Editor’s Note: When Mitch Taylor of the Kentucky Horseshoeing School took his sabbatical in a Qatar veterinary hospital for 18 months, he was presented with numerous challenging cases. In his International Hoof-Care Summit — 2021 Virtual Clinic Series presentation, Taylor reviews these cases, which often took some creative approaches. But to gain the desired result in each, he stresses principles vs. a one-size-fits-all approach.

After 29 years of running and instructing farriery at the Kentucky Horseshoeing School, I decided to take a sabbatical in January 2018. I believe that everything happens as part of a grand plan and as fate would have it, I accepted a job as the head of podiatry within the newly opened Equine Veterinary Medical Center (EVMC) in Doha, Qatar.

The hospital building is adjoined with a veterinary medical laboratory and equine research center and is situated on the grounds of the state-owned Al Shaqab equine facility. Interestingly, this is the same place that our good friend Burney Chapman used to come to work on foundered horses for the Emir…