Rockin' Gooseneck Shoe: Dr Ric Redden Helps a Foundered Belgian Mare in Florida

(edited from a longer article received as a press release)

On May 23, 2008, a Belgian mare named Princess was saved from going to slaughter. She went home from the kill auction with Victoria McCullough of the Triumph Project, a horse rescue program in Loxahatchee, Florida. The Triumph Project rehabilitates and rehomes slaughter-bound horses purchased at auctions, particularly the one in Sugarcreek, Ohio.

It did not take long for Victoria to find the problem with Princess, who had a severe rotation in her front hooves as a result of the disease of laminitis.

Months later, Victoria asked the question "Have we done all we can?" She put out calls for experts who might be able to help Princess. She told Dr. Mike Gerard, "I need an answer, I can deal with whatever it is, but I need to know an answer." Dr. Gerard's answer was three words: "Dr. Ric Redden".

Dr. Redden owns the International Equine Podiatry Center (IEPC) in Versailles, Kentucky, and is a leading laminitis consulting veterinarian and pathmaker in new treatments for laminitis in horses.

That was last Wednesday. Within eight hours of her telephone call, Dr. Redden arrived at Victoria's farm to help Princess.

Quotes about the procedure from the Triumph Project's press release:

"Dr. Redden evaluated Princess and her x-rays, then went to work designing a set of shoes called Aluminum Rock and Road Rail Shoes with a Gooseneck. These shoes will allow the pressure to be taken off of the tendon with the mechanical movement of the shoe.

"The shoe was fabricated by cutting a rail shoe in half, fabricating the gooseneck out of plate aluminum, then riveting and welding the three parts together. When the shoe was applied to the hoof it touched the foot at the heels and the hoof wall, alleviating the pressure on the toe and quarters.

"The shoe was attached to the foot using e-head nails in a sole nailing procedure. The gooseneck was attached using Phillips head screws. Adhere (urethane-based adhesive) and hoof putty were applied to the gap in the quarters. This shoeing application allows the navicular bone free from pressure so that the lamina can heal. This should have a positive effect on the now negative angle of the navicular bone. When the procedure was complete radiographs were taken of the hoof. Princess will be re-shod in approximately six weeks.

"Kelly McGee, a local (farrier) was called and immediately arrived at Victoria's farm to assist Dr. Redden; some of the local equine-specialist veterinarians also attended. According to Brad Gaver of Pure Thoughts Inc., who is also a farrier, "It was a a privilege to be able to observe and learn from such an out-of-the-box and free-thinking individual who wants to share his knowledge for the benefit of all horses."

What's next for Princess? Jennifer Swan, director of the non-profit, says that Princess is doing well, a week after the initial shoeing. "She is a little more comfortable every day," she said on January 28th . "Dr Redden had digital xrays done on Saturday and sent up to him so he can make a mold and design the next shoe. His plan is to design a shoe that does not need to be nailed in."

Note to readers: This video shows only highlights of the procedure and hints at the shoe design and application. Heel nailing and screwing goosenecks into backed-up toes is a procedure only for the most skilled laminitis experts to attempt. Precise radiographs are required. The video does not go into details about diagnostic tests such as venograms that may have been performed before the filming began. This video is posted here only to show how Dr. Redden helped this horse; he might treat another horse very differently. The hope is that checking in with Dr. Redden on a case like this will be valuable to people who need to know about new options for laminitis. This is not a "how-to" video!

Thanks to Dr Redden, Kelly McGhee and the Triumph Project for cooperating in the work on Princess and for sharing this video. Special thanks to Jennifer Swanson of Pure Thoughts Horse & Foal Rescue.

© 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.

EBay Fundraiser: How Much Is a Horseshoe Off the Injured Inaugural Parade Horse Worth?

What will people pay for a dirty horseshoe? We'll find out soon. (Amy Manning photo)

Last week was a tough one for horses and horseshoes. When an Appaloosa named Mouse held up the Inaugural Parade for an hour while he was being extricated from a bumper-mounted winch that he somehow stuck his leg into, people were calling for horses to be banned from future parades. (The incident happened even before the parade began.)

The next thing that I heard was that the incident happened because he was shod with steel shoes. Had he been barefoot, I was told, he would not have slipped and fallen.

Photos showed the horse down on the ground with his hind legs up in the air, but these pictures were taken only after he was sedated, so that the SUV's bumper could be dismantled.

In earlier photos, the horse is standing stock still, with his hind leg caught between the winch and the bumper. This smart Appaloosa did not struggle or panic.

Brooke Vrany of Days End Farm Horse Rescue was on hand with the farm's ambulance and the horse was vanned off with a police and veterinary escort.

I thought this story was over, but it's not.

Enter the horse's owner, who was not, in this case, the rider. Amy Manning gave lots of background about her horse and the incident; her story matches Brooke's: Mouse backed up, encountered the winch on the bumper of the SUV and kicked back at it. When his leg was trapped, he waited for the vets, in this case, two US Army Veterinary Corps practitioners.

It turns out Mouse is a veteran of many parades and had stayed calm during a helicopter landing earlier in the day.

One reason Mouse stayed on his feet may have been that his shoes were liberally sprinkled with Borium. Without it, they would have been slippery on the pavement, it's true.

And tonight, Mouse's shoes have been pulled by his regular farrier, John Haven of Henderson, Maryland, and they are not hanging on a fence. Not laying on a tack trunk. Not bouncing around in the back of John's truck.

They're on eBay.

Amy Manning is very grateful to Brooke Vrany and Days End Farm Horse Rescue for the expertise that Brooke brought to the scene, and for their professionalism in spiriting the horse off through a crowd estimated at two million.

Days End Farm's ambulance and crew were at the parade site as volunteers, and received no compensation for their time or services, as is often the case when they attend to horses at the bottom of a ditch or crashed through the ice into a pond.

So the shoes that helped keep Mouse on his feet while he kept the new President of the United States waiting can be yours, and the money will go to Days End Farm Horse Rescue.

The shoes, by the way, are St Croix Xtras, and both the owner and the farrier reported that all the horsemen in the parade were given a manual for preparation, which included the requirement that every horse must be shod on all four feet with steel shoes and Borium or a similar hard-facing for traction. As you can see in the photo, Mouse's shoe has puddles on the toe and big nuggets on his heels.

Amy added another point of order from the rule book: she had to sign a release saying that she gave permission for her horse to be euthanized without warning in the event of a mishap during the parade.

One of the shoes has already had 12 bids and the auction only began today. A third shoe will be added tonight, and Amy will keep the fourth for her own memento.

I think one of them would look great hanging in the White House. Or your house!

Click here to view the first shoe and its eBay auction.

Click here to view the second shoe and its eBay auction.

Click here to view a news video showing Mouse recovering at the Days End Farm Equine Rescue Center in Maryland.

Click here to view the Days End Farm account of the mishap and learn more about their rescue operations. Days End works only with law enforcement cases and takes in only horses taken from owners, not those voluntarily surrendered. Its equine ambulance and emergency rescue service is active in teaching equine rescue and handling, as well as being out there on the front lines.

If you are not the eBay type and would like to send a donation, mail your check to Days End Farm Horse Rescue, Attn: Inaugural Parade Thank You, P.O. Box 309, Lisbon, Maryland 21765 USA.

© 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.

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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