Vet-Span: Watch an Arkansas Legislative Committee Consider a Bill to Clarify the State's Vet Practice Act

Legislative committee hearings are the first step in the life or death of a bill introduced at the state level. In the most basic process, it happens like this: a state representative or senator files a bill, it is referred to a committee, the committee approves or disproves it, and the bill either goes forward to another committee or goes to the vote of the House or Senate. If turned down, the legislation may be abandoned or it may be modified and brought before the committee again.

Each state has a veterinary practice act. Most are modeled after a draft document provided by the American Veterinary Medical Association, but there is variation among the 50 states. One of the most contentious parts of the newer practice acts has been the definition of veterinary medicine to include all acts of prevention and treatment of disease in animals.

At various times, the veterinary practice acts have been challenged with requests for changes or interpretation in different states and it is quite often the horsecare field that is the battleground. Equine massage and equine dentistry are two professions that the veterinary profession seems to have identified as trying to cross over into the practice of veterinary medicine. Horseshoeing, farriery, equine podiatry and the practice of providing hoofcare by any number of other names are often lumped in with other gray-area professions from dog grooming to acupuncture. Horse trainers in some aspects of their work may even cross over the line.

Some states have attempted to clarify or modify veterinary practice acts, but of course it is much harder to change something after it has already been signed into law. Arkansas is one of the states that tried to change, or clarify, its practice act to allow professionals besides veterinarians to legally provide their services to animals.

The Arkansas proposed change was introduced with the new 2011 legislature and had its first committee hearing on January 19. Quite unrelated, the state of Arkansas at the same time introduced live video streaming of its committee hearings. As a result, the entire meeting of the House of Representatives' Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Committee could be downloaded and preserved on the Hoof Blog.

At the end of the video, you will see that the bill failed its first hearing. Jim House, a horseshoer from Fayetteville, Arkansas and former state legislator who introduced the bill, hopes and believes that it will be modified and reintroduced.

I've been in touch with Jim House extensively about his attempt to clarify and/or change the Arkansas Veterinary Practice Act. The presentation of this video is not to embarrass Jim or to publicize the bill's defeat or to criticize the way the bill or the Veterinary Practice Act in Arkansas or any other state.

The purpose of posting this video is to give you a clear view of the legislative process and how the care of horses and careers of professionals (whether veterinarians or not) can be affected by men in suits sitting around tables who may or may not know what the care of a horse entails. This is democracy in action, because these men were elected by the people of Arkansas. Think about that the next time an election rolls around.

If you are planning to begin or continue a career in the horse industry, spending the time to watch this video would be a good investment. It could be any state. It could be yours.

I've known Jim House (left) for many, many years. He is a horseshoer who has always been passionate, thoughtful and enthusiastic about his work. A former state representative in Arkansas, he said that he actually didn't undertake this project to benefit himself, or even his fellow horseshoers in Arkansas, but to benefit all who work with horses, and those who own them.

The Pandora's Box that Jim opened in his state is wide open, cracked, or at least being talked about in almost every state. No one but lawyers and opportunists will benefit from much of this until the vets and the professionals get together on their own, with the men's suits left hanging safely in their closets and with women, who predominate in both the horse industry and in the veterinary profession, joining in the conversation.

Finding and agreeing on common ground is the most important first step forward, if any of the three groups (owners, veterinarians and horsecare professionals) really wants, as Jim House says, to help the horses and not just themselves.

Meanwhile, the American Veterinary Medical Association is in the process of collecting comments for a new, revised Model Veterinary Practice Act (MVPA), as announced here on The Hoof Blog in November 2010. Once completed, the new MVPA will be presented to states and the AVMA will hope that state veterinary boards will adopt some or all of its tenets and present them to their state legislatures for approval, thus replacing the existing VPA in each state that adopts it.

So, any changes made to language in the MVPA would stand a good chance of being widely adopted across the United States. And those changes are being solicited right now.

TO LEARN MORE:

Download the Arkansas Veterinary Practice Act.

Download Arkansas House Bill 1055; click on "full text" to read the entire bill proposed to clarify the Veterinary Practice Act in Arkansas.

Jim House's passion for clarifying the Arkansas Veterinary Practice Act is presented in this article for Arkansas animal owners.

Read comments from horse owners in Arkansas (both pro and con) about House Bill 1055.

Read about the AVMA's call for comments on the new model Veterinary Practice Act.

