Refering to a past post on the subject of shoes on horses what kind of shoe or apparatus is the bends? Also what other shoes besides mud caulks are there and how are they useful to the horse?
If you can wait until I get back from vacation next Wed., and you haven\'t heard from Ian Meyers by then, I\'ll send you the info & web address he sent me, which will be a lot easier than trying to explain it here. The bottom line seems to be that Dahlman makes a good living on shoe changes, & Ian has done some preliminary & very interesting research on the subject, but other than that no one really knows much else. By the way, I assume you had Zito\'s 7-1 \"caulks back on\" winner in the 8th at GP today. Is it just me or has Zito really changed as much as it seems? He actually won with a firster today, which has been a safe bet against for as many years as I can remember.
Bends are rear shoes with 1/4\" (typically) cleat like protrusions on the ends that are employed to provide better traction. They are a watered down form of the now illegal turndown shoes that had been employed with much success in NY (and elsewhere).
There are a number of front and rear shoes that can be uses of race day to provide better traction (however not all trainers employ them, and some even suggest that they are increase the liklihood of a breakdown).
For a more in-depth treatment of a very interesting topic see
http://www.victoryracingplate.com/home.html