Friends at Rest: Tex Cauthen

by Fran Jurga | 2 June 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

The racing publications are reporting that Ronald "Tex" Cauthen of Walton, Kentucky has died. Tex was a well-known horseshoer in central Kentucky and was reportedly 77 years old. 

I remember "meeting" Tex Cauthen the first time I walked through the then brand-new Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs in the early 1980s. I held my breath going around each corner, thinking that surely there would be an exhibit about horseshoeing coming ahead. But there wasn't. Instead, I turned a corner by a stairway and there was a photo, set off by itself, of a farrier's hands, working. I stared at it for a long time because it was a beautiful photograph, and seemed to have been put there just so I wouldn't go home in a huff. I stared at the name: "Tex Cauthen". I made a mental note to look him up. 

I felt like I knew him, having met his hands. 

And the name sort of rang a bell. I must have heard his name before. I

 was probably the only person in the world more impressed with the fact that Tex Cauthen was a horseshoer than that he was the father of the world-famous teenage jockey who rode Affirmed to win the Triple Crown. It took me a while to put two and two together. 

All the racing magazine stories say that the famous jockey's father died and, oh yes, he was a blacksmith. 

Let this be one place where he's remembered for who he was, and for a pair of hands that could stop me in my tracks. Rest in peace, Tex.

  © 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.

Zenyatta: Champion Mare Shows Her Toes at Bath Time

Zenyatta, originally uploaded by Rock and Racehorses.

Photographer Sarah K. Andrew coaxed champion mare Zenyatta to show off one of her shiny shoes while she enjoyed her bath at Churchill Downs recently, before returning to California to win her first start of 2009. Thanks, Sarah, for sharing this photo!

Friends at Rest: Farrier Linda Best

Linda Best was very proud of the national champion miniature driving horses that she exhibited and drove herself. (Ribbons for Linda photo)

New Hampshire farrier Linda Best died Sunday morning. The entire New England farrier community and miniature horse world has been thinking of Linda and her farrier husband, Paul, and we all wanted to believe there was hope she'd recover. That wasn't to be and we've lost a friend.

Click here to read a story about a day that will be how we'll all try to remember Linda. A second annual benefit "Ribbons for Linda" horse show had been planned for next Sunday. More info is available at this link.

I hope there will be more details available when the world comes back from the long weekend.

Memorial Day and the Medal of Honor, Farrier Style

by Fran Jurga | 25 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

The Medal of Honor of the United States

Everything was in place. The cemetery was a sea of green grass, gray granite markers, tiny flags, and red geraniums. All we needed was a marching band, the Little League, the Girl Scouts, and the Color Guard and we'd be all set.

And here they come, right on cue.

No one comes from a more scenic hometown than I do and there is no day of the year when Shirley Center, Massachusetts looks more idyllic than on Memorial Day.

This weekend, my eye lingered on all the mossy Civil War soldiers' graves (there are quite a few) and I thought about the marker in the center of the Common that honors the ones who didn't come back.

On Memorial Day, anyone who died fighting in any war should be in our thoughts, so I have some interesting names that I'd like to share. These men are listed with the US Congress as recipients of the Medal of Honor (sometimes called the Congressional Medal of Honor), given, usually, for gallantry in action. But they weren't gun-toting combat soldiers; they were hammer-hoisting horseshoers.

Not airmen or artillerymen or scouts or Marines. They were sent with the cavalry to shoe the horses and they somehow ended up performing acts of courage and distinction. They perhaps performed these acts unarmed, except for their tools. George Meach actually captured the flag for the Union forces at the battle at Winchester; I wonder if he still had his apron on.

For many years, the Medal of Honor was the only medal given. It began after the Civil War; up until then, the Americans didn't give medals.

Farrier Recipients of the Medal of Honor

Except for George, who was in the Civil War, these men were part of an army mounted on horseback that was sent to clear the western frontier and make it safe for the migration of thousands of settlers. The Native Americans stood in their way, and the conflict is as much a wound on the national conscience as the Civil War that preceded it.

The Army depended on horses and needed farriers. Lots of them. Many immigrant farriers used their skill to get through Ellis Island's immigration red tape and enlisted right there in the army as a way to gain citizenship with guaranteed pay; others were quickly trained. Four of the farriers who won the Medal of Honor were immigrants. Many, like Ernst Veuve, shod horses in the Army without ever learning to speak English.

I'm sure that, in later wars, there were farriers who were awarded many medals, while serving in combat.

Some other farriers to remember today: Vincent Charley, John Bringes, James Moore, Benjamin Brandon, Benjamin Wells, and William Heath. Those six farriers set out for what was supposed to be a simple week-long maneuver under their general, one George Armstrong Custer. It ended in the valley of Montana's Little Big Horn river on June 25, 1876. I think you know the rest of that story.

Memorial Day began in 1868, when it was called simply "remembrance day". Take a minute today and remember what and who this holiday is really about.

© 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. 

"What Price the Horse?" A World War I Farrier Wondered

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

A friend shared with me this photo of a farrier sergeant mounted on what looks like a mighty English hunter who must have been drafted to fight in France in World War I.

Army Farriers Help Retiring Military Horses Hang Up Their Horseshoes in Colorado

by Fran Jurga | 22 May 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Fort Carson, Colorado hosted a ceremony this week that you don't often hear about. Sgt. 1st Class Possum and Master Sgt. Houdini officially retired from service in the US Army. And they went out in style. Horses are not considered just inventory in the Army, they even have rank and can be promoted (or demoted). But they needed the help of Sgt. Jon Husby and Cpl. John Slatton before they could head out to greener pastures.

The official retirement ceremony for two long-serving and hard-working ceremonial color guard horses meant that a single shoe was tacked onto the foot of each horse and it was saddled up for (according to these photos) what looks like an expedition to go after Pancho Villa.

The horses were then led into the arena and ceremoniously unsaddled. The two farriers then pulled the nails and removed the ceremonial shoes. (Note the shoe pullers in Sgt. Husby's hind pocket.)

Tracking down this story meant interviewing sources at Fort Carson who obviously had never been interrogated about their horseshoeing services before, and there is probably a red terrorism alert in the area this weekend because of unprecedented questions asked about military horse hoofcare. You can blame this blog.

Suffice to say, the military press service was very generous to allow the use of these photos but did not want the farriers to be interviewed. They did say that the farriers get to wear blue jeans instead of government-issue uniform pants, and that Sgt. Husby attended farrier school last year in Oklahoma so he could take care of the fort's color guard's horses' hooves.

Sgts. Possum and Houdini, meanwhile, are headed to Florida, where they will live out their days at Mill Creek Farm in Alachua, which is home to many retired military and police horses.

Both horses have been champions or placed over the years in the National Cavalry Competition on behalf of Fort Carson's honor and glory. Fort Carson is named for the legendary frontier scout, Kit Carson.

The farriers will still have six horses at Fort Carson to shoe, and I hope that keeps them busy.


Along the same lines, here's a brief video supplied by the US Army about the hoof preparation of the horses from the Fort Riley, Kansas color guard who participated in the Inaugural Parade in Washington, DC back in January of this year.

Fort Riley was the longtime western capital of horseshoeing in America, as it was the home of the US Army's cavalry school of horseshoeing. I have often wondered if the reason there are so many horseshoeing schools in Oklahoma is because of the psychic presence of that huge and powerful school in the Midwest for so many years. I hope there is a big plaque somewhere on that military base to remember all those farriers, and I hope to get there one of these days to find out!

Photos for this article provided by the United States Army.

© 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.