Hoofcare Publishing provides these resources as information for our readers and does not have an interest in the outcome of the legislation in Arkansas or any other state. Our goal is to pique the interest and involvement by our readers in all matters affecting the betterment of individual and collective groups who care for horses. Be informed. Get involved. But work proactively and collaboratively; remember the words of John F. Kennedy: "A rising tide will lift all boats."

© 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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Video: Equine Biomechanics Integrated with an Icelandic Horse's Disco-Rhythm Hoofbeats by Swiss Researchers

Are you awake now?

This video is your wake-up call. It's a fast-cut peek inside the high-tech equine performance testing laboratory at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where kinematic- and kinetic-research are undergoing an exciting fusion under the direction of biomechanics research professor Michael Weishaupt PhD DMV. Where the disco beat came from is anyone's guess!

Are the researchers trying to turn this Icelandic into an Olympian or a racehorse? No, there are no Frankenhorses in biomechanics labs. "The application of knowledge pertaining to sports medicine does not aim to increase the speed of the horse or allow it to jump higher, but to keep the athlete sound, prepare it optimally for a specific event, and to recognize detrimental influences early in order to avoid an untimely end to an athletic career," wrote Dr Weishaupt along with Zurich's esteemed professor of equine surgery, Dr Jorg Auer, in an explanation of the research at Zurich.

To do that, Weishaupt and his colleagues are combining kinetic and kinematic research in the same evaluation system. Two formerly exclusive branches of biomechanics research are now under the hood of the same laboratory testing matrix.

Kinematics is nothing new to Hoofcare + Lameness readers. Kinematics is simply the study of motion. A student of dressage could be said to be an equine kinematics scholar, on some level.  But in the world of clinical evaluation of horses, we have typically talked about kinematics as the two-dimensional recording of a horse's movement in order to gain insight into a horse's stride's length or velocity or frequency, or to determine lameness. It works very nicely to prove or enhance what we think we see with our naked eyes or what the rider thinks he or she feels from the saddle.

For the past five years or so, kinematics in the laboratory has been moving ahead. Three-dimensional gait analysis has been used in research to delve deeper into the horse's movement so that joints can be analyzed for the complex structures that many of them are. A hinge joint like the fetlock might be analyzed in two dimensions, but what about the hock or the spine? And what about the coffin joint, a complex structure with three types of motion patterns--flexion-extension, abduction-adduction and axial rotation?

And what if a specific location in the limb could be isolated, such as the distal end of the cannon bone, where so many racing injuries occur? If the forces there can be measured over different track surfaces, aren't we light years ahead in preventing breakdowns?

When studying the motion of the horse, it's not just about the legs. The neck and head and back are critical components so gait analysis has expanded to putting markers all over the horse. The angular motion patterns (flexion-extension, lateral bending and lateral excursion) of six vertebrae (T10, T13, T17, L1, L3 and L5) and the axial rotation of the pelvis are calculated by the software used in the research--in the case of our friends in Zurich, that would be the Qualisys system.

In this video, provided by Qualisys, researchers used a similar system at the University of Agricultural Science in Uppsala, Sweden; 12 cameras recorded the horse in three dimensions on a sensitized treadmill so that the movement of the head and neck could be studied with each footfall and with the movement of the rider. Notice that the horse's center of gravity is always clearly marked on the screen.

So now the leading research labs may use three or many more cameras and create almost realistic moving horses on computer screens. Wireless technology has also improved the operations in the equine research laboratory.

If kinematics is the study of motion, kinetics is its alter ego, the study of force. Kinematics might not care if you were a ballerina or a gorilla crossing a Broadway stage--you'd just be a pattern of dots for it to interpret. And kinetics wouldn't care how synchronous or straight your limbs worked as you crossed; kinetics would worry instead about what happened when your feet hit the stage. Did you slide? Did you hit with enough force to break through a board? How long did each foot stay on the floor?

Researchers explore kinetics with force plates and, more recently, the alternative of pressure-sensitive materials such as mats and walkways embedded with sensors. In Zurich's case, it is an instrumented (sensor-embedded) treadmill (photo, above), or "TiF": a "Treadmill-integrated Force" measuring system able to record the vertical ground reaction forces of all four limbs simultaneously and report it instantly.

The buzzwords of kinetics are ground reaction force and center of gravity. A foot in water finds little resistance, but a foot usually lands on somewhat solid ground, depending on the nature of the footing. If the surface was rigid and foot was a wine glass, it would shatter, but it's designed to deform and store energy when it meets the ground. How to measure what happens during that meeting is the goal of kinetic research.

