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H
& L Online News A collection of informal news from
Hoofcare & Lameness: The Journal of Equine Foot
Science WHAT’S IN THIS NEWSLETTER AAEP Lecture Notes
Personal News from the Hoofcare Community AD deadline for January issue is December 19! CALL NOW! Note: if you feel you were sent this newsletter in error, or if you are not interested in this news about hoof and lameness problems about horses, please send a return email immediately and your name will dutifully be deleted permanently from this list. My apologies for any inconvenience or intrusion this message may cause. Greetings, everyone! I just walked in the door from the American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention, and wanted to share some of the news with you all, in case you weren’t there. First of all, the convention was very well-attended, and business was brisk at the H&L booth at the trade show. Our neighbors included Life Data Labs, makers of Farriers Formula, and Grand Meadows, makers of Grand Hoof and Grand Flex, along with 3M, Mustad, Nutramax Laboratories (makers of Cosequin), GE Tools, Advance Equine, Horse Sense, the American Farrier’s Association, the “Working Together for Equines” project (Walt Taylor and Dr. Tina McGregor), Mike Williams’s “W Brand Products”, Equilox, Equithane, Bergy Bergstrom’s Hoof Talk, LuwexUSA hoof pads, and many other companies and organizations you know. Sorry if I missed someone in that list! Interestingly enough, there was no booth selling a wide range of tools and products for vets and farriers to use on lame horses. It was a shame, since so many foreign vets were there, eager to make purchases to take tools and products home. The only meeting I was able to attend was the AAEP’s Farrier Liaison Committee, and H&L managed to sponsor the refreshments again this year. Dr. Tracy Turner of the University of Minnesota chaired the meeting, which covered varying ways of looking at the same topic, which was whether they should comment at all on the question of farrier licensing. As you can imagine, there was an interesting discussion, which segued into a motion, reworded several times, asking the AAEP to officially support the AFA’s voluntary certification program for farriers. The motion will be reviewed by the executive board of the AAEP, and may or may not be approved, although the committee members did support it. Another discussion covered the receipt of complaints about non-veterinarians being quoted in magazine articles on medical care of horses. We journalists in the audience agreed to be more sensitive to separate medical care from hoofcare. At the lectures, one of the most interesting was given by DR. BOB BOWKER of Michigan State University, who detailed his comparative dissections and tissue studies of the lateral cartilages of groups of horses from the Standardbred and Arabian breeds. First of all, he found that there was a variation in the thickness and composition of the cartilages between individuals and that the Arabians had significantly thicker cartilage than the Standardbreds. He found that, in strong footed horses, the lateral cartilage actually wrapped under the digital cushion and is possibly involved in an energy dissipation mechanism. This may be a scientific recognition of what David Duckett has always called “the frog bridge” in his anatomy lectures, but there will be much more on this work in the next issue of Hoofcare & Lameness. If you are wondering, as I was, about the effect of ringbone on energy dissipation, Dr. Bowker responded that the venous blood supply through the cartilage was probably not affected by ossification. DR. DAVID HOOD of “The Hoof Project” at Texas A&M University hardly seemed to take a breath as he recounted his most recent research on weightbearing and an experiment he had performed on a group of horses kept both on sand and on concrete, and how the weightbearing changed. Agreeing with Dr. Bowker, Hood discounted three main tenets of traditional hoof study: 1) that the wall is the primary loading surface; 2) that the frog should or should not touch the ground; and 3) that P3 is “suspended” within the hoof capsule. He exhaled more thoughts in 20 minutes that I could absorb; most of his findings were applicable to “natural hoof” material published in issue #69 of Hoofcare & Lameness (I hope you are receiving it now, I know the mail is slow...) Again, a full report on Dr. Hood’s presentation will be in the next issue of H&L. DR. ILKE WAGNER of Texas A&M’s Hoof Project addressed the questions of “air lines” that show up on radiographs of foundered horses. She set out to determine if they were abscesses or mummified laminae. Since no bacteria was found unless the sole had been penetrated, she couldn’t classify them as abscesses; she found that the air lines do not affect the strength and stability of the foot, and that their presence should not be used as a prognostic indicator of the horse’s recovery chances. DR. RIC REDDEN of the International Equine Podiatry Center in Kentucky rocketed through about 30 different case studies of laminitis. As usual, his cases were very severe. He showed excellent video footage detailing how to make and use his aluminum “rail” shoe with “Advance cushion” material for sole support. Surely what everyone will remember is the footage of how he softens hard feet with a welding torch before trimming them! DR. TRACY TURNER of the University of Minnesota went through the treatment of navicular bone fractures, recommending the use of a stacked-wedge shoe to reorient the coffin joint and position the navicular bone in the posterior position of the joint instead of in a lower, more weightbearing position. As if that weren’t enough, there were lunch sessions, sunrise sessions, and many, many late-night informal sessions, as people discussed the horse’s foot to death. The natural hoof is still the hot topic among veterinarians. The work of people like Bowker and Hood will surely go a long way to showing how horses USE their feet in different environments. ***Commercial time! Dr. Hood and Dr. Wagner have collected all the Texas A&M research papers and abstracts into one volume, called “The Proceedings of the Hoof Project 1997.” This was the best -selling book at the H&L book booth; we have a few of the advance copies left, and will have a full stock to sell at the Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium in late January, where both Bowker and Hood will be speaking. Call, fax, or e-mail the H&L office to reserve a copy, or if you can’t wait, and you call soon, you can have one of the remaining advanced copies, which are real collector’s items. They are softbound, 129 pages, with color photos and illustrations, and the price is $50 per copy plus $5 postage.