Gesunde Hufe-kein Zufall available from the German Equestrian Federation's online bookshop.

Many thanks to Loic Entwistle and his amazing photo library for the loan of this image.

Favorite Video: A Horseshoe Is Born

by Fran Jurga, originally published October 28, 2008 at www.hoofcare.blogspot.com.

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I remember the first time I ever set foot in a horseshoe factory. It was in Australia. Carl O'Dwyer was squiring me around. We were off to the races or something when he stopped by the factory (O'Dwyer Horseshoes). It didn't occur to him that I would want to see the factory part of the business. Then he couldn't get me out of there. I remember his shoes were made by young Irish girls wielding huge tongs. I took rolls and rolls of film and not a single photo captured what I felt I really saw in that place.

If you haven't ever seen a horseshoe assembly line, it's quite an operation. There are two popular ways to make horseshoes commercially. One is to drop-forge and the other is to turn. Drop-forging is the "American" style. Turning is the European style, as used by Kerckhaert and Werkman.

American horseshoers were in a real battle in the early 1980s. Many farriers felt that the "keg" (machinemade) shoes available to them just weren't good enough and there was a call for "real" farriers to handmake all their shoes if they cared about properly shoeing the horse. Then two things happened in 1985: The first was that the Carlson family took over the St Croix Forge horseshoe company in Minnesota and pledged to design and make a superior American-made shoe. Which, to everyone's amazement, they did.

The second thing was that a charming Frenchman named Jean-Claude Faure came to an American Farrier's convention with a turned shoe from his Faure factory in Europe. He walked around the convention in elegant clothing carrying shoes in the pockets of his suit jacket. He did not speak English. He would pull a shoe from his pocket and ask a farrier to hold it, to look at it. For most of them, it was the first time they had seen a turned shoe or any shoe punched for E-head nails. (European shoes typically use European e-head nails; American shoes are punched to fit City head nails, but that's another story.)

While the farrier politely looked at the shoe and peered through those big nail holes, the gallant Mr. Faure grinned at them and said the two words he had learned in English, "You like?" in a hopeful voice.

Leading farrier Bruce Daniels agreed to be Faure's dealer in the USA. Kerckhaert was right there and Werkman not far behind. Farrier conventions became international festivals, just as now we have the slick Italian designer aluminums and the Chinese and Malaysian imports from Asia.

In 1985, the European shoes were a revelation; they had clips built into the shoes. They came in lefts and rights and fronts and hinds, with toe clips or side clips: an inventory nightmare. And they fit the new wave of big-footed European warmbloods that were becoming popular in America. St Croix geared up and answered the Euro challenge, inspiring improvements from all US shoe manufacturers. The golden age of horseshoe manufacturing dawned.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

In this clip you see snippets of the line at the Werkman factory in Holland. Most manufacturers are not eager to show their lines and equipment, and you will note that Werkman does not show the process in order, and you do not get to see how they make the clips, one of the steps that has always mystified me.

Two elements are missing from this video: the heat and the noise. Both are off the charts, if Werkman's factory is like others. But this video is a window into the world of horseshoes before they touch human hands, all with the matching mirror of a horse's hoof in mind.

Thanks to Werkman for this video clip; the horses have never had it so good.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online or received via a daily email through an automated delivery service.

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness, please visit our main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

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