So the scientists at the University of Zurich wanted to analyze how the Icelandic horse on the treadmill in the video is moving (kinematics) while intermittently impacting the ground (kinetics) with his hooves. One of the new advantages of hoof-related research is the integration of the kinetic and kinematic tools. As the video screen draws the dotted horse that the cameras see, the pressure sensors simultaneously are recording the data of the impact of each footfall. The integration of these systems is relatively recent.

But there is a third entity going on here. The addition of a saddle and rider will affect the kinematics of the horse and no doubt the kinetics as well. So the researchers are measuring the pressure and movement of the saddle. Last year the same lab studied dressage horses at the collected walk--a deceptively simple gait that is a challenge to many upper level horses--and measured how much and in what direction at what phase of the stride the saddle moved.

Believe it or not, little research on the walk had been done before, and in particular, no one had tested how the rider and saddle might affect the horse's score at the walk. Since racehorses tend to trot, pace or gallop for a living, you will find a deep history of studies on those gaits over the course of equine biomechanics history. Sport horse kinetics and kinematics is a far less investigated field of study.

In the Zurich tests, all the dressage horses' saddles moved in the same directions at the same phases of the strides, and the rider's movement was the same as well.

And what about the hooves? Labs like Zurich have conducted comparative studies of how a horse moves while unshod, shod normally, and shod with rolled toe or "four point" shoes to study the effects of shoeing changes on kinematics and kinetics--in particular, the timing of the phases of the stride. Does a particular shoe cause a horse to keep its foot on the ground longer than another, and might this be associated with an increased potential for injury? 

So now the dressage horses have gone home and the Icelandic horses are being tested. A research project in progress is Kinetics, kinematics and energetics of the tölt: Effects of rider interaction and shoeing manipulations. The tölt is the amazing fast gait of the Icelandic horse; it is their signature show gait, and possibly unique to the breed. Will changing the shoes on an Icelandic horse change its ability to perform the tölt?

Since no one has studied an Icelandic horse with the resources that are available today, no one really knows.

But someone will. And, by extension, the world will know soon after that.

Thanks to BartMedia Designs for this video.

Here's a little video about using similar but more simplified equipment for testing humans. I hope this helps you understand biomechanics research a little better! The concepts mentioned in this blog post are vastly over-simplified but once you understand the basic concepts, it will all start to make sense.

To learn more: BYSTRÖM, A., RHODIN, M., Von PEINEN, K., WEISHAUPT, M. A. and ROEPSTORFF, L. (2010), Kinematics of saddle and rider in high-level dressage horses performing collected walk on a treadmill. Equine Veterinary Journal, 42: 340–345. doi: 10.1111/j.2042-3306.2010.00063.x

Anyone interested in learning more about equine biomechanics would be well-served by attending the Equinology biomechanics course with Dr. Hilary Clayton at the McPhail Equine Performance Center at Michigan State University's College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall of 2012. A combined course in biomechanics and lameness evaluation with Dr. Clayton will be offered in England in March 2011 at Writtle College.

 © 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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Share the Hoof Blog's Success with a Banner Ad or Sponsored Post!

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It's time to open up the Hoof Blog and share the fun and wealth of more than 1000 articles and news items about hoof health, farrier science, research and the art, culture, and history of those who care for horses' feet.

In celebration of our 1000th article, you're invited to advertise your product, service, business, or event on the blog. Choose from banner ads in the sidebar (area to the right of articles) or sponsor an article with a banner ad or place a block ad right in the body of the blog!

Blog visitors from all over the web will see your ad! On the blog, the ads will be "clickable" and go right to the web or email address that you specify. On most RSS feeds at various sites around the web and in our daily email headlines, block ads (approximately 480 pixels x 480 pixels) will carry a bonus headline separate from articles and result in extra search engine or keyword exposure for advertiser.

Contact Hoofcare Publishing today for more information! Email Blogads@hoofcare.com or call 978 281 3222 to reserve a premium spot.

You'll start seeing ads appear this week. Our ads will be high quality and all ads are subject to review and approval. We can create an ad for you or probably use or convert an existing ad you may already have.

Equine Physiotherapist Pioneer Mary Bromiley Receives British Queen's Recognition for Service to Equine Sports

This story is © 2011 Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This is not a press release. No use without permission.

Congratulations to human and equine physiotherapist Mary Bromiley, who was recently listed by the British Monarchy as a recipient of the Queen's Honors for 2011. Mary will be awarded the prestigious title of MBE: Member of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth for her services to equine sports.

