I started in 1973, the year Secretariat won the Triple Crown.  I worked with Saddlebreds in Delaware, OH for about 2 months then went to Bedford Hills, NY and worked on a TB breeding and training farm for 2 years.  Then I spent 6 months in Santa Barbara, CA and worked part time with polo horses.  I returned to NY to the same TB farm and became assistant farm manager for 1 1/2 years until Jan 1978.  I attended Cornell University until 1980 and then Cornell's Veterinary School and graduated as a veterinarian in 1984.

My first mentors in horses were on the TB farm where I was encouraged by the owner and trainer to become more than just a stall mucker.  The horse vets attending the farm also took me under their wing to open my eyes to veterinary medicine.  However, it was my wife back then who really saw my potential and encouraged me to go back to college.  She would have to be considered my greatest influence.  She still is after 35 years.

There were many instructors at Cornell who also guided me and taught me integrity in the profession.

Finally, the daily lessons learned from every horse have added to an incredibly large volume of knowledge that has influenced and mentored me daily to this day. 

I passed my celebrating classmates on graduation day on my way to my first horse call.  I just knew from the moment I entered vet school that I would do this.  I thought about working for another practice, but the time in the real world before returning to college helped give me the confidence to just start off with a practice of my own.  I had already done things like get mares bred and deliver foals and care for wounds and did the preventive things long before I ever entered vet school.  And I give thanks every day for that experience and wish that the new graduates today would have that experience before they started practicing.  

HOW HAS EQUINE DENTISTRY CHANGED OVER THE YEARS? 

This is too lengthy a conversation for an interview and I have written numerous blogs and articles on this.  In a nutshell, people have discovered a lucrative income with horses through equine dentistry and with the advent of powerful drugs and power tools, many people who otherwise have little to no horsemanship skills have become equine dentists.  Without regard to the best interest of the horse, recent injuries have been discovered from over-sedation of the horse coupled with head suspension from fixed objects.  

Adding to the sham is the proclamation of unproven theories as fact followed by the acceptance of those theories by unsuspecting horse owners placing trust in these charlatan professionals.

While there are many good equine dentists working hard every day, there are also an abundant number of dentists, both veterinary and non-veterinary who do not place the horse's best interest in the highest priority.  I believe that in the near future, horse owners will back away from getting dentistry done on their horses mainly because they won't want to spend the money on something that wasn't done well or because their horse was injured in the process.   

I saw a pony in his early 30's that was a walking skeleton.  A normal pony or horse has 24 cheek teeth: 12 on each side divided into 6 on top and 6 on the bottom.  This pony had 1 tooth on the top left, 1 tooth on the bottom left, and 6 teeth scattered on his right side.  The teeth were sharp as razors and wiggled in their sockets from disuse.

It was a challenge to float off the sharp edges without the teeth becoming sore in their sockets from the process.  After making his mouth comfortable again, I instructed the owner how to make changes in his feeding protocol.  

I returned 5 months later.  It was a very large barn and the groom brought in the pony from outside for me to recheck.  I told the groom he had brought me the wrong pony.  He smiled and laughed as he told me he had made no mistake.  The pony he held on to was fat.  In addition, I passed my rasp blade over each remaining tooth and because the tongue was now able to move without pain around the mouth, its pressure had stimulated the teeth to become firmly attached in their sockets.  The wiggling was gone. I call this story, "Fat And Happy With 8 Teeth" 

Half of me is pessimistic.  In 100 years horses have moved from being a necessity to discretion of income. Optimism arises as I find people willing to spend their money on their sport of choice.  I believe that horses will do as well as people can afford them.

My biggest concern is the death of horsemanship.  My definition of horsemanship is a person's ability to communicate with the horse.  In a world where people fail to communicate well with other people, it is little wonder that horsemanship is waning.  With the explosive growth of technology, the very personal relationship with a horse is being lost.

I will not go down without a strong attempt to salvage what is left of the art of horsemanship.  To this end I will have a new web site out by the end of October called Your Horse's Advocate™ bringing a simplistic and common sense approach to horse care including the art of communication.  I have already published "The Ten Irrefutable Laws Of Horsemanship" (Amazon, iTunes, Barns & Noble) which is a treatise on keeping yourself alive when working with horses. 

I love what I do and work harder than most doing what I do.  I drive about 70,000 miles a year and work all over the east coast.  I see several thousand horses a year.  

I also take pictures which I have published as BarnPics™. I also write a lot including 5 blogs and a column for an equine veterinary magazine describing the use of the web and social media in practice.  I am a computer geek and do all my own web content.

I am creating, producing, and developing content for my new member site called Your Horse's Advocate™.  The web address will be announced soon on my web site: www.TheEquinePractice.com .  I will also post it on my Google+, facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts.    

Here is a quote from me about working with horses and it being a people business: "I have never, not once, had a horse write me a check."

One from Sherlock Holmes about equine dentistry: 

"I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."  - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes