Friends at Work: Farrier Jamie Peterson and the Hottest Thing in Idaho

This photo was kindly loaned by photographer Mountain Mike, aka Michael Edminster of Edminster Photography in Bellevue, Idaho. He likes to take photos of farriers while they work, and does a great job of it. I like to check out the weather conditions in Idaho this winter; it seems like they brew weather out there and it just slides across the USA and hits us in New England. The Idaho winter obviously doesn't stop Jamie Peterson from bundling up and going to work.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask. 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). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the 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.

What a Day for the USA...and a Rough Day for One Appaloosa

Thanks to Florida artist Debbie Sampson for the loan of this patriotic image. Debbie has a clever twist to her paintings: that's a real horseshoe attached to the (painted) hoof. Please note that they do sell stars-and-stripes leg wraps for horses; this painting does not represent real flags wrapped around horses legs!

This image seems sadly appropriate: As you may have heard, a horse in the inaugural parade somehow managed to get his leg stuck in or under a parked truck. The Appaloosa was extriciated and ambulanced through the masses in downtown Washington. You can read the Humane Society of the United States's story about it at this link. It was a joint effort between the HSUS and other animal welfare agencies.

I know: my first thought was to question whether the horse was properly shod for the parade. I tried to find out in advance what advice had gone out to horsemen for preparing their horses' hooves for safety on the street. No one had any answers for me.

I know that ambulances and evacuation trailers were on hand, supplied by the HEART ambulance seen at so many east coast horse shows and three-day events, and the Days End Farm Equine Rescue Farm in Maryland. I am not sure who transported the horse, but I am so glad they were there.

A note to all the farriers and farrier organizations out there who read this blog: your skills with handling horses could be put to great use in the field of equine rescue and disaster relief. The HSUS and other agencies offer rescue training courses, and there are more formal programs and even certifications available, if you would like to be on call for stand-by at events or for disaster situations.

Helping staff and outfit a horse ambulance in your area is a great fundraiser goal for horse groups of all types, as well.

But if my horse was trapped upside down in a trailer or stranded on a hummock in the middle of a flood, I know that I would relax a tiny bit if I knew the person trying to help was a farrier who would have some sense of the horse's reflexes, and be able to assess a situation.

Many vets are already lined up in some sort of a network to help. I don't know who the state police calls when there's a wreck, or a horse falls down a hole, but the vets are already there. And could use a hand.

Another area where farriers can help is teaching local fire departments how to bandle horses in barn fire situations. And reminding owners to set up their barns so horses can be evacuated by firemen who don't know where halters and leadlines are kept (they should be hanging by each stall). Do you think the firemen in your town can put halters on horses in the dark?

President Obama called us all to action yesterday, and to serve. Perhaps with budget cuts to state and national programs, animal rescue training and fundraising is something we could all do to help.

That Appaloosa in Washington is certainly glad those trained personnel were on hand.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

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).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the 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.

Death Under the Palm Trees: Breakdowns at Santa Anita

The Los Angeles Times and Paulick Report blog startled me this morning with updates on the number of horses euthanized at California's Santa Anita racetrack since it opened the day after Christmas.

In less than three weeks, seven horses have been euthanized. No word on how many others have been injured.

People are accustomed to the shock and horror of horses breaking down during races, but the reality is that more horses break down during early morning training sessions, as was the case on Sunday when two horses had to be euthanized.

No mention of the deaths is made in the news section or horsemen's notes on Santa Anita's web site.

The beautiful racetrack outside Los Angleles switched from a dirt surface to synthetic last year and experienced maintenance nightmares that caused the entire surface to be replaced with an Australian surface called Pro-Ride. The 2008 Breeders Cup was run on the Pro-Ride strip when it had been tested for only a month during the track's Oak Tree meet but the championship races went off without any fatalities. The major California tracks have all switched to artificial racing surfaces.

Santa Anita re-opened for its traditional winter meet over Christmas.

California led the nation in legislating lower toe grabs for race horses, along with the switch to synthetic surfaces that normally don't require traction devices anyway. Both moves were part of a concerted effort to reduce breakdowns and improve the safety of racehorses.

