Ric Redden is considered one of the foremost authorities and pioneers on the subject of laminitis. A lifelong horseman, Redden is among the few equine practitioners who also is a trained farrier. As such, he has successfully welded his practical understanding of the horse’s foot with a scientist’s training.
A Kentucky native, Redden spent much of his youth living on a farm. He went to work at an early age after his father, a minister, suffered a serious back injury. Redden graduated from high school in his junior year and attended pre-veterinary school at Eastern Kentucky University. During this time, he shod and galloped horses in Central Kentucky. While serving in the U.S. Army, he rode and shod the horses of the U.S. pentathlon team in San Antonio, Texas.
Redden graduated in 1974 from The Ohio State University School of Veterinary Medicine with an award of excellence in equine surgery and medicine. After school, he started a racetrack practice focused on lameness. His success as a lameness diagnostician made him a sought-after consultant and he traveled to many racing centers to treat patients. In 1983, Redden fulfilled a longtime dream when he opened his International Equine Podiatry Center, the first and only clinic in the world devoted exclusively to foot work in the horse world. He wears a shoeing apron and works the fire, building therapeutic shoes, braces, and even prosthetic limbs.
Redden was inducted into the International Equine Veterinarians Hall of Fame and has treated hundreds of horses over the years, including such famous Thoroughbreds as Nijinsky II and Habitat. He also has developed many foot products used by veterinarians and farriers worldwide. For seventeen years, Redden annually hosted the Laminitis Symposium, which draws an international group of participants. He is much in demand as a speaker and clinician. He and his wife Nancy and their children live outside Versailles, Kentucky.