Here's the second stop on our tour of the great pub signs of the world that honor the horse's hoof and its culture and craft. I don't know where The Old Smithy is, but perhaps one of the blog's readers from the British Isles will fill me in.
Thanks again to Mr. Ron Clark, the expert and tireless photographer of interesting pub sign art, for capturing another beautiful sign to share with us.
I thought this image was just stunning and if I was driving down the road and saw this hanging from a building I'd probably smash into something (although I usually do that anyway when I drive in Britain).
I think the artist was pretty creative on this one: what do you see in this picture that you probably wouldn't see in real life...on either side of the Atlantic? Click on the word "Comments" below and type in your answers.
by Fran Jurga | 23 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog
This video clip was shot at an FEI World Cup Dressage qualifier in Europe last week. Luise and Julie from Epona TV were surprised that a rider at this level schooled this stallion for as long as two hours in a hyperflexion frame.
They grabbed the camera when they noticed that the horse's swollen tongue had turned blue. The horse's lips were curled and apparently even the rider could see it, as he stopped and put the horse's tongue back into its mouth.
Apparently the schooling ring steward did not see anything wrong with this rider's method.
Click here to read the full story about this videotape and about the effects of the curb rein and bit of a double bridle on the horse's tongue.
FEI rules discourage what is called hyperflexion, rollkur or "bite the chest"--riding with the horse in an overbent neck and head position for a prolonged period of time. The practice is the subject of last year's best-selling horse book, Tug of War: Classical vs Modern Dressage by German veterinarian Gerd Heuschmann.
Since last spring, Heuschmann's DVD If Horse's Could Speak has been on sale and goes even further than the book to tie overschooling, disconnected riding and especially overflexion/rollkur to unsoundness and musculoskeletal injuries in dressage horses. But it is very, very hard to prove the dots are connected.
Here's a clip from the If Horses Could Speak DVD (this is a German trailer, even though the actual DVD has an English soundtrack, not subtitles):
The DVD is 75 minutes long and is sold in North American format (NTSC) format. The cost is $60 per DVD plus postage. Click here to read more and order from our secure web page. You can order the book as well.
I thought that by the time the DVD was translated and available here in the USA the subject of rollkur would be forgotten but I guess that is not the case.
In a special interview with Olympics champion Anky Van Grunsven on Epona TV, Anky defends her use of hyperflexion as a training method, saying that she uses it for a few minutes at a time, then lets the horse relax, but that she only uses it on her advanced horses, and horses that are strong enough to do it, and for whom it is easy to go to that frame. She said she varies the time that she stays in the overbent frame from horse to horse, depending on how strong the horse is and how it reacts to being in that frame.
In a riding demonstration, Anky pointed out that her horse was pricking his ears while in the overbent frame.
Julie and Luise's Epona TV is a subscription-based library of equitation-science videos with interviews and demos by Gerd Heuschmann, Hilary Clayton, and many behavior and welfare experts. They are making a tremendous effort to provide a service that is a level above what you will find almost anywhere else on the Internet.
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).
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by Fran Jurga | 21 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog
Our mid-week humor is provided by a demonstration of anvil shooting, which is usually pretty entertaining in itself but the fact that the main character in this YouTube video claims to be the world champion suggest that there is some sort of a competition in anvil shooting.
How on earth would you judge the winning shoot? Are points given for technique or difficulty? I might have to get some ear plugs and a helmet and go check this out. The failures might be entertaining.
I thought anvil shooting was illegal; obviously it is not in the state of Missouri.
The Daily Racing Form announced today that the defections are beginning; the field for next month's Breeders Cup Classic has lost a few interesting entries.
First it was the news that the fast-closing gray Macho Again would not make the trip west to Santa Anita after developing a cough while training at Churchill Downs in Kentucky.
Then it was the withdrawal of California-based Rail Trip, pulled from contention because of bruised frogs. Apparently Rail Trip sloughed his frogs after his last start at Del Mar and his feet are still tender, according to Steve Andersen of the Form.
The race is still three weeks away, so the horse's trainer must be pretty concerned about the horse losing training.
(For Breeders Cup readers: The frog is a fleshy triangle-shaped pad on the bottom of a horse's foot.)
Sloughed and bruised frogs are a common complaint from horsemen in California on the artificial tracks. The problems could be compounded by the heat of the track in summer months. It is normal for real-world horses to shed the outer layer of their frogs, but racehorses are shod and trimmed so often that their frogs are kept neatly manicured.
Horseshoers at the track have a lot of tricks to help a horse with sore frogs. This photo by our friend Sarah K Andrew was taken during Breeders Cup week at Santa Anita last year.
This horse is wearing a frog-protection plate, sometimes called a mushroom shoe. It can either be an aluminum plate that goes between the shoe and the hoof (some of them look like hockey goalie masks and are called spider plates), or it can be a shoe.
Frogs come in all shapes and sizes. This is Visionaire's frog before the 2008 Kentucky Derby. It probably didn't contact the ground. The frog shape and size of winning horses has never been documented. The width of the frog also determines how the shoe is shaped and how the heels are covered. This shoe is almost an oval; it is probably a hind foot. (Dan Burke/FPD photo)
The same type of shoe or plate is used to relieve pressure on sore heels. The horseshoer may medicate the frog and pack felt or foam rubber under it if the goal is to cushion a sore frog.
