Hoof Research Road Show Premieres This Weekend: Pollitt-Hampson Laminitis and Wild Horse Hooves Headline in Australia

by Fran Jurga | 7 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Dr. Pollitt is known for his hoof-related research but part of his ability to get people to listen is his dazzling imagery. These images are from a series of CT scans of a foot. (©Chris Pollitt/AELRU image)

A couple of weeks ago, there was a street scene here in Boston that was wilder than anything since the Red Sox won the World Series. U2 was in the town. That's not so unusual in itself--the band might play Fenway Park or some other huge venue and sell it out for three or four nights of legendary concerts.

But this was different. They secretly booked a tiny concert hall in the suburb of Somerville.

I can remember, vaguely, that the Rolling Stones did something similar years ago. They wanted to play a small, intimate little theater where they could see the audience and judge how the music was received.

The same thing is going on this weekend in the southern end of Australia, where Dr. Chris Pollitt and his PhD candidate assistant Brian Hampson are quietly opening a new series of lectures on laminitis and hoof research. They'll be at the University of Melbourne Friday, and in Tasmania Sunday.

Dr. Pollitt's been lecturing about laminitis for years, but his work now has the added synergy of the brumby (wild horse) research component, which in turn has been energized by some out-of-the-box thinking about domestic vs wild horses that will have all of us scratching our heads when we finally hear these lectures.

Dr. Pollitt's model foot begins with a MIMICS image, created in collaboration with Dr Simon Collins, Animal Health Trust, Newmarket, UK

There were gasps of apprehension when Dr. Pollitt stepped down as professor at the University of Queensland vet school, but the research world was pleased. Freedom from teaching would surely allow him to dedicate full time to his directorship of the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit, the world's leading center for laminitis research at the University of Queensland.

To everyone's surprise, something else happened. In addition to charging forward on the laminitis front with a collaboration with the Laminitis Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, he started a second research center, the brumby unit, designed to study the hooves of Australian wild horses so that he could finally come to understand how a normal foot is supposed to function.

For years, Dr Pollitt has said that his hands have been tied in laminitis research because he is trying to understand a disease mechanism in the foot without being able to compare it to the normal functioning foot because we simply don't have a good model of the normal foot.

So Pollitt and his research associate, Brian Hampson, and most recently with sidekick American veterinarian Dr. Donald Walsh of Missouri, have been trekking through the outback of Australia studying wild horses in wet, dry, rocky, sandy and even flooded terrain. They watch, they film, they tag, they camp, they bring volunteer research assistants, and they've collect data--volumes of it, none of which has been shared except in tantalizing tidbits until now.

Donald Walsh DVM of Missouri, president of the Animal Health Foundation in Pacific, Missouri, has been conducting laminitis research in Australia but rode out on brumby research expeditions with Pollitt and Hampson. Walsh has been studying wild horse feet in the USA; the Animal Health Foundation helps fund Pollitt's laminitis research. (Brumby Research Unit Photo)

Marg Richardson, a research team member of the Australian Brumby Research Unit, is one of the hosts for the lecturers this weekend and has organized the warmup tour.

She is particularly excited to be introducing Brian Hampson in his first official speaking tour. At the Australian Brumby Research Unit, Hampson is undertaking world-leading research by capturing and sedating brumbies, attaching GPS collars, tracking their movement and then recording the relevant data for herd groups. This includes what they are eating, the condition of their hooves and how much they are moving.

One of the marketing projects launched by the Australian Brumby Research Unit is making freeze-dried brumby feet available to other researchers.

Maybe, it turns out, to understand a lot about hooves we need to learn to a little bit about behavior. “Never has the saying of ‘No Foot No Horse’ been more obvious, when you see how much these horses move,” Hampson says. “We have tracked the movement of domestic horses in a variety of settings from the racing environment (to) five-acre paddocks (and) up to 10,000 acre paddocks to see the variation of movement and it has been quite staggering. Old brood mares turned out in paddocks are moving more over a 24-hour period than our elite race horses."

