Jersey Girl! Rachel Alexandra Doesn't Mind Getting Her Feet Wet As She Scorches the Colts in the Haskell

Jersey Girl! Rachel Alexandra and Calvin Borel win the $1.25 million Haskell Invitational, originally uploaded by Rock and Racehorses.

In Kentucky, they play "My Old Kentucky Home" before the Derby. Before the Preakness in Baltimore, it's "Maryland, My Maryland." The Belmont swings to the tune of "New York, New York."

And when Rachel Alexandra stepped out on the Monmouth Park racetrack on the Jersey Shore today, what song did they play to introduce the field of the $1.25 million Haskell Invitational?

Think about it.

Sure enough. Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run". If that song couldn't get a filly in the mood to fly, what song could? And off she went, toying two or three wide until midway around the turn for home and then whooosssh.

If you enlarge this photo, or go to YouTube and watch the race, you will see that this filly is so particular about her feet that jockey Calvin Borel finished the race with pretty much a clean set of silks. The same cannot be said of the other jockeys.

It was a miserable day with driving rain, lightning, flooding, and (unfortunately), horses down in the early races. I wondered if they wouldn't just load Rachel up and take her home to Saratoga but the weather improved and Rachel gave everyone something to talk about about.

She'll always have a soft spot for Springsteen now. And he'll be in Saratoga to play a concert the week of her (probably, hopefully) next start, the Travers Stakes on August 29.

Thanks to Sarah K. Andrew for this stunning capture of the finish line, where no one but Rachel was in sight.

Applied Anatomy: The Painted Horses as Teachers

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

How did we teach (and learn) anatomy before we had super-markers to paint directly on horses' bodies? I believe that this clever technique was popularized by American clinician Susan Harris in the 1990s, or at least she was the first to make an educational project out of horse-painting.

We've seen an expansion lately, in the art of painting on horses. Dr. Gerd Heuschmann uses the horse as a canvas in his terrific video, If Horses Could Speak, and there's a beautiful new book on the Hoofcare & Lameness list (ordering info below) called How Your Horse Moves that documents painted horses going through gaits and stretches.

The problem, of course, is that you can only suggest the surface structures, and so much lies beneath. And should you choose the skeleton or the muscles?

Nicole Rossa solved that problem by painting the muscles on one side and the bones and joints on the other. Nicole is an equine therapist in England who has written some interesting papers, most notably one on asymmetry of the pelvis in racehorses and the effect on performance. Now she has teamed up with horse insurance company PetPlan and is consultant to the most ambitious web site project in the horse health world, Yourstables.co.uk.

On second thought, don't click on that link. Yourstables.com is a distraction demon. It's an absolute vortex where hours can pass while you wander around inspecting the minute textures of the stable mats and what it says on the plaques of the walls in the office. You'll emerge hours later, blinking.

Yourstables is a setup for teaching horsecare through consulting professionals, with the guidance of eventing legend Lucinda Green as an avatar. A 3-D horse barn (British style) is equipped with the newest and best of everything. You mouse over items and navigate through videos and printable articles explaining everything from grooming to diseases. It's quite good and Nicole Rossa is the consulting therapist. This list video is an out-take from a video made for the web site.

Back to the painted ponies: I just have one question. Why stop with horses? Do dog health educators paint anatomy markers on greyhounds? Who wants to volunteer their Jack Russell or maybe a Pug to be anatomically decorated? Nicole Rossa might find some work on humans when Halloween comes around.

Heads up: How Your Horse Moves by Gillian Higgins can be ordered now. Super reference on anatomy, gaits, biomechanics, jumping, tendon function, back function, etc. All full color photography; most of the horses are anatomically enhanced and very nicely photographed. The cover does not do this book justice. Hardcover, 153 pages, indexed, 350 color photos. Intro by Chris Bartle and Bettina Hoy. I expect I will be seeing a lot of the photos in this book in other people's PowerPoints soon! The good news: $30 per book plus $6 per book post in USA, $13 per book elsewhere. To order call 978 281 3222 or email books@hoofcare.com.

NOTE: Gillian Higgins will be on the program at a conference with Dr Hilary Clayton February 13-14, 2010 in Grantham in Great Britain.

© 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.

