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Hagyard Equine Medical Institute Welcomes Fraley and Taydus Equine Podiatry to New Sport Horse Facility

January 4, 2010

Lexington, KY --- Hagyard Equine Medical Institute is pleased to announce their affiliation with Fraley and Taydus Equine Podiatry as an addition to their new Sport Horse Facility. Hagyard Equine Medical Institute is one of the leading providers of equine healthcare.

Based in Lexington, KY, Hagyard’s Sport Horse program specializes in the care and maintenance of show horse athletes. The program started in 2006 and is led by Dr. Duncan Peters, DVM, MS, Dr. Holly Schmitt DVM, Dr. Jorge Gomez, MVZ, MS, DACVS, Dr. Fernando Garcia-Seeber, MV, and intern Dr. Heather Woodruff, DVM.

Hagyard is completing a new Sport Horse facility where veterinarians can work with clients to focus on their horse’s health and wellness, nutrition, training program design and monitoring, and incident treatment and disease care. The facility will help the vets with diagnostics, treatments, and therapies. There will be a covered area to jog, lunge, and ride horses, as well as an area for treatments (like acupuncture, shockwave therapy, joint injections, and more) and farrier bays and a blacksmith shop so that the Sport Horse vets can work closely with a horse’s farrier.

The Horse Sport Program at Hagyard is affiliated with Dr. Bryan Fraley and Matt Taydus of Fraley and Taydus Equine Podiatry, whose business will be housed in the new facility.

“Matt and I are excited about our future at the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute,” Fraley remarked. “Our new home in the Hagyard Sport Horse Complex is amazing. While the facilities are great, the people are even better. There is an endless amount of talent not only in the Sport Horse department, but in the hospital as a whole. We are excited to be a part of a hospital that has such a long history of providing quality care, and we look forward to a long and rewarding relationship.”

Dr. Andy Clark, CEO of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute commented, “We are really thrilled to be affiliated with the firm of Fraley and Taydus Equine Podiatry! Dr Fraley and Matt’s credentials speak for themselves, but equally important, their philosophies are a great cultural fit with our program. They share Hagyard’s objective of maintaining focus on providing excellent service to clients and patients by working closely with referring vets and farriers in all segments of our market; Thoroughbred, Standardbred as well as Sport Horses.”

Dr. Fraley was born in Central Kentucky but was raised on a commercial cattle ranch in Collbran, Colorado. He has been shoeing horses since age 15, when he learned with the help of a local rancher named Bill Walck, who helped him buy tools and begin a business to help him pay for college. “I had no idea how big an impact his willingness to teach me the trade of horseshoeing would have on my life,” Fraley said. “I think this is why I enjoy taking veterinary students, visitors, and interns along while I’m working. It just might change their life.”

Fraley received his DVM from Colorado State University in 2004 and completed a one year internship at Pioneer Equine Hospital in Oakdale, CA. Fraley was a staff podiatrist at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, KY, for 2 and a half years and has been a self-employed ambulatory podiatrist based out of Harrodsburg, KY, for the past two years.

Fraley sits on the Board of Directors for the Kentucky Equine Humane Center, is on the Kentucky Horse Council’s Health and Welfare Committee, and has been actively involved in the AFA/AAEP Farrier Short Course which teaches basic farriery and promotes the Veterinary/Farrier relationship in U.S. Veterinary schools.

“As a sophomore in Veterinary school, I stumbled across the exciting field of Equine Podiatry,” Fraley explained of his move into a new field. “I was excited to learn that there were in fact a handful of veterinarians that specialized in the treatment of disorders of the equine foot.” He has consistently teamed up with AFA Journeyman farrier Matt Taydus to treat many challenging foot cases.

Matt Taydus of Pennsylvania graduated at the top of his class in 2005, completing the Masters course in Horseshoeing from the Kentucky Horseshoeing School. After graduating, he apprenticed with Conrad Trow, a Certified Journeyman Farrier and an American Farriers Association Forging Team Member, for about a year. During this time, Taydus received his Certified Farrier Status from the American Farriers Association.

In 2006, Taydus started his own farrier company, Limestone Forge Inc., and received his Certified Journeyman Farrier status from the American Farrier’s Association. Taydus continued to educate himself by attending farrier clinics and forging competitions. His knowledge and passion toward corrective horseshoeing continued to grow after meeting Dr. Fraley in 2007. Currently, Taydus is working toward his Therapeutic Endorsement from the American Farrier’s Association to further enable him to rehabilitate lame horses.

Fraley and Taydus Equine Podiatry will work on a principle of community learning and help for the welfare of the horse, which is one of the most important tenets of the Hagyard Equine Medical Insitute and their Sport Horse Program.

“I have long felt that the Veterinary Podiatry community can and should do better when consulting or working on cases that have a farm farrier involved,” Fraley noted. “We are often too quick to barge in and take over the case from the farrier. I envisioned a business model where we work together on the case when possible or at the very least keep the horse’s regular farrier well informed about the case. As I tried to implement this in my daily practice, I found that many of my referrals were actually coming from farriers, not just horse owners and veterinarians. I believe this team approach is a more sustainable and fulfilling business model. In my experience, the team approach to podiatry often results in a better clinical outcome as well.”

Fraley went on to say, “When I met Matt Taydus nearly three years ago, it did not take long for me to realize that I had found just the right farrier to develop a team oriented podiatry practice. He is immensely talented in the forge and his engineering background gives him a unique skill set that continues to amaze me. For the last two years we have been working together and getting to know each other better. We both wanted to open a state-of-the-art podiatry center, but quickly realized we could not provide the kind of care our patients deserve without the support of a large referral hospital. As luck would have it, the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute was looking into developing a podiatry center to compliment their Sport Horse Program. Matt and I met with Dr. Andy Clark to discuss the possibility of providing podiatry services for the clinic. I think all of us were excited to find that we shared a common goal and philosophy to help horses using a team approach without alienating local farriers and vets.”

Fraley and Taydus Equine Podiatry began helping horses at the Sport Horse Program facility at the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute on January 1, 2010.

Based in Lexington, KY, the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute has practiced veterinary medicine for more than 133 years and is currently composed of over 60 experienced veterinarians, with 13 board certifications in specialty areas of Medicine, Surgery, Critical Care, and Theriogenology. Their Hagyard Sport Horse program specializes in the care and maintenance of show horse athletes, bringing the same quality of treatment to sport horses that the institute has provided for the race horse and breeding industries.

Their state-of-the-art facility that offers 13 Digital Radiology systems, Nuclear Scintigraphy, a high speed treadmill, an on-site laboratory, an on-site pharmacy, full surgical services, 24-hour ambulance and emergency services, Hyperbaric Medicine, and a Siemens 1.5 Tesla Espree “open” MRI.

For more information on Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, please visit their official Web site at www.hagyard.com.

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