***** (end of commercial) Lateral cartilages and their relationship both to the hoof wall and the entire coffin joint are THE hot topic in the hoof world right now. I am very happy to share the news that Dr. Jean-Marie Denoix, H&L’s consulting editor from the Alfort anatomy study center in France, (and author of our popular book “Physical Therapy and Massage for the Horse”) has written a paper for H&L on how the lateral cartilage responds to injury and its healing process during performance stress or trauma. Dr. Denoix has a wealth of material that has never been translated into English, and I hope to share more of his work with H&L subscribers. PERSONAL NEWS: H&L’s booth staff included Hanni Christiansen and Linda Cline, owners of High Country Horseshoes in British Columbia. They brought down a set of the last hoof knives made by the Canadian master, Joe Peterka. (I probably spelled that wrong.) The vets and farriers present eagerly bought them all up!...”Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated,” to steal the words of Mark Twain, would apply to rumors about Burney Chapman’s illness during the convention. Burney spent an afternoon at the hospital, and was released and back at the trade show within hours....Not so lucky is our friend Bob Schantz of Spanish Lake Blacksmith Shop in Missouri, who has been sidelined by a serious car accident....H&L consulting editor Paul Goodness from Virginia was at the AAEP.....Another H&L consulting editor, Bruce Daniels, is Down Under, giving a seminar for St. Croix Forge at Classic Horseshoes in New South Wales, Australia....Dr. Jan Young of Phoenix hosted a seminar on degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis during the AAEP convention; her work is profiled in the November 1997 edition of “The Horse” magazine....Leading California dressage rider (and farrier) Margie Lee popped up at the H&L booth at the US Dressage Federation Convention in New Orleans...California farrier Alice Johnson will be the first woman to judge the World Championship of horseshoeing at the Calgary Stampede in July! DON’T FORGET: HOOFCARE & LAMENESS will be exhibiting at the 1998 Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium in Louisville, Kentucky January 28-31. The work of Bowker and Hood plus all the other great speakers will make this an amazing educational experience! The Symposium is also hosting a storytelling festival so you can share your favorite stories about working with, for, and under horses. AND THERE’S MORE: Hoofcare’s own Fran Jurga has been asked to share information on how to do research about hoofcare and horseshoeing on the Internet during the 1998 American Farrier’s Association Convention in late February in Rochester, NY. Please share your favorite sites and sources! INFORMATION STILL NEEDED: If you sent a response to H&L’s call for info about winter shoeing products and tips, please re-send the email. America On Line crashed and took my entire email library with it. What a disaster! Many thanks to all of you who did respond--I heard from a park ranger in the Canadian Rockies and a farrier in Africa! WEB SITES H&L RECOMMENDS: Like great photos of horses? Check www.susansexton.com! A great general site for horse sports: www.equiresource.com! Need to check airfares or find out when you can fly and where? H&L uses www.flifo.com, so we always know what the lowest available fare is! If there’s news in the horse world, you’ll probably find it at www.horsenews.com (Equestrian Times)! For farriery information from the UK and some interesting sites including “Total Foot Protection” products, got to www.cix.co.uk/~the-forge/the_fire.htm. One of my favorites is still www.farriers.com -- what fun to read all those notes from farriers! There’s lots of good information at www.lifedatalabs.com/ff.htm. You can visit the Northern Virginia Equine Podiatry Center inside www.useventhorse.com. SEND H&L YOUR LIST OF (HORSE-RELATED) FAVORITE WEB SITES! Don’t forget...if you are NOT A PAID SUBSCRIBER to HOOFCARE & LAMENESS, THE JOURNAL OF EQUINE FOOT SCIENCE, you are being sent this newsletter only as a temporary gift. To receive it regularly, you MUST be a paid subscriber; you will then receive all electronic and print editions of newsletters and the journal itself. In 1998, we hope to be able to give online subscribers advanced access to information in the print issues. To begin or renew your subscription, send a check or email, fax, call in credit card info. Rates are: $50 USA, $55 Canada, $70 anywhere else. US funds only. For a complete list of books and videotapes available, check the web site at www.hoofcare.com or we can mail or fax a list to you. Thanks for reading all this news, and for the role you play in keeping Hoofcare & Lameness out there collecting information and letting the world know how hard YOU are working to help horses. Please be careful, don’t take too many chances, and don’t stop asking questions. Contact me anytime if I can help. Fran Jurga, Publisher Table of contents of Hoofcare & Lameness #69 available NOW: The Natural Hoof, A Sign of the Times? by Fran Jurga; Using the Natural Hoof to Delineate the Domestic Hoof: Anatomy research at Michigan State University by Robert Bowker DVM; Quotes and Opinions on the Natural Foot by Hoofcare Online Respondees!; Nature’s Blueprint for Hoof Shape: Farriers are the mapmakers of our perceptions of the hoof by Mary Wanless (from the great new book “For the Good of the Horse”); The Natural Hoof Down Under by Chris Pollitt MRCVS; Sculpting the Foot (photos from University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center and elsewhere); George Stubbs, anatomy artist; Discussing Duckett’s Dot: Have we found an international bridge to understanding the horse’s foot:? by Jenni Ahmat DVM, Christopher Johnston DVM, and David Duckett FWCF. PLUS events, editorial, full speaker list of 1998 AFA convention...and a LOT more! © 1997
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