Conversely, if the frog is healthy and the goal is to relieve sore heels or a quarter crack, the horseshoer will use the plate to "engage" the frog to bear weight while trimming the heels to relieve weight on them.
This perfectly heart-shaped frog belonged to Gayego before the 2008 Kentucky Derby. Compare it to Visionaire's. Gayego is slated to run in the Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Sprint. There's no statistical relevance between frog size or shape to speed or performance. Notice how much space there is between the heels of the shoe. (Dan Burke/FPD photo)
There are many reasons a frog can be sore. Infection from thrush or canker is the most common but abrasion also can cause soreness, particularly if a horse has a bulbous, protruding, or fleshy frog. Frogs can and do bleed if they are aggravated enough.
The type of shoe shown here might have been just for training and the horse was reshod with regular plates before training at speed or racing. Standardbreds will race in frog plates, though.
Since the horse spends most of the day in its stall, the trainer would pack the sore hooves with a favorite packing or wrap Animalintex poultice against the bottom of the foot. Turbo tubbing, salt water soaks and spas, foam-lined boots and changing stall bedding are some other treatments that trainers may try to get the frogs back in racing shape.
Away from the dry California climate, a frog could be sore because of excess moisture. In that case, the trainer might medicate with a hoof product containing ingredients from the formaldehyde family to wick moisture, or paint the feet with iodine.
Exercise, even walking, would be considered therapeutic, unless the horse is lame. Circulation can help feet recover and grow.
Protecting soles and frogs and preventing injury will be on the minds of trainers who ship their horses to California for the Breeders Cup. When the European and East Coast trainers see local horses sporting plates like the one in this picture, they will catch on very quickly.
by Fran Jurga | 19 October 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog
Are you counting the days to the 2009 Breeders Cup, the international championship of Thoroughbred horse racing? If so, get ready to start counting the ways that Santa Anita's Pro-Ride racing surface will be interpreted as enhancing or handicapping the chances of the top runners.
The running of this year's cup at California's showcase racetrack has inspired a renewal of the debate of just how safe and just how fair to bettors and horsemen the artificial surfaces will be.
Perfect timing, then, for the J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory at the University of California at Davis to release this little video slide show about its use of an instrumented horseshoe in their study of horse racetracks at Kentucky's Keeneland racecourse. This study was conducted on Polytrack, not the Pro Ride used at Santa Anita.
The study is comparing hoof impact on synthetic, dirt and turf surfaces. Three horses were tested. Hoof accelerations and ground reaction forces (GRF) were measured for the front legs with an accelerometer and a dynamometric horseshoe during trot and canter (not the gallop). Maxima, minima, temporal components, and a measure of vibration were extracted from the data. Acceleration and GRF variables were compared statistically among surfaces.
The dynamometric horseshoe contained piezoelectric sensors sandwiched between two aluminium plates.
Results of the study according to the abstract:
1. The synthetic surface often had the lowest peak accelerations, mean vibration, and peak GRFs. Peak acceleration during hoof landing was significantly smaller for the synthetic surface (mean ± SE, 28.5g ± 2.9g) than for the turf surface (42.9g ± 3.8g).
2. Hoof vibrations during hoof landing for the synthetic surface were American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR). Click here to read the abstract as posted by AJVR.
The debate is contentious enough that it will take a lot of studies of many parameters to quiet skeptics. The defection of the USA's top racehorse, champion Rachel Alexandra, has been attributed to her owners' distaste for running on synthetic tracks. Conversely, top European horses are flocking to Santa Anita and defecting from turf to "dirt" races with the belief that their turf races prep them for spectacular results at Santa Anita. Last year's Classic winner Ravens Pass followed that formula. The Bird cousins, Summer and Mine That, have relocated to Santa Anita and trained over the Pro Ride surface on Saturday.
Watch for more reports from Santa Anita as the surface debate is sure to elevate in the next two weeks.
Mr Ron Clark is a photographer in Great Britain with a delightful passion for photographing pub signs. Among his archives are quite a few with horse themes and many with horseshoes, farriers, heavy horses (always my favorite) and related namesakes, usually accompanied by interesting or downright beautiful artwork and ornate brackets, signposts and lanterns.
Over the next few months, The Hoof Blog will be showcasing some of these unusual bits of artistry, and we invite you to send in your favorites as well. It is very kind of Mr Clark to open images from his collection to viewing on the blog.
And there are some real beauties, as well as some intriguing titles. They'd make a beautiful book.
I'd love to know who paints the pub signs and if there are rules to follow or if they all just happen to be tastefully done.
The Farriers Arms is quite a modern pub sign and is a reproduction of the famous painting, "Shoeing the Bay Mare"; the well-known image was originally created by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer in 1844 and is probably the most universal farrier image in the world. Landseer's other horse and dog paintings are beautiful, too.
Get ready for a long (artistic) pub crawl around the British Isles and, if we're lucky, other places in the world! Email hoofblog@hoofcare.com with your favorites or leave a comment below.
The Farriers Arms, by the way, is in Worcester, England.
