Friends (Alone) at Work: An Anvil for a Foot Rest

Double-click on the photo for a larger view.

I've had this photo on my mind for a while, and I wanted to write a story to go with it. It seems to warrant one.  It's at the San Antonio Rose Palace in San Antonio, Texas. The way I see it, two things could be going on: the farrier is waiting for a customer who is late (you know the farrier isn't early), or that's not the farrier stretched out in that chair, that's the customer, and she's waiting for the farrier, who unhitched his truck from the trailer to go get some lunch and hasn't been heard from since (and that was a long time ago).

We always see photos of farriers working, bending, pounding, and clinching but rarely do we see them in one of those rare down-time moments. Even more rare is a completely still shot of a typical moment of a typical summer day at a showground that includes a farrier, since the farrier is usually in great demand and resembles a perpetual motion machine. 

People don't usually take pictures of the moments when nothing's going on. But that's the essence of a summer day: things just seem to stand still, if you let them. And summer lasts longer, if you do.

This is what you might see when you come around the corner of any barn aisle across the USA today, tomorrow, this weekend and for the next month or so until the start of school and the coming cold weather chases everyone back home, so they can rest up and do it again next year.

That's my story, what's yours? 

This quietest of all farrier scenes was captured by Houston-area photographer Louis Vest, who is more at home aboard a ship than on or under a horse, but anything that he points his camera at is better for it. Louis is a ship's pilot in the Houston Ship Channel and travels the world. He has an amazing array of photographs (especially if you like the sea, which I do) on display at his Flickr.com site. Thanks, Louis. 

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, 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). 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.

Follow the Hoof Blog on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

Join the Hoofcare & Lameness Facebook Page

Free Donkey Foot Care DVD for Farriers

 

The British-based Donkey Sanctuary has recently launched a new short film on DVD that provides visual and technical support for farriers about the fine points of donkey hoof care.

An Introduction to Donkey Foot Care is free to all farriers and their apprentices and has been produced by the donkey-welfare charity to pass on the latest advice based from the charity's own experiences in the care and management of donkeys. The film also identifies key differences between horses’ and donkeys’ feet.

There are four main chapters in the 15 minute film, including:
• the normal donkey foot
• how to correctly trim a normal donkey foot
• how to deal with seedy toe (a.k.a. "white line disease" in the USA); and
• how to deal with trimming long feet.

Colin Goldsworthy, who is one of the Sanctuary’s most experienced farriers and who demonstrates all farriery within the film, says: “If you are just starting out as a farrier or even if you’ve been in the trade for years, please do get in touch for a free copy of this DVD. The film has been produced for you and the advice within it has been derived from The Donkey Sanctuary’s vast experience, having cared for almost 14,500 donkeys over the past 40 years.”

The DVD is free on request only to qualified farriers and/or industry apprentices. To obtain a copy please send an email.

The Donkey Sanctuary also provides free information sheets and training to farriers.

 © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, 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). 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.

Vampires for Elephants: Robert Pattinson's Laminitis Experience in Film?

His most famous role was as a teenage vampire and now Hollywood's made Robert Pattinson into a Cornell vet student with a foundered horse to fix. Publicity photo from the Water for Elephants film.

 The horse world is due to get a shot in the arm--if not a bite in the neck--as production continues in and around Chattanooga, Tennessee on the film adaptation of one of my favorite novels, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. The star of the movie is Twilight vampire heart throb Robert Pattinson, and this photo is from the movie's blog. Notice he is leading what appears to be either a Friesian or a Percheron from a circus train car.

Hollywood's Reese Witherspoon plays the role of the circus equestrian star and has an Oscar-worthy wardrobe. The horse and elephant scenes were shot in California; the train scenes are in production now in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This photo from California is from a series published in the Daily Mail from Great Britain.

