Secretariat's Death by Laminitis, Revisited: The Night America Learned About Laminitis

Do you remember where you were on October 4, 1989? Maybe you hadn't even been born. Or maybe you still remember that feeling of loss, of stunned disbelief, that the horse to end all horses was no longer in a paddock somewhere in Kentucky. 

Only a disease as powerful and mysterious as laminitis to stop him.

Rhode Island Governor Admits He Was an Illegal Immigrant Horseshoer at Canadian Racetracks

The Honorable Governor of the State of Rhode Island was once apprehended for being in Canada illegally to shoe horses. He says that gives him a unique perspective on the issue of illegal immigration and how apprehended aliens should be treated.

You have to admit that he's honest. Or was it perhaps a touch of nostalgia for his past life?

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee admitted today in an interview with WPRO "Plain Speaking" blogger and radio personality Bob Plain that he worked illegally in Canada as a racetrack horseshoer...and that his day of destiny came when one of the other shoers at a track turned him in to immigration authorities.

As discussion of how to deal with illegal aliens rises to the top of political issues in the United States, no one expected any state would have a governor with firsthand experience with the issue.

Chafee said he was fined $50 for working in Canada without proper working papers. The experience, he said, is one of the reasons he would like to see a law passed that would allow immigrants in this country to illegally work towards becoming legal without leaving, as he did when he was an undocumented worker in Canada.

After graduating from horseshoeing school at Montana State University, Chafee gravitated to the harness tracks of western Canada. He prepared for horseshoeing school by completing his undergraduate college degree at Brown University.

In case you're wondering, there are quite a few farriers around the country with degrees from Ivy League colleges. Chafee isn't the only one. Plenty of Ivy League graduates headed to Canada in the 1960s but they went to escape the draft, not to shoe horses. Chafee's illegal migration would have taken place during the 1970s.

An interesting footnote to Chafee's story is that his father was a United States Senator when his son was picked up by authorities for working illegally in Canada. Years later, the horseshoer filled his father's Senate seat until he failed re-election on his last attempt. If he was running for that office today, would someone make an issue of his lack of respect for the law?

I respect Chafee for his honesty. It's a long way from his arrest as an Ivy League horseshoer in Canada to the news of an illegal Mexican stableworker in Vermont who was arrested two weeks ago when he was a passenger in a car stopped for speeding. His arrest sparked a protest in the normally peaceful Green Mountain State, with a trio of protesters arrested. Vermont has previously espoused a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy toward immigration status. Last year, the state attorney general was quoted as saying his state was "no Arizona". The mandatory federal "Secure Communities" program changes that.

Chafee is the latest in a series of governors to speak out on immigration enforcement politics.

When he was a US Senator, Chafee proudly displayed his IUJH horseshoer's license in his office in Washington, DC. He split from his longtime association with the Republican party while still a Senator; he left the Senate in 2006. Chafee currently is an Independent--an appropriate stance for a farrier. And he seems to be working in this country legally.

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© 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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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Laminitis In Action: Coffin Bone Rotation Time Lapse Video (International Laminitis Conference Preview)

Laminitis, caught in the act: The foot of a horse suffering from Potomac Horse Fever is recorded as it goes through two processes subsequent to the damage in the foot caused by the disease: the coffin bone appears to be rotating away from the hoof wall at the toe and down at its tip; it is also "sinking" within the foot. These two processes are called rotation and sinking, or sinker syndrome. Many laminitis terms have parallel names in other parts of the world or even within the same country. (Andrew Van Eps video)

(You might have to watch this a few times, and if you have a slow connection, you might need to click on the stop button. Once the video is buffered, it should play smoothly. Watching it in full-screen mode helps.)

What you are seeing is a time-lapse of the radiographic view of a horse going through the process commonly called "rotation". What rotation actually is and which part of the foot is the chicken and which is the egg is perpetually debated. This particular foot is also "sinking" within the hoof capsule.

Andrew Van Eps

The video was created by Andrew Van Eps, BVSc, PhD, MACVSc, DACVIM of the University of Queensland. Dr. Van Eps earned a PhD while he was researching laminitis at the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit under Dr Chris Pollitt. Among the insights Dr. Van Eps' PhD research has contributed to the treatment of laminitis is the efficacy of cryotherapy in the prevention of laminitis. He created the video of the Potomac Horse Fever case during a residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

At the Sixth International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida next month, Dr. Van Eps returns once again to speak. Among his subjects will be suggestions for ways to apply cryotherapy, clinical techniques to prevent support-limb laminitis and his intriguing-sounding lecture, "Lamellar Bioenergetics Studied Using Tissue Microdialysis".


You might be interested in reading "Equine laminitis: cryotherapy reduces the severity of the acute lesion" and "Equine laminitis model: cryotherapy reduces the severity of lesions evaluated seven days after induction with oligofructose" by van Eps and Dr. Pollitt, originally published in 2004 and 2009, respectively, in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

He's probably forgotten all about this video. But to anyone dealing with laminitis, the question of whether or not rotation is inevitable in a given horse remains a paramount concern. How many horses technically experience laminitis and have damaged laminae, but have minor rotation or none at all, and why is there such variation between horses? How many horses have bouts of laminitis that their owners never even notice? Is it still laminitis if no one notices but the farrier, the next time the horse is due to be trimmed or shod?

And what is rotation? Is the deep digital flexor tendon, which attaches on the underside of the coffin bone, actually pulling up and back on the bone as the laminae at the toe loosen their hold on the bone, as we've been taught, and as this video would so nicely illustrate? Or is it the weight of the horse on the compromised structures, compounded by unusual posture, that encourages a combination of those forces to work in concert?

A paper from New Zealand published in this month's (September 2011) Equine Veterinary Journal proposes that the soft tissue structures in the back of a contracted, bar-humped foot make it possible for the palmar processes of the coffin bone to act like a fulcrum around which the coffin bone rotates, and that the tendon has no involvement. (See "The effect of hoof angle variations on dorsal lamellar load in the equine hoof" by Ramsey, Hunter and Nash.)

Lead author Gordon Ramsey was kind enough to send his paper and this section begs to be highlighted; using a Finite Element analysis model, Ramsey calculated forces on the proximal hoof wall at the toe when the heels are raised, as recommended in some laminitis therapy regimen. Extrapolating from that finding, he challenged the mainstream concept of coffin bone rotation in laminitis.

Please note that the author is from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and so uses "lamellae" instead of "laminae" in his text; instead of referring to raising the heels of the foot, he refers to mechanically altering the palmar angle of the coffin bone. It's food for thought whether measurements of heels and coffin bone palmar angles are interchangeable.

A typical laminitis foot, with increased heel growth, which would elevate the palmar angle of the coffin bone as per Ramsey's FE model. According to his calculations, as that palmar angle is intentionally increased in some laminitis treatment protocols, the stress on the proximal (closer to the coronet) laminae inside the hoof wall at the toe would be increased. (University of Nottingham vet school photo)

Ramsey writes:

"The first stage of structural failure in a laminitic hoof involves a stretching of the laminar junction (Pollitt 2007), with rotational displacement occurring subsequently. This seems consistent with a mode of failure that begins at the most loaded proximal part of the lamellae, as predicted by this model, with rotation only occurring after the lamellae have been weakened. 

"It has been proposed that rotational displacement of the distal phalanx, as a sequel to weakening or failure of the laminar junction, is a result of the forces imposed by the deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT) and leverage of the dorsal wall on the ground during breakover (Hood 1999). Experimental results have shown that in laminitic ponies the DDFT force is zero for the first 40% of stance and only approaches a normal value near the end of stance, but that the peak vertical ground reaction force (GRF) is only reduced by 13 percent compared to normal ponies (McGuigan et al 2005). 

"Since the peak lamellar load, predicted by this model to occur at the proximal (not the distal) region of the laminar junction, is more strongly influenced by the GRF than the DDFT force and does not occur during breakover, then this mechanism seems unlikely. 

"An alternative proposed mechanism is that the digital cushion and the region of the attachment of the DDFT are a fulcrum about which the distal phalanx rotates (Coffman et al 1970). As both the DDFT and the digital cushion are soft tissues, it seems unlikely that these could provide sufficient support. 

"However, if the hoof has contracted heels or ingrown bars (Strasser 1997), then these could provide support for the palmar processes to act as the fulcrum for rotation. This could explain why in some hooves the distal phalanx rotates but in other cases, where this fulcrum perhaps does not exist, it only displaces vertically."

Join in the discussion at the Laminitis Conference, October 29-31. The early registration discount ends soon!

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© 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 Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Friends at Work: Will Hellyer Shoes a Real Shire for Virtual Farmers

Shoeing a Shire horse isn't easy. Neither is describing the process in a little more than a minute but The Farm's "Head Girl" Emma Warner did it.

