Email: jenclingly@yahoo.com.au
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TOM QUILTY GOLD CUP – 160KM ENDURANCE RIDE – 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EVENT
Wild About Hooves • Jun 16, 2015
Meet my magnificent mount, Omani City Smog who I completed the challenging 160km ride on.
The Tom Quilty Gold Cup is Australia’s equivalent to the World Cup of Endurance Riding. This 160km ride is the holy grail of endurance and to successfully complete and earn a coveted silver buckle is the goal. It's a real treasure to be awarded.
I was honoured to ride for my friend Carol Layton, a well respected equine nutritionist. Omani City Smog was my mount and I fondly called him Smokey Jo Kilometre Eater often during the epic adventure. Carol rode her favourite horse, Omani Mr Squiggle.
We were blessed to be sponsored by a hoof boot company. The horses wore the glue on shells in bright orange and they certainly attracted a lot of attention.
For a hundred million reasons, they are the way to go!.
At the starting line at midnight, mounted upon a horse that's not mine, in a different state of Oz, staring around at a crowd of over 340 excited horses, it was that moment before it all begins is when my mind is most quiet and I realize ‘Damn, I’m the luckiest person alive’.
Finishing is an amazing bonus – but sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the struggle it took to just show up. The Tom Quilty takes years of preparation and planning. As much as the start terrifies me and my nerves overwhelm me, the butterflies in my stomach turn into large birds; it’s the start line that seems to offer clarity to all the lead up turmoil.
We headed out on a beautiful starry night on a bitumen stretch of road and the noise of thousands of metal shoes drowned out the silence. So damn loud! Our booted horses make no noise. Such an amazing difference and one that offers a competitive edge in the dark of night when you want to surprise and overtake someone ahead.
Hoof Boots offer so many benefits and I’m going to highlight some of the important things that I “bang on” about as an educator in hoof care so bear with me…
A hoof fitted comfortably inside a boot made of tough, elastic materials is free to expand and contract, pump blood normally and torque side to side with each step. The hoof is meant to spread on weightbearing. It is the natural shock absorbing feature of the hoof. A shod horse on the other hand is unable to flex and thus is at a disadvantage from the impacts of concussion from a steel shoe, it has reduced circulation and loses feeling and traction. Concussion is passed off to joints and ligaments higher in the limbs and body which are not designed to dissipate shock.
Boots are cost effective – initial outlay and fitting can appear expensive but when you weigh up the lifespan of the boots compared to shoeing costs over the same time frame, boots are a cheaper alternative. Boots don’t wear like a metal shoe. If you learn to trim yourself and use boots you will save yourself a fortune. We timed ourselves to see how long it took to trim and glue on boot shells and it was 20minutes. Sensational time saving too especially if you want to horse around. Once they are glued on we don’t have to worry about them.
Hoof boots don’t compromise the horses way of going. They offered protection for the varied terrain that challenged us during the ride. Gravel roads, bitumen stretches, rocky trails, muddy tracks. 160 long kilometres (100 miles) of everything. They offer the best gripping hoof wear known to horse.
The boots offer protection from excess wear, bruising and concussion. I love that they offer ease of mind while you have your hands full with your super fit, forward moving horse. You just don’t have to worry you might lose a shoe or boot.
These boots absorb concussion, a huge benefit over a long distance, challenging ride. The following day our horses showed no signs of edema or swelling in their legs.
As I walked them around the grounds the day after the Quilty, I noticed lots of shod horses covered in “swelldown” poultice or fill in their legs. I admired our horses and sighed relief that we suffer so few problems with hoof issues. Why don’t more riders use them?
Hoof Boots have been designed with the performance horse in mind.They are lightweight and infallible. I apologise if my blurb sounds like an advertorial but I swear and declare Hoof Boots are the best on the market for endurance horses. Why would anyone use metal shoes when
HOOF BOOTS ARE THE WAY TO GO!
