Travel Report: Patrick Sells and Paul Murray, 2013

The breeding season of 2012 at Windsor Park Stud was heavily tainted by the loss of one of New Zealand’s most promising young sires, Thorn Park. After the horse sustained a penetrating wound to a hind foot, the stud’s vet and farrier team, in conjunction with Cambridge Equine Hospital, fought a 3 month battle with sepsis and contralateral laminitis.

Although the team succeeded in treating the severe laminitis, the original infection in the opposite foot never resolved, and eventually led to the stallion’s euthanasia. In Pat Sells (stud vet) and Paul Murray (stud manager & farrier), the case stimulated a desire to learn more about advanced podiatry, in particular in exploring treatment options for laminitis.

Having been helped extensively throughout Thorn Park’s treatment by Dr Ric Redden of Kentucky, it was fitting that they both attend his Advanced Podiatry Course in July 2013, with kind support from NZERF. Since returning from the course Pat & Paul have received a number of referrals of severely laminitic horses, and have found the results of their recent training hugely satisfying.

The Course

The 5-day course was held at Dr Redden’s clinic near Lexington, Kentucky, where most of the 25 delegates stayed in bunk rooms. The clinic is based on a 200 acre farm bordering the Kentucky River, on which there is stabling for 30 horses, extensive workshops, limestone pasture and deciduous woodland. Mornings were dedicated to lectures on topics ranging from all manner of foot-related pathology, with strong emphasis on mechanics.

The use of bone specimens and model ‘legs’ allowed delegates to build 3D visualisations of the equine limb, its deformities and its pathological conditions. Lectures were informal, with free discussion and interaction, Redden using case studies and drawings to illustrate points.

The main topics covered were:

• The mechanical formula of the foot and its application

• Soft tissue parameters of the foot

• Identifying and treating the negative palmar angle

• Identifying, managing and treating the club foot

• Evaluating the navicular bone

• Toe and quarter cracks

• Laminitis treatment concepts

• Treating puncture wounds

• White Line Disease

• The value of the venogram

For the afternoons, practical sessions were carried out on cadavers and patients brought in from far and wide (subsidised consultancy/treatment is advertised well before each course and is heavily subscribed by Dr Redden’s huge client base). The delegates were separated into vet-farrier teams, each supervised by one of a half dozen tutors who had been brought in by Redden to help practical teaching. Each of these tutors were dual qualified in veterinary and farriery, and had brought their ‘rigs’ – enormous trucks fitted with mobile workshops and veterinary gear for the use of each team. Each was an expert in their own right, apprenticed by Redden himself.

The quality of teaching was outstanding. All of the other delegates without exception were highly experienced clinicians and farriers, representing some of the top podiatry practices in the world, from Europe to the Americas to Australasia. Many were attending their third, fourth or even fifth Advanced Podiatry course, and despite already considered ‘top of their game’ regionally, were emphatic that each attendance brought more improvement to their way of practicing.

The learning environment within this atmosphere was therefore exceptional – from dawn to dusk there was an electrical buzz as delegates and tutors collaborated, shared ideas, discussed tricky cases, and tinkered together on the rigs or in the workshops.

Pat & Paul worked together on several cases each afternoon (and way into the evening!) as floats drew up to the clinic one after another, often having driven hundreds of miles to attend. Cases ranged from laminitis to negative palmar angles, and everything in between. Treatment of some of these cases was hugely rewarding, for example a trotting horse with severe navicular disease that trotted up sound the following morning, having been crippled on arrival. Redden’s emphasis on mechanics was repeatedly justified by such cases.

For Pat, the main practical skills enhanced were: radiography (particularly of soft tissue structures of the foot, and the navicular bone), the venogram, check ligament desmotomy, DDFT tenotomy and the application of a transfixing cast.

For Paul, the main practical skills enhanced were: radiography (particularly of soft tissue structures of the foot), revision of the four-point trim, aluminium welding of support plates, precision hot shoeing of rockered remedial shoes, and new Ultimate fitting methods.

In particular, the overall appreciation of the mechanical forces acting on the equine foot, and how they can be changed to address a range of different pathological conditions, was the resounding outcome of this course.

Acknowledgements
With great thanks to Windsor Park Stud, ProVet & NZERF