Travels - Minco, Oklahoma

A Whole Horse Dissection.

We have done a lot of whole horse dissections in the Heartland. They are amazing learning opportunities, and I learn again every time we do one. There is more to know about equine anatomy than I will ever learn, but adding a little bit to it whenever I can is a great thing.

Dusty Franklin has been a friend for about 25 years, and he and I have watched each other grow in this trade. He started a school called Five Star Horseshoeing School in Minco, Oklahoma many years ago, and we have sent prospective students back and forth ever since. Dusty and Cody were on the WCB team together as well, and they are also very good friends.
Dusty was going to do a whole horse dissection and invited Cody to kind of guide it. When I found out, I called Dusty and invited myself. With that done, Cody and I got ready for a road trip. Just for the record, if I can fly for 8 hours or drive for 6, I will probably pick flying. Rodeo seems to have made me allergic to road trips. At any rate, Minco is about 5 hours by truck, so Cody and I headed down.

We stopped at Nature Farms Farrier Supply on the way, and I told that story in another blog titled Hoof Knife Salesman Supreme. Dusty had arranged for us to stay in a little B&B, and it was fantastic. The morning of the dissection was cool and windy as we headed over to Five Star. Dusty was doing this clinic for just a few people that were there as well as his current class of students.

Jason Rotramel had brought the horse, and they put it down. After being gutted, skinned, and hung in a standing position, Cody got into doing a blunt dissection of the muscles at the top of the appendicular skeleton. He started with the thoracic limb and described all the muscles and how they worked as they separated them off the limb and worked their way down. This took pretty much all morning, and he tackled the pelvic limb after lunch. The pelvic limb can be harder to pull apart, but it went pretty well. When that was done, I did a hind leg dissection below the hock, and we called it a day.
Dusty gave us four legs to take home for a dissection video that we are working on, and we headed towards Missouri with a lot more knowledge and a lot to talk about. The day was a lot of fun, Cody and I enjoyed each other, and the road trip did not seem that long after all. It is great to be part of this trade where you can have friends and competitors that are the same person, and we feel continually blessed by it.

Kind of cold, but that is not the worst thing on a dissection day

 

Cody and Dusty talking about anatomy

 

The learning continues