On the Case: Combined Contracture and Laxity Complicate Limb Deformity in an Irish Thoroughbred Foal

Kevin Corley, BVM&S, PhD. DACVIM, DACVECC, DECEIM, MRCVS of the Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital in County Kildare, Ireland shared photos of a recent case. A 12-hour-old Thoroughbred foal intended for future racing needed a treatment or management plan for an unusual hind limb deformity.

The foal’s foot was flat on the ground, but the pastern was vertical and the fetlock knuckled forward.

The Nobel Prize for Farrier Poetry: Looking Through Seamus Heaney's "Door into the Dark"

One of the world's greatest poets died on Friday. Ireland's Seamus Heaney was one of those people who bridged the past and the present with verse so deft you were never sure where time fit into the story or if time matters anymore. He grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1940s and went out into the world through his words, winning the Nobel Prize for poetry as he wandered.

Case Follow-up: How's the Swiss Cheese Hoof Wall?

Do you recognize this foot? Califronia farrier R. T. Goodrich has an update on "the swiss cheese hoof wall" case. The mare continues to improve and the shoeing treatment has been simplified.

On June 7, 2013, California farrier R.T. Goodrich innocently posted a photograph of a hoof on his farrier service's Facebook page. It wasn't a horse that belonged to any of his clients. He shod it for free, just to help the otherwise-helpless owner out. Her horse had received an unorthodox hoof wall dimpling treatment for laminitis.

Lost Shoes Solution: Shoe Secure Keeps Your Horse's Shoes On, World Champion Style

Whether it’s linked to conformation or a gait abnormality or a swampy pasture, the shoe loss problem may have met its match in an odd-looking product from Scotland called ShoeSecure. Designed by an equestrian entrepreneur with the help of a world champion farrier, and used by a world champion reiner, the new product launched in the USA this summer with a star-studded resume.

                                 SHOESECURE SPONSORED THIS ARTICLE.                               

What do you get when you put together the mind of a determined equestrian entrepreneur with the technical skills and imagination of this year’s world champion farrier?

St Nicholas Abbey Fracture Fixation Pin Breaks

The horizontal steel pin (top of radiograph, red arrow) was designed to help the injured Thoroughbred bear weight in spite of the fracture in his pastern. This pin, as you can see, is broken and had to be removed. (photo provided by Coolmore Stud)

An important announcement from Coolmore Stud was released today. Coolmore has been judiciously reporting both the good and bad news throughout the ordeal of a fractured pastern suffered while galloping to multiple Group I winner and stud prospect St Nicholas Abbey.

Research Report: Dr James Belknap Summarizes Developments in Understanding Laminitis Funded by the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation

The following report by Dr Belknap summarizes the sequence of his latest research on laminitis through funding supplied by the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation and is reprinted with the Foundation's permission.

Dr. James Belknap of The
Ohio State University

The funding by the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation (GJCRF) and the NTRA (Barbaro Fund) of our last two projects on the efficacy of cryotherapy in laminitis has allowed us to bring to fruition a great deal of effort by many investigators over several decades. This has furthered our understanding of laminitis and to truly bring to the forefront the first laminitis therapy which has passed thorough scientific rigor as an effective therapy for laminitis.

Laminitis is a disease in which the hoof wall separates from the soft tissue attached to the distal phalanx (coffin bone), resulting in the distal phalanx undergoing a crippling displacement towards the ground surface of the hoof.