Putting Equine Podiatrists in Their “Right Minds”

While most people don’t consider equine podiatry an artistic profession, Ric Redden, DVM, owner of the International Equine Podiatry Center and organizer/chief instructor of the first In-Depth Equine Podiatry Course going on this week, heartily

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While most people don’t consider equine podiatry an artistic profession, Ric Redden, DVM, owner of the International Equine Podiatry Center and organizer/chief instructor of the first In-Depth Equine Podiatry Course going on this week, heartily disagrees. “We’re trying to teach these students (which include some veterinarians and farriers who have been practicing for decades) how to use the right sides of their brains (commonly thought to be the creative side), to reach out beyond customary realms,” he says. The clinic, which is geared toward veterinarian/farrier teams, runs from July 22-26, and the next one is Aug. 5-9.


Redden considers this course, Equine Podiatry 101, to be an educational starting point for both farriers and hoof-specialty veterinarians. “The whole horse is covered (researched and taught) down to the coronary band throughout the world, and there it basically stops,” he says. “Podiatry training varies so widely, and these two- to six-week courses just get you started. Vet schools have so much information for people to learn that they can’t cover the foot well. I envision a formal school going forward from this point (in the future) with college-level education, ending in certification with training that’s based on physics and geometry. Put all that into focus, and you have a standard by which you can measure podiatry practice.”


The attendees, six veterinarian/farrier teams from around the country, certainly feel they’re getting their money’s worth. The planned 40-hour, five-day course will be closer to a 48-hour course, Redden estimates, with breaks and lunch hours growing shorter as participants keep working on horses and radiographs to extend their understanding. Two veterinarians and a farrier even spent a few extra hours on their own yesterday practicing the venogram technique (a method of imaging blood flow within the hoof) on all four hooves of a previously slaughter-bound mare. “We just want to treat our cases better and fine-tune the things we already do,” said Amy Rucker, DVM, head of ambulatory services and an instructor at the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “This mare’s been very patient with us,” she laughed. Redden added that the mare, Honey Pie, will make Dalton (his son) a nice riding horse

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Christy West has a BS in Equine Science from the University of Kentucky, and an MS in Agricultural Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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