Dr. Pollitt's presentations will center on using computed tomography imagery to share the inside view of what happens to the hoof in laminitis and other hoof diseases, compared to normal hooves. Digital images from the CT scans, arranged in 3-D will also allow manipulation of the model to observe whatever tissue is of interest. Models will be shown for laminitis, side bone and normal feet.

A world tour is planned, of course; Dr Pollitt plans to speak at the 5th International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida, to be held November 6-8. See you there.

It sounds like Brian Hampson is ready for a world tour of his own.

I am not positive that places are still open in the lectures, but you can inquire. Please email Marg Richardson or phone (in Australia) 64 272255 or 0419 572255. Click here for a press release and links to flyers from the Equine Veterinarians Australia web site.

To learn more, visit both The Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit and the Australian Brumby Research Unit.

© 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.

Laminitis: Obese Horses and Ponies in Greater Danger

by Fran Jurga | 7 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

A British study has examined the factors that affect the likelihood of recovery from grass-related laminitis, and concluded that obese horses are more likely to die.

In the study, members of the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) documented cases over four years and found that when overweight horses develop grass-related laminitis, they tend to have more severe signs than those of optimal weight.

Reporting on the study conclusions, principal investigator and veterinary surgeon Celia Marr said “When (grass-related) laminitis does occur, overweight animals are more likely to die of the disease than their thinner counterparts. The animals with the best outcome tended to be those that had received acepromazine, a drug that improves the blood supply to the feet and relaxes the animal."

Marr's advice to horse owners: "Horse owners and vets are encouraged to ensure that horses and ponies are not allowed to become excessively fat as this can have a significant effect on their health, as we have seen in this study.”

Summary points of the study:

1. 107 cases of acute pasture-associated laminitis were recruited from first-opinion veterinary practices to study factors associated with clinical severity, survival and return to ridden exercise.

2. Of the horses in the study, 83 percent were overweight and there was a trend towards severe laminitis cases having a higher Body Mass Index (BMI).

3. Eight weeks after disease onset, 95% were alive.

4. Lower body weight, optimal body condition, mild rather than severe laminitis and acute/chronic founder were significantly associated with survival.

5. The clinical outcome was judged by a panel of three veterinarians as good in 72% of cases.

6. The clinical outcome was significantly associated with horse type; outcome was bad in none of the small horses compared with 34.1 percent of large ponies/cobs, 32.4 percent of small ponies and 30.0 percent of large horses.

The study was sponsored by the British Veterinary Association Animal Welfare Foundation (BVA AWF) and Merial Animal Health.

Hoof Blog note: Please remember that this study relates only to horses with pasture-type laminitis. There are several types of laminitis and perhaps one thing this study does is accentuate the differences in expectations that horse owners may have in their horses' recovery chances.

© 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.

Best of 2009: Mini-Documentary Records a Farrier's Reflection on His Career Choice