Any film that is heavy on horses is good for all of us; it's good for horse sales, horse lessons, and our horse industry futures, especially when it stars the hottest celebrity in Hollywood. But this one makes me especially curious. It's a great story: Jacob, a vet student at Cornell during the Depression, succumbs to stress and suddenly walks out just before finals and wanders off into the night. On impulse, he hops a passing freight train. What he doesn't know is that it's no ordinary freight train, but a down-and-out circus train. He throws in his lot with the midgets and the clowns and the roustabouts but most of all with the draft horses ("baggage stock" in circus language), the Arabians and one special elephant when he is hired as the caretaker for the menagerie because of skills he claimed he learned in vet school.

One of the first challenges the management throws at him to earn his keep is a horse with laminitis. Can he fix him? In the book, the description of the horse's hoof looks and how the horse stands and what Jacob does to try to help it is very well done. Will laminitis make the silver screen or will it fall to the cutting room floor? Or did it make the script at all? Can they train a horse to act like it is foundered? Even a minute of laminitis awareness in a film like this would be great for public awareness of the disease. And yes, there are farriers in the book, too.

For those of you who haven't read the book: do it. Better yet, get to your library or local independently-owned bookstore and borrow or buy the cd-rom version and listen to the book, as it is very well read. You'll find yourself sitting in your driveway listening to just a little more...

Someone on YouTube.com made a slide show of old circus images to go with the soundtrack of the prologue from the cd-rom. I hope it hooks you, although this is just the first few pages of the book--the rest of it explains how Jacob got to that point of circus mayhem. And what happened next. What you're hearing is Jacob at age 90--or is it 93? he's not sure--in a nursing home, finally telling what happened that day. He'd kept someone's terrible secret for 70 years.

Water for Elephants, the film, is scheduled to be released on April 15, 2011.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, 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). 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.

Follow the Hoof Blog on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

Join the Hoofcare & Lameness Facebook Page

War Horse History: Equine Ambulances Moved Wounded Horses During World War I

When a horse was wounded, it took at least one other horse to move it to a railroad stop or a field veterinary hospital. Here you see a tandem hitch hauling a horse from the front; the teamster would command these horses with voice controls. Image by the remarkable chronicler of horses in World War I through his art, John Edwin Noble.

Tiludronate (Tildren) Effective for Hind Limb Lameness Caused by Bone Spavin

Spavin is one of the most common causes of lameness in jumping horses.

Newly published trials from a study in England show that horses suffering lameness caused by bone spavin can show marked improvement following treatment with a Tiludronate (Tildren) infusion, when administered in combination with controlled exercise.

Silent Anvil: Jack Miller Has Died

Jack Miller gave me a wink. We were in Malibu, California, it was 1985, and Jack was in his prime. He's wearing the Texas flag as a bandanna around his neck. 

The hunter/jumper world will never be quite the same. Where will a trainer take a horse as a last resort, that horse who's just not going quite right under his feet?

Legendary horseshoer Jack Miller died after sunrise this morning in the Montgomery County, Maryland hospital where he had been a patient for several weeks undergoing treatment for multiple life-threatening problems. Jack had been in ill health for many years, but just kept on going.

A loyal legion of world-class farriers and horse show friends from all over America had traveled to Maryland this week to be with Jack.

Jack Miller created, defined and perfected a lifestyle of "vagabond horseshoeing" on the hunter/jumper horse show circuit where he made a living proving to people that his trademark mystique for being able to put difficult horses "right" through subtle hoof balance techniques was real. Unfortunately for the farrier world, he was never quite able to explain what he knew instinctively about how to help horses get over fences. He just did it. And shrugged.

Jack was from Texas and lived wherever he was that night. He was especially proud of his long role as the official farrier for the Washington (D.C.) International Horse Show. His clients over the years included many Olympic and champion riders, trainers, and their horses.

No one was more rightfully in the Hall of Fame than Jack Miller, nor more in a class of his own.

Note: Jack's friends can right-click on the photo above and save it for personal use. It's large format, low resolution. In the days since Jack's death I have learned how many friends Jack had. It has been amazing to hear from so many of them! I have posted an album of more old photos of Jack on the Hoofcare and Lameness Facebook page.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com 
© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing 
Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, 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). 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.