Mary Bromiley is a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (a licensed human physical therapist in Great Britain), who applied her skills to horses. She and American athletic-trainer-turned-horse-therapist Jack Meagher were early pioneers who began using their knowledge of human sports training principles and muscle rehabilitation therapy on sport and race horses--in particular, on international event horses in the Olympics, with excellent results.

Mary worked for the New Zealand Olympic Teams at several Olympic Games and has been a frequent guest lecturer at equine sports medicine conferences. She is credited with the formation of The Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Animal Therapy (ACPAT), a sub-group of CSP.

Now 79 years young, Mary Bromiley may be found in rural Somerset, England, where she and her two daughters run Downs House, a rehabilitation center for horses and education center for equine therapy, at Combeleigh Farm, Exmoor. She also offers courses there.

Mary was quoted on her local equestrian web site Riders for the Bristol area: "It’s really an award that covers the work of an enormous amount of people. I could not have done it without my daughters, the veterinary profession and trainers such as Martin Pipe and Nicky Henderson who have allowed me to make suggestions and do things with their horses. It’s been a big effort all round."

If you know Mary Bromiley or have heard her lecture, you know she is never short of a good story. In one interview with the British website Southwest Business after receiving notification of her royal honors, Mary recalled this case about a filly that had slipped on the road and come down on her knees.

"I was told by a doctor friend about the benefits of the fabled bloodsucking leech and how its anti-coagulant saliva is routinely used to reinstate blood flow in wound areas. I drew (my) breath and rang a leech farm in South Wales. They duly arrived with 'handle with care' on the box but none of us wanted to put our hands in!"

Mary added: "The end result was that it made an amazing difference to the wound!"

British National Hunt trainer David Pipe dedicated a page on his web site to congratulating the woman who has helped so many of his horses, as well as his father's, the legendary Martin Pipe:

"I would like to start off by offering my heartfelt congratulations to Mary Bromiley for being awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honors List for services to equine sport. Mary pioneered the transference of human physiotherapy methods to horses many years ago and set up the country's only specialist horse and human rehabilitation center at Down's House, as well as founding the 'Flying Physios' who tend to injured jockeys at the race.

"Mary has tended to the horses at Pond House for many years and I have been privileged to see the amazing work that she has done first hand. Not only does she care for the equine inmates, but such is her kind and caring nature, she has also helped numerous employees. I am sure that everyone in racing will join me in congratulating Mary on this award, it is a thoroughly deserved recognition of her talents.

David included a quote from his father, Martin Pipe, who recalled years of working with Mary: "It was Mary who helped me to rebuild Carvill's Hill after all the bone scans and vets said that he would never be able to race again. He would certainly be one of her earlier success stories--we defied them by winning the Rehearsal Chase, Welsh National and Irish Hennessy. None of it would have been possible without Mary's regular contribution and expertise.

"It wasn't just the horses that she was so good with either, she helped to fix numerous members of staff and I was also a patient of hers as she helped considerably with the rebuilding of my new knee. She certainly put me through my paces, both before and after my operation! I couldn't be more pleased for Mary, it is great that she has been recognized for all that she has contributed to both equine and human health."

Mary is author of Massage Techniques for Horse and Rider, Natural Methods for Equine Health, Equine Injury and Therapy and co-author of Blackwell's Dictionary of Nursing. She has also made several videotapes to share her knowledge. Mary is sited as the inspiration behind the Equine Sports Massage Association in Great Britain and has been commercially associated with Respond Systems, as an advocate of their Bio-Pulse Magnetic Field Therapy Systems and laser systems for wound healing. She is also credited with the inspiration or collaboration in development of numerous other products and procedures for helping horses.

I thought you might find this video interesting; Mary uses a Respond laser to help treat a horse with the goal of increasing circulation to the foot in order to stimulate healing for tendon damage. Disclaimer: This is not an ad, it is a good video that shows Mary at work.

If you have a chance to learn from Mary, I highly recommend the experience, even if you have to travel to England to do it. She's been a great inspiration and resource for me and countless others and I think that her honor by the Queen is very much deserved.

Mary Bromiley's books are usually available from Hoofcare and Lameness. Some are out of print but can usually be sourced. They are excellent for reference. I hope she writes her memoirs some day!

Others from the horse world honored by the Queen were former racehorse trainer Tony Balding and accomplished horse photographer Bob Langrish.