29 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com Note: get ready for a "Best of 2009" blog-a-thon over the next few days! Some special stories and media will be posted to celebrate the end of a great year and a landmark for The Hoof Blog and Hoofcare & Lameness! It's the end of the year, and the end of a decade. The urge to put an end on things, and to wrap them up in tidy packages, is irresistible. To reflect, to rebuild, to re-evaluate. Today I'd like to share a video that I've been saving for the end of the year, because it does all those things. You might want to watch it more than once. The first time I watched it, I was distracted by the horses, the tools, the hoof, the truck, and especially the dogs. I missed a lot of what Joel said, and that's the important part of this video. Joel Sheiman is a farrier, and glad of it. You can tell he's thought it over, and in this short documentary-style film, the California farrier thinks it over again, out loud. Many, many videos about farriers pass through this office. Almost all are third-person accounts, presenting the contemporary farrier as an interesting anomaly, a blast from the past, a man (or woman) of steel, or a whisperer to horses. We get to see videos of the oldest, the youngest, the shoers of famous horses or the farriers at famous farms. Rarely do the farriers in those videos get to say more than a few disjointed sentences edited from a longer interview. The videos pump up the audio of hammers hitting steel, sizzling shoes, neighing horses. You are there! but you never really got to know the star of the show. How different, then, is this video, where the farrier does all the talking. If he seems relaxed in front of the camera, it may be because the videographer was his son, Danny, who made this little documentary during his classwork as a film major at the University of California at Santa Cruz. What are you reflecting on during these last days of 2009? Was the year all you expected? What (or whom) did you lose and what (or whom) did you gain? What choices did you make, and would you make them again? You have a chance to start fresh on Saturday; what are your plans and dreams for 2010? What would you say if someone switched on the microphone in front of you now, the way Danny did to Joel? Joel Sheiman lives in Orinda, (outside Berkeley) California, and shoes everyday with his assistant of eight years, Alvaro Pelayo. Since this video was made, Joel's dog Nora was injured; sadly, the dogs aren't traveling with him to shoe horses while she recovers. If you click on the "YouTube" logo on the video screen, you can watch this video in "high quality" mode, and in a larger format. (Thanks, Danny and Joel!) © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, 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 Rest: Benjamin Franklin Talbert Shod the First Winner of the Triple Crown

by Fran Jurga | 5 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

An anvil marks the grave of someone named Benjamin Franklin Talbert in Pennville, Indiana. In case you are having trouble reading the lettering it says "Here lies an old horse shoer. Maybe not the best, but as good as the rest." (Daniel Lillard photo.)

Before the 2009 Kentucky Derby recedes in our memories (well, not much chance of that), I'd like to remind readers of my desire to construct a list of horseshoers who shod Kentucky Derby winners. If you know who shod which winner, please send an email to hoofblog@gmail.com. Any help would be wonderful--do not assume that I already know the obvious ones.

All that is by way of introducing today's photo. It's a pretty unique gravestone that you will find if you snoop around the cemetery in Pennville, Indiana. Thanks to Pennville's super historian, and my fellow blogger, Daniel Lillard, I can share some information about this grave with you.

The anvil and its self-effacing plaque mark the grave of Benjamin Franklin Talbert, a Pennville native who started out learning to shoe horses there in the 1880s, when he was paid a dollar a day. But Talbert thought he could do better, and lit out for the Oklahoma oil territory, where he met a rich oilman who needed someone to shoe his racehorses.

If Talbert wanted to see the world, he got his wish. He started to tour on the racetrack circuit from Cuba to Canada--and everywhere in between--for the next 30 years. Eventually he landed the job as the contract farrier for the stable of Joseph E. Widener, the wealthy art collector who owned Belmont Park and was the developer of the winter racing mecca at Hialeah in Florida.

Talbert shod the great racehorse Sir Barton, who was the very first winner of the Triple Crown, back in 1919; Sir Barton was yet another of those great racehorses troubled by sore feet. There's an excellent description of Sir Barton's brittle hoof walls and shelly feet in the wonderful book Man o' War by our friend Dorothy Ours. She did some thorough research and said that Talbert used piano felt to line Sir Barton's shoes but that they still wouldn't stay on and often flew off during races.

He also shod Zev, the winner of the 1923 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. The list of stakes winners he shod goes on and on. Widener's stable and his Elmendorf Farm in Kentucky were world-renowned.

During World War II, two events happened that must have deeply affected Talbert. First his employer Widener died, so he may have technically been out of a job; then the US government closed all the racetracks in support of the war effort. A government memo suggested that the horseshoers would be well-suited to work in welding shops and shipyards; they were better off than than the jockeys, who were urged to enlist for duty in the noses of bomber planes, where their small size would make them an asset.

So Talbert, who was getting on in years anyway, moved home to Pennville in 1944, and opened a blacksmithing and welding shop where he worked until his death in 1959.