USET's Irish-born horseshoer Seamus Brady Will Live On in Legend

Seamus Brady, center, at a celebration in his honor held in Wellington, Florida in March 2006. That's Canada's Larry Rumsby on the left and the USA's Joe Johnson on the right, both of whom have shod the international team horses for their countries, following in Seamus's footsteps. Twenty-six horseshoers from the show world assembled to toast Seamus that night. (Sandy Johnson photo)

I was in Dublin once, at the Irish Army Equitation School, touring with an American horseshoeing team. The young officer who was showing us around threw open the doors to the forge and as the sunlight flooded the space, he stood back and told me proudly, "This is where Seamus Brady learned the trade with John Boyne."

"That was before he went to America," he added as an afterthought.

He showed the same pride as would an Italian opening the door to the studio where Michaelangelo learned to paint. The fact that Doug Butler and Dave Duckett were standing next to me didn't seem to impress this rider at all.

"Do you see much of Seamus in America, then?" he asked, as if Americans were all on just one show circuit neighborhood.

New Jersey/Florida-based Seamus Brady, the dean of US show-jumper shoers and possibly the most well-known farrier in his native land of Ireland as well, died yesterday. He was just a few months shy of 78 years old.

Seamus Brady, right, received a plaque from his longtime trainee/helper Phil Breault (standing) at the Wellington event. Phil organized the evening. That's Connecticut/Florida show circuit specialist George Fitzgerald on the left.

The man needs no introduction in the farrier world. His name was a brand in itself, yet as far as I know, he never really had anything to sell except his services. His ideas traveled far and wide. But there is no Seamus Brady shoe, no Brady nail, no Brady pad, no Brady trademark or copyright or website. There are few articles or photographs, no books or dvds. I'm not sure that he ever joined any association except the informal show farriers group that gathered in Wellington, Florida on occasion. His only certification: his good name.

There's quite a legacy. I can think of no farrier who influenced shoeing of real-world English-type show and sport horses more. He defined "the circuit". For farriers, he practically invented the circuit. He may have influenced farriers on a professional level more than he influenced shoeing itself.

There have always been legends passed around the horse world about Seamus, great humorous tall tales about the Irish trickster who could weave great tales and present clients with the biggest invoices they'd ever seen. The legends preceded him around the world as he traveled with the US Equestrian Team to far-flung places like Seoul, Korea for the 1988 Olympics, where he kindly shared his experiences with Hoofcare & Lameness Journal, to out-of-context places like the Quarter Horse Congress, where we'd see him because he'd go to look at the new custom trucks.

I expect that Seamus will become the Paul Bunyan of American horseshoeing. He's earned it: If half the people had been his apprentices who claim to have been, he would have had to have traveled in a bus, not a truck, all these years, just to carry all his apprentices.

Every jumper show should fly its flag at half-mast this week. They couldn't have shown without his clever work on their horses and without the farriers he trained, inspired and called his friends.

Exit an icon. Cue the storytellers. Complete these sentences: "I remember the time...""I've always heard that Seamus Brady used to..."

See what I mean? Seamus lives. Pass it on. And on and on.

--Fran Jurga

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

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Don't stand too close! Hot Competition for Farriers in England

by Fran Jurga | 26 July 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Don't stand too close!, originally uploaded by Lid Licker!

The wrath of Hephaestus Himself seems to be spewing from this Damascus forge put to its test at yesterday's Handmade Horseshoes farrier competition in Leighton Buzzard, England. Photographer Gary Huston has mounted a wonderful photo recording of the day on his Flickr photo gallery.

Gary is a terrific farrier/photographer who knows where to point the camera and experiments with color saturation for unusual and remarkable effects. I'm a big fan of his and I bet you will be, too!

I just hope his Canon didn't melt...

For any non-farrier readers: this contraption is a propane forge used by farriers to heat steel for shoemaking or reshaping/altering of existing shoes. It works much like your gas grill but heats the steel quickly and efficiently to a very high heat so the steel is malleable.

Working with one of these all day may be why farriers are such good hands at summer barbecues...and many of them are also great chefs, possibly because they have an innate understanding of the effects of heat on matter. Think about it.

At this competition, farriers working in teams or alone would have been competing for perfection in craftmanship of a prescribed shoe design in a particular dimension from a supplied length, width and thickness of raw steel material. Think: Iron Chef with hammer and tongs. Realize: Hephestus lives, and he lives well.