Photo mirrored from Respond Systems web site. David and Martin Pipe quotes used with permission.

© 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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Beth Garner: Farrier Industry Legend Goes on Ahead

I took this picture in Australia. The Hunter Valley was flooded when Beth and I were visiting, but our host, farrier Billy Neville, still needed to get into a big stud farm. Life had to go on in the Hunter Valley, so the farm had strung a suspension foot bridge over the raging river so that employees could get to work.

I knew better than to look down. I've seen all the Indiana Jones movies. I know what can happen.

So I did what I had always done: I followed Beth's lead. She just strode right onto that rickety, swaying bridge. I took a deep breath and put one foot on the boards, then the next. The apprentices behind us lugged all the farrier tools and equipment and we must have looked for all the world like a horseshoeing safari. As we neared the end of the bridge, I got up the nerve to let go of one of the ropes and take this picture.

Two things proved to be true of so many years, when it came to following Beth: 1) it never failed to lead me into an adventure; 2) it was always a good idea. I'd be sure to learn something. I didn't really follow anyone else.

Beth has now gone on ahead. Way ahead. She died this week in her beloved home town on the California coast. She leaves GE Tools in the capable hands of her son. She leaves me wondering what it will be like with no one to follow, or whether it's time to take the lead she always thought I should take.

"You want to go first?" she'd say in Chantilly or Newmarket or Christchurch or Scone, whether it was crossing a bridge strung from trees or walking into Francois Boutin's racing stable or climbing up a castle's stairs on one of Edward Martin's tours of Scotland.

I always let her go first, or made her go first, or hoped against hope that she'd volunteer to go first. That way I could follow behind so that at times like this I could remember what she might do or how she'd act or where she would have lead us next.

Beth Garner, aged 93, was the long-time public face of her family-owned GE Forge and Tool Company, makers of fine farrier tools. She took the company global in the 1980s, before global was the accepted way to go, and was the first American that many people in the farrier world in other countries ever met because she simply went where they were, wherever that was. She didn't wait for them to come to the USA.

Few people know that Beth Garner was also the impetus behind the founding of Hoofcare Publishing, the initial investor in the company, and the most trusted adviser. In her retirement, she transitioned easily out of business traveler mode and drove the length and breadth of the USA in a motorhome and went on expeditions to places like Antarctica. 

Among Beth's non-business accomplishments were donations of her time and resources to the farrier world. She organized annual meetings of farrier school educators who had never even spoken to each other before, and put up the seed money to form the American Farrier's Association's equine research fund, and served on the first board. She also helped form the Farrier Industry Association and supported virtually every farrier education event in North America and many in other countries.

Beth always claimed to not know anything about horses, though her travels took her to the finest farms and stables and races and shows in the world. She was just as impressed with the horses at a county fair as she was with the jumpers at Hickstead. 

What Beth knew about was people, and how to go around the world and always be invited back. She found doors in solid walls, made grumpy men who couldn't understand a word of English smile in spite of themselves and crafted distribution deals for GE Tools on restaurant napkins that are probably still honored. Her business card could have read: Trailblazer, ambassador, innovator...and trusted friend to all. Especially me.
 

© 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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Todd Pletcher Wins Eclipse Award for Best Trainer, Gives Kudos to His Horseshoer, Ray Amato

I didn't see it live, but thanks to the wonders of YouTube and the NTRA's channel, I can share with you a magic moment at Monday night's 2010 Eclipse Awards. As Todd Pletcher accepted the Eclipse for Trainer of the Year, he made a little speech about the team behind  him. In particular he pointed out our friend, horseshoer Ray Amato, who was sitting at the table with him, and looking great in his tuxedo. I won't spoil it and tell you what Todd said; watch if for yourself. Suffice to say, it's the highest praise I've ever heard in a speech about a living horseshoer, let alone on national television. How about that!

 

Here's Ray at one of our Hoofcare@Saratoga events last summer. He's getting a hug from Ada Gates as he recalled how she came to him looking for an apprenticeship early in her career. Ada said he was the only horseshoer who'd even talk to her. She had to go to California to break into track shoeing; no woman had ever done it before, and few have since. Ada and Ray could have a comic speaker act. Like Todd Pletcher, Ray Amato won his first Kentucky Derby this year when he shod Super Saver for Pletcher. That night at Saratoga, he recalled how he had thought he had his first winner in 1973, when he shod Sham. But Secretariat had other ideas. The stories that these two can tell are amazing, as are their skills as storytellers!

 © 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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