Oh, the stories I bet he could tell in that little town. Now all that's left is an anvil in the ground, a man who has lived all over Europe and remembers it in a blog he writes about growing up in Indiana, and a hoof blog that is trying to find people like Benjamin Franklin Talbert.

If you go: Pennville is a town of 700 people in Jay County, Indiana. Click here to read Daniel's excellent blog about the little town that has never really left him, though he has traveled far and wide, much like Benjamin Franklin Talbert. Will Daniel ever find his way home again? I guess I'll have to keep reading his blog to find out.

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© 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).  Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to hoofblog@gmail.com.

Holy Horseshoes! Bob Baffert's Bold Backstretch Blacksmith Burn-On

by Fran Jurga | 4 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

"Hey, dude, you're setting my horse's foot on fire!" Trainer Bob Baffert watched closely as Tom Doolan hot-seated Pioneerof the Nile's feet before the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. The horse finished second. For a bigger view of this photo, double-click on the image.

Needless to say, this is a story that racing fans would read only on the Hoof Blog.

Bob Baffert must have been holding his breath Saturday morning as he watched horseshoer Tom Doolan hotseating Pioneerof the Nile's hooves before nailing on new shoes for the Kentucky Derby.

In case you are not familiar with this process: "Hot seating" is as old as the hills...or maybe older, but you don't see it much around the racetrack anymore. When pleasure horses are shod with heavier steel shoes, the shoes are still heated in a forge and shaped and reflattened to fit the foot.

Then, before nailing on, the hot shoe is held against the trimmed foot to make sure that the foot is trimmed flat and that the shoe has been hammered flat and that everything is where the shoer wants it. Along the way, some shoers notice that the feet that are "burnt on" tended to be healthier and there are actually some studies going on to see what is the optimum time to hold the hot shoe against the foot.

You can't heat up an aluminum race plate so Baffert's farrier, Massachusetts native Tom Doolan, used Dan Burke's forge to heat a steel shoe to use for the hot seating of Pioneerof the Nile's feet, then he just nailed on the cold aluminum plate.

Hot seating or fitting also causes a loud sizzle and then releases a plume of sulfurous smoke that has a special way of clinging to your hair and clothes: it's all very medieval and magical the first time you witness it! Bob Baffert has been around long enough to have witnessed it many times, but the sheriff's deputies and security guards who crowded around probably wondered why people wrinkled their noses at them the rest of the day.

Many shoers believe that a foot that has been hot-seated also holds a shoe better and that the process somehow seals the horn tubules and helps keep bacteria out of the hoof wall. Saturday's wet track conditions may have inspired Doolan, or weakened Baffert's resistance to allowing his very valuable horse's feet to be set almost set afire a few hours before the race. Or, it may have been Baffert's idea in the first place when he saw the weather report.

Note: Hot seating has nothing to do with any sort of a lameness condition; it is routinely done on sound horses perhaps even more often than on lame horses. There is no indication at all that anything is wrong with Pioneerof the Nile's feet, although we can't see his feet through the flames!

They say the Kentucky Derby is all about tradition, and this little ancient backstretch ritual certainly proved that.

Tom Broadus worked out of the Farrier Product Distribution vintage Chevrolet pickup with its state-of-the-art Stonewell farrier box body to prepare shoes for Papa Clem on Derby morning. The fully-equipped classic rig was parked at Churchill Downs for the week in case any of the visiting shoers needed help.

Thanks to Dan Burke for the photos!

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© 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.

Texas Horses at the Derby: The Club-Footed Comet Won the Triple Crown

by Fran Jurga | 3 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

On Wednesday, The Hoof Blog wrote about The California Cripple, a.k.a. Swaps, the winner of the 1955 Kentucky Derby. Today we'd like you to meet The Club-Footed Comet, the unflattering nickname for Assault, winner of the 1946 Kentucky Derby, and the entire Triple Crown.