Yesterday The Hoof Blog commiserated with a researcher who had to explain insulin resistance and its role in equine laminitis in less than three minutes.  Who knew an academic could avoid all the big words and cut to the chase?

Today I was thinking that it's equally hard to explain what a farrier is doing as s/he shoes a horse. And I found someone who did it in a minute and a half. "Head Girl" (that's British for horse manager) Emma Warner had some very good video editing behind her voiceover to make it possible. And in doing it, she manages to avoid many of the cliches and misused terms that many journalists and broadcasters inevitably--and understandably--garble.

Virtual farmers make the decision at a web-managed farm

Farrier Will Hellyer is hard at work on one of the Shire horses at the National Trust’s "MyFarm" project at the 2500-acre Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire, England, where over 250,000 visitors a year get up close and personal with farm animals, including many from rare species, on a "real" working farm. They also have the option of joining the farm and can become virtual decision-makers on how the farm is run. It's a very interesting way to use the Internet, and would be a great model for a show or racehorse stable, too.

I became aware of the farm in July when they set up a web cam in the stall of a Shire mare who was about to foal. I thought it would be exciting for people to follow the birth and encouraged people via Twitter to tune in.

The Shire is one of two native heavy horse breeds in England; the Suffolk is the other. Shires are traditionally shod with toe clips. Photo by Lars Lundqvist.

It turned out to be something quite different than what any of us imagined. The foal never took a breath after it emerged from the womb and the experience of watching the process turned out not to be the idyllic, joyful one people expected, but rather the hard, cold realism of life (and death) on a real farm, after all.

The farm said that 800 people were watching at the time.

Watching how the farm handled the publicity over the foal's death was interesting, as the public expressed a wide variety of opinions and reactions, thanks to the open book of social media. The farm seemed to post any and all comments, and take the critical ones in stride.

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© 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 Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Insulin Resistance and Equine Laminitis Research: Australia's Melody De Laat's Academic Elevator Video

Imagine the challenge laid down by the University of Queensland to its graduate researchers: give a three-minute presentation encapsulating your doctoral work. Tell an audience of everyday people from all walks of life why it matters, what it's all about. But keep it short. Can an Australian laminitis researcher describe equine metabolic syndrome in that short amount of time--using only one slide? 3-2-1...talk!

What's your elevator speech?

You have to have one.

If you're an entrepreneur, a job seeker, self-employed or just someone who doesn't want to be left in the dust of this ever-changing world, you have to have to an elevator speech. Once all you needed was a firm handshake, and a spare business card in your wallet for when you met someone. Now you need to be able to tell him or her what you do with your life and why you do it in just a few words.

You need to be able to get the message across that you're special and you're interesting and you're worth knowing/hiring/considering, and you need to say exactly why--all in the time it would take to ride a couple of floors on the elevator of a hotel or office building.

When that elevator door opens, your speech is over.

Yes, you're saying...But then there are academics. And forget engineers. Have you ever asked a researcher or engineer what he or she actually does? I know what you're thinking: Maybe there are some elevators in some coal mines in some Third World countries that would take long enough for a researcher's speech to get to the point--if there is one, that is.

But things are changing. We live in an age of pecha-kucha, the PowerPoint challenge to present your idea in 20 slides that change every 20 seconds, whether you're ready or not. It's the age of the "unconference". And the two-minute video rules, thanks to the way that YouTube has reset our attention spans.

So imagine the challenge laid down by the University of Queensland to its graduate research community: give a three-minute presentation encapsulating your doctoral work. Tell an audience of everyday people from all walks of life why it matters, what it's all about. But keep it short.

And if you get your message across? You could be the winner.

Last year, Melody De Laat answered the UQ Three Minute Thesis competition challenge with a topic related to her thesis: The Investigation of Insulin-Induced Laminitis in Horses. Her research at the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit (AELRU) focused on how elevated insulin levels, which occur as a result of insulin resistance, damage the sensitive lamellar (laminar) structures of the horse's foot.

And she had to do it on a huge stage, in an even bigger theater, in front of people who knew nothing about horses' feet, let alone about laminitis or insulin resistance.

“Insulin resistance is an increasingly common problem in horses. The lamellar failure, which is known as laminitis, that results as a consequence of the elevated insulin levels in the body is a painful and debilitating condition,” Melody said confidently.