Oddly enough, the documentary/reality television show Jockeys was filmed at Santa Anita during the first weeks of the Oak Tree meet. It tracks the working and private lives of seven Santa Anita jockeys as they work toward the Breeders Cup. Presumably, the show, which premieres February 6 on Animal Planet, will give some interesting insights into the surface and the safety issues that were on the minds of jockeys and exercise riders as they rode over an untested surface.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

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).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the 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.

Sunday Entertainment: Why Did Donald Duck Have the Blacksmith Blues?

by Fran Jurga | 18 January 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog 

 

Welcome to a lost classic of hoofcare humor, this time from our friends in Hollywood.

If you scroll through the blog, you will see that Popeye and Spike Jones have been featured in previous articles. The Popeye video made the Top Ten of all-time viewed stories on this blog. 

While all three videos were made during World War II, let's move ahead to the post-war era and see how Hollywood could have used horseshoeing as a crossover way to get people to laugh, by adding popular music.

This Sunday, it's Walt Disney, Himself. A very old Donald Duck cartoon has been overdubbed with the classic recording of The Blacksmith Blues by Ella Mae Morse, a vocalist who was discovered in Texas in 1939. She was just 14 years old when she ran away and joined Jimmy Dorsey's band and later, Nelson Riddle's orchestra.

Here are the lyrics:

Down in old Kentucky
Where horseshoes are lucky
There's a village smithy standin' under a chestnut tree
Hear the hammer knockin'
See the hammer rockin'
He sings the boogie blues while he's hammerin' on the shoes
See the hot sparks a-flyin'
Like Fourth of July-in'
He's even got the horses cloppin', pop! down the avenue
Folks love the rhythm
The clang-bangin' rhythm
You'll get a lot o' kicks out of the Blacksmith Blues...

The Blacksmith's Blues was probably Ella Mae's biggest hit and most important recording. She's hailed in the annals of rock 'n roll as being a trailblazer for Elvis Presley and other 1950s rockers because she was one of the first white performers to record what would have been exclusively African-American music. And she did it on a major record label, Capitol Records.

Danny Ward, owner of Danny Ward's Horseshoeing School in Martinsville, Virginia, has the original sheet music to "The Blacksmith's Blues". He handed this treasure to me once, thinking that I'd be able to belt it out on the piano for him the next day, but it was a little tough for me. I'm still plunking it out but now that I have heard Ella Mae, I understand the syncopation a little better. I should have known this song would have a special (and familiar) rhythm!

Thanks, Ella Mae and Walt Disney.

Click here to view the original 1942 Donald Duck cartoon "The Village Smithy".

Click here for the full 1952 recording of Ella Mae Morse singing "The Blacksmith's Blues".

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New York Court Rules That Racetrack Horse Dentists Need Not Be Veterinarians

by Fran Jurga | 17 January 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

UPDATE: Click here for a new link to new information on this story, thanks to a more in-depth article in Sunday's Saratogian newspaper by Paul Post.

The Daily Racing Form reported this morning that an appellate court in New York has upheld a 2007 ruling by the Nassau County Supreme Court that horse dentists should be considered providers of routine care of horses similar to blacksmith and groom duties and that a veterinary license should not be required.

Click here to read the brief announcement in the Daily Racing Form, as provided by the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

The lawsuit lists the state wagering board as the plaintiff; the Board had appealed the earlier Supreme Court decision, which stemmed from the banning of a dentist from a racetrack.

Presumably, this decision applies to the the state board's jurisdiction at racetracks. It's not clear if this decision affects how the state's veterinary medicine practice act might be interpreted off the premises of the state's racetracks.


© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission. You only need to ask.

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).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the 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.

A Great Wooden Smithy Doorway Opens into the 17th Century Claverdon Forge in Warwickshire, England

Claverdon Forge is yet another British smithy with a horseshoe shaped door, although this one is the most rustic and broad-toed one I've seen. It's wooden rather than stonework, but it's still there. This type of construction is called "half timber". And it looks cozy in there!