Poor Assault was plagued with health problems and it almost seemed like his mashed up hoof was the least of them. But he was lucky enough to be born in Texas on the expansive King Ranch, where he would receive the best care and be sent to the great trainer Max Hirsch. Mr. Kleberg, owner of King Ranch, believed that his million acres of Texas was the ideal place to raise racehorses both because of the climate and because the feet could develop naturally.

According to the archives of the New York Times, Kleberg's theories of raising horses would be in line with the natural horsemanship theories of today. He did not think young horses' hooves would develop correctly if foals were kept in stalls. Unfortunately, the wide open spaces backfired on his most talented colt.

The story is that Assault stepped on a stake while turned out as a foal and that his foot was not actually deformed but that he did walk with a limp that would make you think he could never run. But run was about the only thing he could do. If Assault was around today he would probably never make it past the regulatory vet.

The nature of his injury is vague and radiographs were not available back in the 1940s, but perhaps he lost part of his coffin bone; it really could have been any sort of a traumatic injury. The official King Ranch biography of Assault tells us that the injury caused the foot to "become infected and the damaged hoof to be cut almost entirely away.

He wore a special shoe on that foot for the rest of his life and limped at a walk or a trot...It is incorrect to say that he was club-footed; when he was in a standing position, the misshapen foot showed no discernible defect."

One writer described the frog as looking like a block of wood. John Dern was Assault's horseshoer and it was always said that his shoe for Assault was a secret design, but it is described in the Assault's biography from the Blood-Horse's "Legends" book series as being nailed at the heels and having a very broad toe clip or perhaps even being a rockered toe, to aid in keeping the shoe on. No photos of the bottom of Assault's foot are ever shown; it's likely that the deformity showed loud and clear on the bottom, even if the hoof capsule looked pretty normal in shape and size.

Max Hirsch recalled, "He never showed any signs that it was hurting him... I think that when the foot still hurt him, he got in the habit of protecting it with an awkward gait, and then he kept it up. But he galloped true. There wasn't a thing wrong with his action when he went fast."

Assault had some unorthodox training under Hirsch, who took several months off from racing each winter and shipped his clients' horses to the fair grounds in Columbia, South Carolina for the winter. They stayed in training, but all had their shoes pulled. Whether he made an exception for Assault or not is not known.

Hirsch claimed that that particular training track had the best soil in America and that he had never seen a horse break down there. At that time, many northern trainers wintered at Aiken, Camden or Columbia while others ran horses year-round by wintering at Hialeah. Hirsch chose not to race in the winter. Hirsch said that none of the trainers at the Columbia track shod their horses but said shoes would be needed as soon as they returned to the sandy tracks of New York. The archives of the New York Times are full of great articles about Assault. Even his name suggests the upbeat end-of-the-war attitude and recent memories of any number of assaults in Italy, Normandy, the Pacific...and lots of places in between. Racing was shut down in the United States until VE day in 1945. Assault won the first post-war Kentucky Derby and for him to go on and win the Triple Crown was just what American sport needed. In August 1947, a match race worth $100,000 to the winner had to be cancelled between the also-timely-named Armed of Calumet Farm and Assault when Assault's foot pain flared up. Hirsch was quoted in the Times as saying, "The soreness developed in the foot that has been slightly deformed since Assault was a baby. Every time he is shod, it is like performing a delicate operation. It may be that the soreness is due to a nail that touches a tender spot in his hoof when I set him down for a hard effort. Under these circumstances it would not be fair to the public or to my great horse to run the match." Assault had fertility problems and returned to racing after his initial retirement, only to retire again. He ended his life as he began it, turned out in the wide open spaces of King Ranch in Texas and lived to be 28. Assault's biography is one of the most interesting and unusual you'll find. I wonder who has his shoes! To learn more: The photo of Assault is from the King Ranch web site, which has a nice biography of him and lots more information about the Ranch's champion horses, both Thoroughbreds and Quarter horses. © 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.
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