Trim Toes for Zenyatta

The New York Times has a slide show today that allows readers to see Zenyatta in her new life at Kentucky's Lane's End Farm, including a visit from horseshoer John Collins, who took care of her feet when she was a yearling.

The New York Times has given us something to brighten up this January day: a great Zenyatta-at-home slide show. The most talked-about new resident of Kentucky, Zenyatta has been going through a makeover that will ultimately, with luck, see her turn into an equine domestic diva.  

The Times peeks in at Zenyatta like she's a celebrity hanging out at a spa ranch. Watch the highlights of Zenyatta's day...none less important, of course, than having her hooves trimmed by John Collins. Love the tongue, Zenyatta.

Check it out: At Home with Zenyatta, in the January 14, 2011 online edition of the New York Times.

What the Times didn't tell us is that Johnny Collins and Zenyatta go way back.  The Georgetown breeding farm specialist took care of Zenyatta's hooves when she was a baby. Zenyatta "wrote" in her diary about life at Lane's End:

"My blacksmith here at Lane’s End is the same person who took care of my feet years ago when I lived in Kentucky! His name is Johnny Collins. He is the same man who put on my shoes when I went to the Keeneland Sale in September, 2005! He took care of my feet when I was a little girl!

"Now, here he is taking off my shoes at the farm several years later. This is absolutely adorable! Johnny told me he’d been keeping track of me and all of my progress since then! It was so great to touch base with him, my first blacksmith, after all of these years!"

Zenyatta stays in touch with her fans through daily diary entries on her popular Zenyatta Blog; she probably has more followers than anyone in the horse business!

She wrote a blog post about her hooves' history in and out of horseshoes, including a nice tribute to her longtime California shoer, Tom Halpenny, who has been so generous with information to the Hoof Blog throughout her career.

She wrote? I know, I know. But if you read Zenyatta's blog every day, you really will start to believe that the mare is talking to you. If someone is ghostwriting for Lady Z, or channeling her thoughts, he or she is doing a great job!

Still not announced: which of Kentucky's eligible stallions will be selected to sire Zenyatta's first foal? Which one would you choose? I'd go with Medaglia d'Oro, I think.

Thanks to the New York Times for the great slide show!

 © 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.

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American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention Farrier Reception Slide Show

This slide show may take a minute or two to download, depending on your connection speed. Once it loads, it will begin to advance automatically to the end. At the end, you will see two symbols. One allows you to email the slide show to whomever you wish. The other ("share") provides code for you to either link to the slide show or you may embed it in your own web site or blog, providing no changes or extractions are made. The individual photos are the property of Hoofcare Publishing and are protected by international copyright law.

Following the Third Farrier Conference at the 2010 American Association of Equine Practitioners' Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, last month, the AAEP hosted a reception for farriers and veterinarians and guests. Here you will see a few quick snapshots of the attendees.

The conference and the reception were sponsored by Merial. Amanda McAvoy represented Merial at the event, along with Kelly Goss of Sullivan, Higdon and Sink. Farrier conference chairman Dr. Steve O'Grady worked with several corporate donors to arrange an impressive array of door prizes for the farriers. Guests from as far away as the United Arab Emirates and France were on hand.

Thanks to the AAEP and Dr O'Grady for a great day! I especially enjoyed meeting Mr Ed Warrington from Delaware, who reflected on his first 50 years of shoeing horses. It was a great presentation and very telling: at one point he showed sheared heels from 50 years ago and sheared heels from today side by side on the screen. Some things never change, but a thoughtful, well-planned presentation has the power to change the way you look at the problem. And that's how progress begins.

I felt a little bit like the paparazzi taking these photos, and I hope no one minded having their photos taken. 

© 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). The headlines are also on Facebook, on the Hoofcare & Lameness 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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Favorite Big (Big!) Horse Photo: Bart's Turn on the Cross-Ties

New Shoe, originally uploaded by Mountain Mike.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that one of my favorite photographers is "Mountain Mike" Edminster. The Sun Valley pro has an eye for farriers, horses, and the great outdoors, and his camera just seems to like leather, rust, dust and cobwebs--which are, of course, some of my favorite things (in photographs).

To date, Mike has entertained the blog with photos of Idaho horseshoers in the dead of winter and the heat of summer, he's shown beautiful tools, and he's played with color and black and white in the same photo. But we haven't see many of the horses from Sun Valley, other than a hoof here or there.

Well, now we know that Mike's been holding out on us. Meet Bart. Where's he been all my life? Notice that the horseshoer, Jesse, and his dog, Sage, both look a little hesitant about working on Bart, who's just had an operation of his right front (hence the duct tape).