“By uncovering the mechanisms involved in insulin-induced laminitis it is hoped that we will be able to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates associated with this disease.”
 
The Queensland competition was so well-received that it has been extended to other national and international universities in Australia and beyond. Master of Ceremonies for the event is the award-winning science writer and broadcaster with ABC Science Online, and regular judge on Australian ABC TV's The New Inventors, Bernie Hobbs.

I hope you enjoyed Melody's equivalent of her elevator speech. She advanced to the finals, and there are a lot more people in Australia who know a little bit about laminitis thanks to this competition and Melody's PhD.

And--Oh! Is this your floor?

One of Melody De Laat's research breakthroughs on metabolic laminitis was featured on The Hoof Blog on July 1, 2011. If you'd like to learn more, Melody De Laat will be one of four doctoral and post-doctoral researchers from the Australian Equine Laminitis Research Unit (Simon Collins, Melody De Laat, Brian Hampson and Andrew Van Eps are the team) who will accompany AELRU director Chris Pollitt to speak at the 6th International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot in West Palm Beach, Florida October 29-31. 

© 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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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Heart-Bars in Heaven: George Platt DVM Has Died

Heart-bars in heaven: George Platt DVM and farrier Burney Chapman waged war against laminitis from one end of the United States to the other. Credit for their remarkable success rate was always modestly given to the only physical symbol of their treatment, the heart-bar shoe. The shoe inadvertently became a talisman of good or evil, depending on where you stood, and evidence to insurers that severe laminitis wasn't always a death sentence.  (© Hoofcare + Lameness file photo)

Dr. George Platt has died.

The legendary veterinarian who spent most of his career fighting the disease of equine laminitis suffered a stroke in late August and died this afternoon.

If you have ever seen, or touched, or made or used a heart-bar shoe,  George Platt had a part in it. The Texas veterinarian teamed up with horseshoer Burney Chapman in the 1970s and together they experimented with treatments for laminitis. They found the heart-bar shoe in an old textbook and gave it a try; the rest is history.

George Platt in 2009

That history was recorded in 1984, at the 30th Annual Convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners. Platt and Chapman presented the heart-bar shoe as the centerpiece of their treatment protocol which they documented as successful in rehabilitating a long list of cases referred to Platt by insurance companies.

George Platt's specialty, for many years, was answering the challenge of bringing these high-profile racehorses or show horses back from the near-dead. A broken neck in a skiing accident slowed him down for a while and he made a comeback as a lecturer and clinician because he felt the need to keep the heart-bar shoe front-and-center after Burney Chapman's death, and to clear up many of the misunderstandings about its use. But he ended up back in practice in the mountains of Colorado, where he told me he intended to just be a "ski bum". But he couldn't resist working on horses.

A few years ago, George posed for an over-exposed veterinarian fundraising calendar for an animal shelter in Vail. He was at least twice the age of most of the vets who posed--but he stole the show.

He received the "Veterinarian of the Year" Award this year from the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association, and it was one of many accolades to add to his long list.

Dr. George Platt (right) with farrier Eddie Watson (left) explaining heart-bar shoes at the 1992 American Farrier's Association Convention. Their collaboration sent Platt off to write a paper for Hoofcare + Lameness on using heart bar shoes for heel pain, which was quite a radical proposition in those days.

In looking through a file of letters from him, I'm struck by how many times he said "Just kidding!", both as he wrote humorously and as he spoke.

The last letter I received from him is undated. It says: "This is it: I can't explain how to fit a heart bar but I can show anyone how to." And that's what he did. 

I was lucky to have George Platt as a friend. He was a staunch and generous supporter of Hoofcare Publishing; all his contributions, of course, were about heart-bar shoes.

I have to say that he, as much or more than any one individual, changed the course of the way that farriers and veterinarians work alone and together when he teamed up with Burney Chapman.

People are always quick to give George Platt credit for the heart-bar shoe because he was the very first to lecture on it. He and Burney Chapman did much more than wake a horseshoe up and dust it off: They either launched the beginning of a new age or they opened a Pandora's box. Even 25 years later, it is too soon to tell which, but how many horses have benefited in the meantime?

George Platt wasn't one to sit around and wonder what the historians would have to say about him and his ideas on laminitis. He knew what he'd accomplished in his decades of trying to stop laminitis from taking horses' lives.

He might not be able to explain it, but he could show you how it's done. 

And he did. Thank you, George Platt.

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