Fran Jurga`s Hoofcare + Lameness

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Familiar Feet in the Derby Week Crowd?

by Fran Jurga | 30 April 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

The Onion website is reporting that 2008 Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown has come out of retirement and will look great in a pinstripe sheet as an ESPN commentator for Saturday's pre-race coverage. The same publication announced a year ago that the same Mr. Brown signed a $90 million athletic shoe endorsement with Nike. Humor is The Onion's business and they do it (and Photoshop) very well. I think they miss Big Brown almost as much as I do.

© 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.

Double click on cover image for a larger view of the artwork.

Kentucky Derbies Past: Shoe Your Own Derby Winner

Meshach Tenney at the stalljack in Swaps's stall before the 1955 Kentucky Derby. For the uninitiated, Tenney is shaping the heel of an aluminum raceplate in an indentation on a tool called a stalljack, which is a very lightweight replacement for an anvil that has a stake on the end and can be driven into the floor of a stall or shedrow. I didn't know they had them back then; they are very much in use today. Raceplates still come in boxes like the one you see in the straw, and farriers use tool boxes somewhat like the one in the foreground, but more likely in aluminum.

The year was 1955 and a young Mormon horseshoer/trainer/owner from out of the west threw down his bedroll and his shoeing tools in the straw of a stall on the backside of America's most famous racetrack. Meshach Tenney had come to do a job: to take care of his horse and to make sure it won the Kentucky Derby.

Perhaps the most famous and dominant racehorse ever to come out of California, Swaps was another of the great champions who was plagued by foot problems. He developed an infection in the sole of his right front foot after he won the San Vincente Stakes in January of his three-year-old year. Tenney made a leather pad for him--unheard of for a racehorse at the time--and in spite of the layup, sent him out to win the Santa Anita Derby as his only Kentucky Derby prep race.

An ultra-fit chestnut trained by Tenney's scientific principles, Swaps came east to challenge the royally-bred pride-of-the-East, the mighty Nashua, trained by Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons for Belair Stud. It was Seabiscuit vs War Admiral, East vs West all over again.

Just before leaving for the paddock, Tenney looked at the skies and added calks to Swaps' shoes as lightning crackled through the post parade and spooked the horses. But the biggest lightning was inside his horse with the padded and calked foot, who led almost the entire race before drawing away from the best horse in the East.

They hadn't even thought to nominate the horse for the other Triple Crown races. The two former cowboys who owned him thought only as far ahead as winning the Kentucky Derby and giving ten percent of the winnings to their church.

That night, Tenney rewarded himself by sleeping in the backseat of a car instead of in the stall with his horse.

Later that year, Nashua beat Swaps in a match race, but Swaps had re-injured his foot the day before. One observer said, "He was so sore he didn't know where to put that foot down." Swaps underwent hoof surgery after the race.

Tenney was smart to keep his shoeing tools close at hand; Swaps was plagued with foot problems throughout his career. From the vague way that reports are written, it sounds like he had recurrent sole abscesses in the same foot, but it is hard to be sure. At four, he popped a quarter crack in the same foot. He earned the nickname "The California Cripple", but he kept coming back.

Later in his career, Swaps was in training at Garden State Race Track when he suffered one of the most highly-publicized broken legs in horseracing history. Like a foreshadowing of the Barbaro saga to come, Swaps was diagnosed with what was then called dual linear fractures of his cannon bone in one hind leg. He was fitted with a cast, but hated it, and kicked his stall's wall, making the fracture worse. A more involved cast with metal rods extending under the foot was built for him.

Swaps was insured for $1 million, so there was a lot at stake. A sling was rigged in his stall and Swaps was hung from the ceiling for six weeks. Oddly enough, the sling was loaned to Tenney by his arch-rival, Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, the trainer of Nashua. Probably thanks in large part to Tenney's hands-on care and companionship, Swaps never suffered any ill effects from being nonweightbearing for so long. He walked out of the sling and was shipped home to California, where he began his stud career.

Thanks to the annals of Sports Illustrated and The Blood-Horse, which were used in compiling this hoof-centric account of Swaps' career. Both photos are from Life Magazine's coverage of the 1955 Kentucky Derby.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Black Bag Vet: ESPN Writer Follows the Races, Pens the Tragic Final Furlong As Seen Through Vet's Eyes

by Fran Jurga | 29 April 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

We're well into Derby Week now and I think the 135th Kentucky Derby will go down in history as the one with the most words written about it. And they're the same words written over and over, just to appear in different places: in newspapers, in magazines, on blogs, on web sites, on Facebook and this year we're also writing them on Twitter, the 2009 phenomenon of internet communication that squashes your message to the world into a 140-character one-liner.

