Horse & Hound – 22 August 2019

8 Horse & Hound 22 August 2019

NEWSInsider

TrainerHarriet

Bethellhas

undergone

surgeryafter

a serioushead

injurysustained

ina fallonthegallops.Harriet’s

father,William,saidthefamilyhas

received “incredible” support.

Britain’s

youngesttrainer

ChelseaBanham,

20,sentouther

firstwinneron 13

AugustinVoice

OfA LeaderriddenbyJoeyHaynes

atLingfield.Chelseasaidit wasa

“real team effort”.

Irisheventer

JontyEvans

hassuccessfully

completedhis

firstBritish

Eventingclass

sincehis 2018 accident.Jontyrode

CooleyRorkesDriftintheopen

novice at West Wilts on 13 August.

PEOPLE

IN THE NEWS

SOMEofthecountry’stopfarriers

havebeenabletodelivertheir

ownquantitativeresearchprojects

forthefirsttimeaspartofa

qualificationintroducedbythe

RoyalVeterinaryCollege(RVC).

Whilethestudiesconstitute

earlybuildingblocksinfarriery

research,it is hopedtheycould

leadtoexcitingdevelopments—

fromimprovementsinlameness

detectionandpreventionto

3D-printedshoes.

Thefirst 12 candidates

graduatedfromtheequine

locomotorcourselastmonth,

havingproducedstudiesontopics

fromhoofmoistureandcoffin

jointrangeofmotiontopedal

boneangles,packingmaterials

andtheimpactofroadnailson

symmetry.

“Thereis verylittlefarriery

researchoutthere,sowehope

tobuildthisintoanevidence

basethatcouldleadtohealthier

horses,”saiddeputycourse

directorDrAmyBarstow.

She said that, unlike many

researchers, farriers had the

advantage of being able to apply

their findings “straight away to the

horses under their care”.

“The take-home message from

this course has been that it’s good

for building evidence for and

against certain interventions.

“I have learnt you can have a

bigger impact if you listen to the

voices of people on the frontline.

They are the ones managing

performance issues.”

Farrier Peter Day, who often

works with the RVC, said the

opportunity enabled farriers to

move on from a culture in which

things are done “because that’s

what my granddad’s granddad

always did”.

TheRoyalVeterinaryCollege’sgraduatediplomainequinelocomotorresearch

willenablea newbaseofresearchtobedevelopedandusedbyfarriers

“Farriers can look into

something they’ve done that

they’ve perceived to work, and

research and quantify the data,”

he said.

“They may find out that what

they have been doing for the past

10 years doesn’t work the way they

thought it did — then they can

change the way they think and

have the tools to back it up.”

MASSIVE IDEAS

STUDENTS on the course can

use the RVC’s research labs and

equipment, including CT scanners

and motion-capture technologies,

with a mix of live horse and

cadaver work, all with owner

consentandethicalapproval.

Dr Barstow said the farriers

had often started with “massive

ideas” but had to whittle it down

into “one salient question that

could be researched”.

Farrier Tom Smith looked at

using structured light — similar to

a laser — to image a horse’s foot,

with the results handled via an

iPad app.

“Horses’ feet change shape and

a lot of the time we observe and

communicate these changes using

anecdotal phrases like ‘flared’ or

‘low heels’,” he said.

“What my research did

was find a way farriers can

quantifiably record a shape by

taking a baseline today and

taking another image of the foot

six weeks or three months later

BySARAHRADFORD

Farriers pioneer research

with leading vet school

Farrier Michael Woods applying retroflective markers to a hoof

and overlay them. This research

mainly involved validating the

method itself and proving it was

accurate statistically.”

Tom earned a distinction for

his project, which he hopes could

offer owners an interesting service

in itself, as well as leading to more

ambitious applications further

down the line.

“I come across instances in

farriery where something with a

bit more flexibility than steel is

needed,” continued Tom. “If we

could 3D print shoes to a model

of the foot that was millimetre

perfect, it would have remedial

applications, but the real desire

for this tech would be in marginal

gains for performance horses —

the difference between winning

a medal and not.”

Performance horse farrier

Haydn Price, whose project

explored the range of motion

of the coffin joint and its role in

lameness, noted that farriery

has been “decades behind vets in

terms of evidence-base”.

“This course gives individuals

the opportunity to bring practical

experience to the academic world,”

he said. “We are already planning

to link our findings to some of

the current protocols for shoeing,

so I will build on looking at joint

rotation under load and start

looking at the effects of different

shoe profiles, such as spider

shoes — which we know can

bring numerous benefits to wide-

ranging conformation conditions,

but we don’t really know why.”

The RVC’s graduate diploma

in equine locomotor research

runs for two years and takes the

form of an online course with six

residential weekends, enabling

farriers to carry on working.