Fran Jurga

equusmagazine.com — European ecologists envision a future landscape for their continent where horses are put to work doing what they do best: massaging the earth's ecosystem with their hooves and bodies. Everything that US ranchers revile about wild horses, the Europeans hope to spawn in a new vision of urban sprawl's backyards, from Spain to the Baltic.

equusmagazine.com — “The ferry leaves at 5 a.m. I’m not packed.” The voice at the other end of the line sounded pretty calm, considering. But she’s done this before. She knows how much time she needs. Head girls don’t get rattled, not even when asked about how rough the ferry ride might be. “They say it’s a bit breezy.” Her nonchalant response in her lilting Irish accent stretched out those e's in breeeeeezy. She didn’t sound concerned about being in charge of 12 valuable, high-strung racehorses in a van on a pitching ferry crossing the Irish Sea in the pre-dawn dark on a cold winter morning. No, not at all. Head girls don't get rattled. That's why they are the head girls.

Equus Magazine — Ten days after the inauguration of President Trump, the USDA edited its website. It removed the records of violations to the Horse Protection Act and, with it, records of all violations related to animals under the Animal Welfare Act. What happened next w

Equus Magazine — It's not just tourists who are chasing the "wild" horses on the Caribbean island of Vieques these days. This fascinating home turf for free ranging equids is the scene this week of an equine contraceptive trial led by the Humane Society of the United Stat

The Hoof Blog — Jan Liwacz was a Polish blacksmith and prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. One day, he was told to forge a sign for the camp gate. It is still there. But a small blacksmithing act of defiance lives on with it, as testimony to human courage, spirit...and the ultimate blacksmithing irony.

Hoofcare and Lameness | Hoof Blog — It's coming! It's time for the 2014 Budweiser Clydesdale commercial created for the Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2. You know you can't wait for it. You know you always fret that if you get up during the commercials you might miss the one ad you really want to see. But don't worry, it will be showcased here on The Hoof Blog, as soon as Budweiser releases it. So what are they up to this year? It's tough to argue with success, and last year's "Brotherhood" ad won the poll for most popular Super Bowl commercial....

blogspot.com — Today is the anniversary of the ill-fated but gallant Charge of the Light Brigade. More than half the horses who galloped "into the valley of Death" behind the Earl of Cardigan did not gallop back out. For some, all that is left is a hoof.

blogspot.com — In the early days of World War I, crack cavalry units of the German and English armies still might mount a charge. And in a famous battle in France, Britain's famous Sixth Dragoons had a secret weapon: their farrier's hammer.

blogspot.com — Future farriers may never have a chance to stand in front of Norman Rockwell's six-foot "Blacksmith Shop" painting, if the Berkshire Museum in Massachusetts is successful in its bid to liquidate it for cash. Painted in 1940 to illustrate the Edward O'Brien story "Blacksmith Boy--Heel and Toe" in the Saturday Evening Post, the artwork has become the iconic portrait of blacksmithing in America.