Favorite Sunday Video: "Thoroughbreds Don't Cry" on Saratoga Migration Day

by Fran Jurga | July 26, 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog



Out for a leisurely Sunday drive? Drivers in New York State are probably a little jittery today. It's Sunday, and there shouldn't be many trucks on the road. Yet the highways are jammed, and these big rigs aren't just any trucks. They're big air-ride trailers and horse vans of every size and shape, some carrying six or more horses each. It's Brook Ledge and Sallee Day on the Northway. The windows are down and you can see bay heads inside, nodding sleepily.

And not just any horses: these are some of the best Thoroughbreds in the country. Hundreds of them are landing at airports and moving from training centers and tracks all over the US and Canada.

It's an equine migration. A reverse diaspora. A gathering of the Thoroughbred clan. For these van drivers, all roads lead to Saratoga Springs, New York, where today is "open house" day for the locals, featuring some always-exciting jump racing. The betting windows open on Wednesday. And the stall doors are wide open to welcome the new arrivals.

The vans will unload horses and just turn around and go get more. Today is the last day of racing at New York's Belmont Park so vets and farriers and exercise riders might have a few days off before things get going "up north", although some are already there working.

The horses will skitter down the ramps and blink as they look around and see all the old shade trees, the painted-a-hundred-times wooden stables and the remains of the original racetrack from 1863. They'll notice immediately that this place doesn't look and smell like Long Island...and it's awfully quiet compared to the New York City tracks that crouch beneath expressways and airport landing patterns.

That was a van ride back in time.

This is a place where a colt can get some sleep. Where a filly can stretch her legs. Where a veteran campaigner's hives might clear up and a career might turn around. Where legends begin.

So let's go back in time with the blog today, too. One of my favorite scenes from any horse-racing movie is the road scene from MGM's 1937 hit Thoroughbreds Don't Cry, which was the film that brought Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland together. You'll see a little bit of the road scene in this clip. Judy sings "Got a Pair of New Shoes" and, of course, I always like to think that the horse is singing along.

This was probably also the first horsey-road-trip scene from a major motion picture, as well as one of the most musical. Horse vans and trailers were a relatively new thing.

Timing is everything: This film was made in 1937, the year that War Admiral won the Kentucky Derby and Seabiscuit was rising to ever higher highs and lower lows out west. They would meet in their famous match race the following year.

Also in 1937, Jean Harlow and Clark Gable made the horse-racing classic film Saratoga about New York's horseracing summer capital but Harlow became ill and died during the filming, though she was only 26 years old.

The makers of Thoroughbreds Don't Cry couldn't have known what else would be going on that year or how famous their young stars would become.

You can watch the whole film on YouTube or stream/order it through Netflix; I've given you the trailer here as motivation.

If you have the time, click here to listen to the taping of Judy Garland singing the song in the film. You'll be humming it before you know it.

One of the best parts of these old horse movies is the chance to see the old vehicles used to transport the horses, including the fake open-window trailer in this clip. I always watch what's going on in the background more than what's going on in the foreground.

The New York Thruway and the Northway would be a much more interesting ride today if those neat old styles were still in use. This drawing from Popular Mechanics in 1924 shows a state-of-the-art over-the-road racehorse van...complete with a flagpole. The article with it said that it could reach and maintain a speed of 50 miles per hour, which was something for the day.

Of course, after Labor Day there will be a reverse migration as the horses abandon Saratoga and scatter to the corners of the globe. But there's something about today, of all days of the summer,
that makes you feel like a giant magnet has caught on all the horseshoes of all the best racehorses in the world and is pulling them up the Northway to Exit 14.

And not a single horse is resisting the pull of that magnet. A trip to Saratoga in August is good for us all.

I'm willing to bet on that.

Join Hoofcare & Lameness on Tuesdays in August in Saratoga Springs at the Parting Glass Pub and Restaurant back room, 40 Lake Avenue, for educational lectures and information about hoof-related care of horses. "Saratoga Safe + Sound" will bring together farriers, veterinarians, trainers, and interesting people from all corners of the horse world (literally) in a casual setting. CLICK HERE for more information or call 978 281 3222; email saratoga@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.

You're Invited! You'll Be Welcome at Hoofcare@Saratoga's 2009 "Safe and Sound" Tuesday Night Series

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

Double-click on the image to view or print it full-size. That's Kentucky equine therapist Dianne Volz working on the hooves of a well-known stakes horse at Saratoga's Oklahoma training track.

What: “Saratoga: Safe & Sound”; 5th Annual Hoofcare@Saratoga Events hosted by Hoofcare & Lameness Journal, The Hoof Blog, and Fran Jurga.
When: August 4, 11, 18, 25 (four Tuesdays during the 2009 race meet)
Where: Saratoga Springs, NY 7 pm Parting Pub, 50 Lake Ave with exceptions noted
What: Informal lectures, discussion, interviews
Who: Horsecare professionals, horse owners, blog readers, racing community, press; all are welcome.
Made possible by generous help in many forms from: Life Data Labs, National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Vibram Hoof Pads, Skidmore College, Cindy Ford and the Van Lennep Riding Center, Frieda and Cliff Garrison, Jim Santore, The Parting Glass Pub, CCE Equine and all our friends in and around Saratoga, and all over the Northeast and beyond. (More sponsorships are available.)

Note: Our primary speakers are booked but we will be adding more as people confirm what days they will be in Saratoga to work on horses or conduct other business. Watch for updates.

Week 1: AUGUST 4: "BUILD A BETTER...HORSESHOE" National Museum of Racing, 191 Union Avene, 6-8 pm. "Ride On!" Special Exhibit on farrier/veterinary advances to help horses reception sponsored by LIFE DATA LABS. You'll meet special guests whose shoes and boots and photographs are featured in the exhibit; with the help of Stonestreet Stables, we hope to donate one of Curlin's shoes to the museum. Main speaker: Dr Michael Steward from Oklahoma on his unique Steward Clog system for laminitis (which is featured by the museum); his lecture will commence at the Parting Glass after 8 pm. He is a down-to-earth speaker who makes sense of a difficult subject and will inspire you to keep trying to help horses.

Week 2: AUGUST 11: "BUILD A BETTER...HORSE!" Dr Scott Morrison of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, Lexington KY will anchor an all-star evening on foal/yearling problems and no doubt a lot more. Plus: David Hinton, rescheduled for his observations on shoeing for top stakes horses like Curlin and Rachel Alexandra. This is a busy night in Saratoga as the yearling sales will be going on.

Week 3: AUGUST 18: "BUILD A BETTER...HOOF!"--2 events. Mike Wildenstein FWCF (Hons) Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine afternoon for farriers at Skidmore Equestrian Center, 145 Daniels Road. Sponsored by VIBRAM hoof pads. The exact time in the afternoon will be announced soon. Evening program of talks and PowerPoint will be at the Parting Glass. Special guest: Virginia’s Travis Burns from Forging Ahead farrier practice on hoof support alternatives in addition to Mike.

Week 4: August 25: (plans in progress) Origins of the Modern Horseshoe Tour of Burden Iron Works Museum horseshoe factory in Troy, NY at 2 p.m. This is a very special event! Evening program at the Parting Glass is tentative because of Bruce Springsteen's concert on the south side of town, but if traffic is routed to not clog up downtown Saratoga, we should be able to proceed. I am currently seeking advice about this, as it is Travers Week and should be the grand finale of the series. Stay tuned for finalized plans for that night;the daytime plans will not be affected by the concert.

All sessions are free of charge but come early to get a good seat.

Parting Glass sessions start at 7 pm except August 4th, which follows the Museum program.

The Parting Glass will serve dinner before or after the session in the function room or main dining room. You can order from the menu and the food is great!

Some parking is available behind the restaurant but otherwise parking should be available on side streets without too far a hike.

HOTEL INFORMATION: Hotels in Saratoga are very expensive. Hoofcare has a block of rooms at the Comfort Inn & Suites Saratoga Springs on the NY Thruway at Exit 15 (3rd Saratoga Springs exit going north) at a special discount rate of $159 plus tax (breakfast included) and pets are allowed for $10 each. This rate is for Tuesday only and for seminar attendees only. This hotel is a three mile drive from the Parting Glass and close to the racetrack.

To book a room: You need to request the Hoofcare rate when booking your room, call a week in advance for all events except August 4th (reservations will be taken up to August 3rd) and you must call the hotel directly at 518 587 6244 and press "0" for the operator to reach the front desk and book with the person on duty. Do not book through "reservations" as they do not have the special rate information. This rate is only for Tuesday and only for Hoofcare@Saratoga attendees.

More details will always be posted at www.hoofcare.blogspot.com.

Email questions to fran@hoofcare.com or call 978 281 3222. But don't call on a Tuesday.

Please forward this information to anyone you think may be interested.


© 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.