Everyone is racing to be the first to tell you who has scratched (or, in my case, who has cracked) or which jockey has switched horses but no one that I have read seems to be putting much effort into great writing.

No one except someone I found tonight.

I hope Seth Wickersham wins an Eclipse Award for his article in this week's ESPN Magazine. In The Final Furlong, he rides along with veterinarian Lauren Canady as she trails the field in the first race at The Fair Grounds in New Orleans. He witnesses a catastrophic breakdown immediately.

Wickersham's attention to detail is admirable, as is his historical research into the transition from death by gunshot to death by pink syringe...and why many veterinarians wish that a gunshot was still the way to go.

Veterinarians have been getting a bad rap lately. Most of the vets I know work very hard and do care about horses, and they care very much. The job of the track regulatory vet on a week day at the racetrack is so far from the romantic dream of a high school girl who wants to go to vet school to save all the beautiful horses that it makes a perfect premise for a narrative magazine article during Derby week.

When the idealistic girl grows up and carries a pink syringe between her manicured nails, the story takes on quite an edge.

Unfortunately, it is also true, and a real racehorse died that day.

I don't think that this story is anti-racing. It will take you somewhere at the track that you would otherwise never go and it may help you see the track vets in a new light.

We need more stories like Seth's, and fewer Tweets. A horse's life--or, in this case, death--just doesn't fit into 140 characters.

Click here to read The Final Furlong. It should also be on the newsstands by now, as it is in the May 4 edition of ESPN Magazine.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Quality Road's Derby Withdrawal: What Did Others Do?

by Fran Jurga | 27 April 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

For better or worse, quarter cracks have altered the course of horse racing history. Fortunes have been won and lost because of them. Many top breeding stallions have been plagued by them, and their progeny repeat their sires' painful steps.

This quarter crack on a horse about to undergo treatment at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine is atypical in that it affects the lateral ("outside") hoof wall of a horse instead of the medial ("inside") wall. Trace the crack to the coronet and you will see that it follows a line of general stress that is not exactly parallel with the hoof angle.

While most people focus on the larger part of the crack, toward the ground surface as it widens, the area of focus for judging the success of any treatment will be the barely visible origin of the crack at the hairline.

Florida Derby winner Quality Road sported a new patch on his new quarter crack when he galloped on Sunday, and plans called for a serious work today (Monday) at his home track of Belmont Park in New York before shipping to Louisville for Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

He stayed in his stall this morning: not a good sign.

Quarter crack specialist Ian McKinlay called on Sunday to say that he was disappointed that the crack's location, right at the hairline, meant that when he inserted the drain and tightened the sutures before applying the patch, there was a tiny drop of blood at the hairline.

“This is live tissue – we’re not changing a flat tire, so there are a lot of judgment calls," McKinlay told The Hoof Blog by phone. “Everything had been stabilized and when I changed the wires today, the crack opened up. There was a bit of sensitive tissue aggravated during the process. Hopefully, there won’t be a tinge of blood tomorrow (Monday) when he breezes.”

Trainer Jimmy Jerkens said Sunday that he was planning to treat the hoof with “Thrush Buster” as a drying agent and also with Animalintex poultice. “He’s got 24 hours to get better,” said Jerkens on Sunday. “I would have liked to have seen no blood, but it didn’t surprise me because he was still tender. He’s sound, he galloped the way he usually does, but I would have been more optimistic without blood.”

When Monday rolled around, the stall door did not open wide. No big colt came striding out.

Before you write this colt off, read your history. Today's leading sire A. P. Indy sat out both the 1992 Kentucky Derby and Preakness while recovering from a quarter crack, which popped the day before the Derby, and came back to win the much longer Belmont Stakes and Breeders Cup before entering stud.

And who could forget another leading sire, Unbridled's Song, whose owner (the now infamous Ernie Paragallo, currently accused of neglecting almost 200 horses on his farm in upstate New York), sent his colt to the post in the 1996 Kentucky Derby in spite of a quarter crack and bar shoe, only to have him finish fifth. Unbridled's Song missed the Preakness and the Belmont.

And don't forget one of the most underrated racehorses in American history: the great three-year-old campaign of Buckpasser, who won 14 stakes races with a gaping quarter crack that was often unpatched.

The crack did keep him out of the Triple Crown, but he came back to win the Travers...and everything else. I think he won something like 14 stakes races in quick succession, within a year, in spite of his re-cracking hoof. His jockey, Braulio Baeza, said he ran on his heart, not his hooves.

Buckpasser's three-year-old quarter crack was infected; the Phipps Stable brought in Standardbred quarter crack expert Joe Grasso to patch him and the crack recurred when he was four.