Does it appear to anyone else that Bart's head is longer than his legs? I'm just saying...

Thanks, Mike! I hope Bart gets well soon!

Favorite Rap Video of 2010: Equine Biomechanics Researcher Jacob Setterbo's "Stay in School" Message

Who says engineers can't be creative? Or cool? Score (another) one for Jacob Setterbo, PhD candidate in the J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. He's been part of the California-based research efforts to find some basic truths about the relationship between galloping horses' legs, hooves and racetracks--and his work there will ultimately mean that some horses' lives will be saved. He will soon receive his doctorate for his efforts in engineering the systems that measure the hoof-track interface.

But he can still have some fun. Jake has volunteered at a local elementary school and came up with the idea for a little rap music video to get kids to connect the dots between thinking what he does in his research is "cool" and the idea that they can do it too...if they just stay in school.

The first time I watched this video I couldn't believe it, and I've been forwarding the link to it to teacher friends ever since. I hope you will do the same, as well as show it to any school-age kids in your social circle.

Jake's backup singers, by the way, are some fifth graders.

For my part, I'd make a very similar one, but I'd be encouraging people to go back to school. It's never too late! In 2010, I spent a week at Michigan State University's McPhail Equine Performance Center taking Dr Hilary Clayton's Equinology class for non-veterinarians on gait analysis and biomechanics.

For me, it was almost better than a week on the beach at St Bart's. True, we just pretended to do research, but it was a hands-on experience with real horses at one of the world's leading centers for equine biomechanics research.

If nothing else, being in the class reminded me of all I don't know about horses, all I need to learn, how much things are changing and the fact that these courses are out there--all you have to do is sign up. You don't have to move away for a seminar or a year, you can try things out first, see how you like it, and spend time with people like Hilary Clayton and her staff and graduate and doctoral candidates, who will have suggestions of what you might do if you want to pursue education goals once you've been out of school for a while. Progams like Equinology are amazing!

Universities are full of comeback kids like you (and maybe even me, someday). Like most things, once you take that first step, the rest seems much easier. Sitting in a lecture seems more natural, and the whole idea is much less intimidating when you're looking at it from the inside than it ever was from the outside.

The Equinology course required pre-arrival anatomy study but it was still a challenge to apply the gait analysis stickers in exact locations. In other words, before we could connect the dots, we had to place the dots, and there's no wiggle room when you're palpating a joint to mark it for gait analysis.  (Sarah Miles photo)

To learn about the 2011 Equinology gait analysis course at Michigan State with Dr Clayton, visit www.equinology.com. Dr. Barb Crabbe will also offer a course in lameness identification before the gait analysis course; the two courses can be taken together.

© 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.
 

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Best of the Old Year: Mr Beane On Top Of The Farrier World (Again)

On Top Of The World, originally uploaded by Feversham Lens.

Before 2010 fades to a distant memory, some credit where credit is due.

Congratulations to farrier Steven Beane of Trenholme Bar, North Yorkshire, England. Steve repeated his 2009 win as World Champion at the Calgary Stampede and brought home the title again in 2010. This beautiful portrait photo of Steven was taken as he fit a shoe to a client's horse. Credit where it's due again: image by Feversham Lens.

From Post Parade to Rose Parade: Ada Gates is Underfoot as Pasadena's Official Horseshoe Safety Inspector

 From ABC News in Los Angeles: Would your horse's hooves pass the Ada Gates inspection?

It's not unusual to find Ada Gates behind the scenes at a parade but it would most likely be the post parade at California's Santa Anita racetrack. She's at a different parade today.

The first woman licensed to shoe racehorses in America picked up the feet of 236 horses--including Budweiser Clydesdales, silver-draped Andalusians and military mules--this morning as she made sure their hooves were in compliance with the rules of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. The parade has specific rules for hoofcare that must be followed, as they hope to both prevent slipping on the pavement and lameness problems along the parade route. I did notice the horse trailers in the parade, ready to pick up any horses in distress or in need of relief.

NBC also has a video featuring Ada Gates and several of the equestrian units in today's parade, filmed at the parade's stabling at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center at Griffith Park in Burbank, but it did not have an embedding code so it can't be seen here on the blog. If a code becomes available, you'll see that video here, as well.

The Hoof Blog had a report from Ada after the 2008 Rose Parade with her observations about the hooves she sees at the parade: Traction Counts at the Rose Parade (Just Ask Ada).

© 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.
 

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