Laminitis kills thousands of horses every year, and leaves thousands of others debilitated with lameness. It will and can affect any horse. And for you, the horse owner it can be devastating: you feel guilty and heartbroken at your horses suffering, confused with all the information as it is typically explained by professionals in scientific terms that can be difficult to understand, costly veterinary bills and you have the major task of nursing your horse back to recovery. . Unseasonal weather patterns around Australia with abundant rain and sunshine saw laminitis at a near epidemic last year. The reason being, that the environmental conditions can trigger increases in the sugar, starch and fructan. These collectively known as non-structural carbohydrates can cause laminitis in any horse or pony. Alarm bells ring this spring!! Be warned and be prepared, for prevention is better than cure.
The extraordinary relationship between humans and the horse has been running since before the birth of Christ. Indeed, there is evidence our domestication of horses goes as far back as 3500 BC. And ever since we recognised the utilitarian value of the horse, there has been the horseshoe. The use of horseshoes has become an almost unquestioned tradition. Humans have been nailing shoes onto horses’ hooves for well over a thousand years. Who can remember back to a time otherwise?
There is nothing quite like getting hands-on when you are learning the art of trimming horses hooves. Wild About Hooves popular weekend workshops allow their students plenty of opportunity to ‘have a go’ in a situation as close to real-life. Students start practicing by trimming horse’s cadaver legs, they also practice positioning themselves under a horse safely and ergonomically. Students retain more information when they physically practice, instead of just seeing or hearing it. However, when a worldwide pandemic puts a stop to everything, and public events banned, border restrictions in place, and other impacts make it impossible to travel and train in person, Jen Clingly and Jeremy Ford decided to adapt and reinvent their learn to trim courses. “We can still bring this “learn-by-doing principle” of adult learning into what we are teaching regardless of whether we teach online or off line.” Clingly highlights. “But it is challenging especially for us to articulate clearly and demonstrate without the constant interaction of questions and answers that face to face provides.” When it comes to traditional face-to-face training, the principle of maintenance hoof trimming is easy to grasp and execute. So how do the team at Wild About Hooves deliver their online hoof care course? How do students learn to do it themselves in an environment where they are not physically present to perform practical exercises? Online teaching requires very different approaches to teaching face-to-face for obvious reasons. Wild about Hooves shares 4 ways of teaching a practical skill via online training. 1. Get as Visual as Possible When it comes to practical training, or teaching learners new skills, we created loads of visual with power point lectures and ‘live demonstrations of trimming.’ People learn in many different ways – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. By delivering information online, we want to make sure we enable all the different type of learners to engage with our hoof care principles. Providing visual diagrams, animations and dot-pointing our information all helps alongside a video showing a real life demonstration of the skill in a environment that is as close to what will happen out in the field. We try and get the camera in close to the hoof to show the trim process step by step. When the brain can ‘see’ how something is done before it is attempted independently, the chance of success are much higher than just reading or hearing about it. 2. Get on Camera Much out of our comfort zone, we got ourselves on camera. People like people, and it can significantly enhance the engagement, retention and completion rates of our course if our learners can see us talking to them. We don't have the budget for a professionally filmed training video, but we put together some good ‘how to’ trim footage and this also enables people to engage by watching, listening and following along as the training video plays. 3. Self Paced Learning Students can work at their own pace through the series of lessons. They can stop when they are tired or need a break and then get back to it when the time is right. Also they can go back and revisit any of the lessons to reinforce their learning. The lesson range is interesting and covers introducing the trainers and their backgrounds, the distal limb anatomy of the horse, how the hoof works, barefoot trimming, step by step hoof trimming, the relevance of the wild horse study, Australia’s desert brumbies, tools for trimming, what to look for when you trim horses hooves. All lessons are interwoven with film footage and powerpoint lectures and then access to further resources. It’s user friendly and feedback has been sensational. 4. Trainers Are Accessible and Can Be Contacted to Provide Advice and Feedback The team at Wild About Hooves is contactable to help students who need further information and guidance. Best of all with a team of over 150 hoof care practitioners in Australia with ACEHP: The Australian Certified Equine Hoof Care Practitioners there is usually someone who students can touch base with to learn more from or who they can book in to check on their trimming and horses hooves. Check out the link and join the team virtually! https://hooftrimmingonlinecourse.podia.com/