Buckpasser is one of the most interesting horses, hoof-wise, in recent American history. The Phipps Stables is said to have tested experimental European raceplates on him. He retired with a record of 31-25-4-1. That's right: he started 31 times in three years, almost all of which were stakes races.

In 1964, Northern Dancer (who looms in Quality Road's pedigree) won the Flamingo and Florida Derby prep races, as well as the Derby, while recovering from a quarter crack, but the crack would have been quite grown out by the Derby. Northern Dancer wore the vulcanized patch by Bill Bane at Santa Anita.

Just to muddy this whole situation, a horse can have a quarter crack, a Quarter Crack, or a QUARTER CRACK. It sounds like Quality Road has a quarter crack, but it is in a very sensitive spot, and his decisionmakers aren't taking any chances.

That translates to one less reason to hold your breath for two minutes on Saturday.

And that's ok.

Read The Hoof Blog's 2008 article on the history of quarter crack patches and horses who benefited from them.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Quality Road: Another Quarter Crack in the Road to the Derby

Tell me it isn't true: just when you thought it was safe to make him the favorite without an asterisk, top Kentucky Derby contender Quality Road has popped another quarter crack, this time in his right front.

Ian McKinlay reported on April 23 that he will be patching the new crack, which he says is minor, probably on Saturday, after suturing it today. The foot has been soaked and poulticed. The poultice was pulled on Friday morning, Ian said, after being applied to draw out any infection before the patch is applied. He will lace it with sutures later today. The same procedure will be used on the front foot that was used on the hind, which includes suture-lacing and an embedded drain covered by a patch.

Quality Road has had a quarter crack in his right hind foot for the past 26 days; the first crack opened during or immediately after his record-setting win in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream on March 28. The crack was patched in Florida and then dried out and re-patched with a drain when the colt returned to Belmont Park in New York under the care of trainer Jimmie Jerkens. Recently he has been training well and looked solid; plans are to ship him to Kentucky to race in the Kentucky Derby on May 2.

As of this morning, no announcement had been made to scratch the horse from the Kentucky Derby. Ian said he thought the horse would be able to make the race, based on other cases he has worked on.

Ian remarked again on the immense size of the three-year-old colt. "I'm six-three, and I look just barely over this horse's butt," he said. "And he's wearing a size five. He's a very, very big horse with a small foot."

That comment brought to mind a section on Ian's new video, From the Ground Up, which includes interviews with many trainers and horseshoers about foot problems and quarter cracks. Bob Baffert talks about the curse of the size-five foot, but then says with satisfaction that War Emblem was an example of a small-footed horse that overcame it and won the Kentucky Derby.

Click here to read several previous articles from earlier this month about Quality Road's quarter cracks.

Click here for the April 6th account of Ian McKinlay's work on the hind foot quarter crack.

Note: From the Ground Up is premiering for sale during Derby week and can be ordered through the Hoof Blog. This 3.5 hour, 2-DVD set includes interviews with top trainers and riders from most disciplines including (to mention a few) Thoroughbred trainers Baffert, D. Wayne Lukas, and Richard Mandella, Standardbred driver John Campbell, Dressage rider Betsy Steiner, Reiner Bryant Pace, Hunter Rider Havens Schott, Jumpers Ian Millar and Anne Kursinski, Quarter Horse Halter Exhibitior Ted Turner, Veterinarians John Steele and Alan Donnell, and Farriers Dwight Sanders, Jim Bayes, Hank Joseph, Tom Curl, and Doyle Blagg.

The DVD covers the problems trainers have with hooves and the possible ways for trainers and farriers and veterinarians to each use expertise to aid in improving the horse's chances for soundness. Advanced cases of wall separations, white line diseases, quarter cracks, sheared heels and conformational problems are shown and some cases are reviewed with advanced treatment, and prevention is discussed.

The DVD set is $50 plus $5 post in USA, $12 post elsewhere; Visa and MasterCard accepted. To order call 978 281 3222 or email HoofcareDVD@hoofcare.com.

© 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.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Economic Impact: Brits Cancel Plan to Move International Team Farrier Competition

by Fran Jurga | 23 April 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Great Britain's National Association of Farriers, Blacksmiths and Agricultural Engineers (NAFBAE) announced this week that it was cancelling previously-announced plans to move and expand the International Team Horseshoeing Competition.

NAFBAE had planned to move the famous event, to be held on 27-30 August 2009, to the Aintree Equestrian Centre near Liverpool.

Richard Hurcomb, NAFBAE president, blames economic concerns for the decision to keep the event at its long-time home with the roaring forges at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire, England. “Whilst I am disappointed that we have had to postpone our plans to develop the ‘International’, I believe that to continue to try and do so in the present economic climate will put unnecessary pressure on our supporters and the organizing team," he said.

(News courtesy of NAFBAE)