I coulda told you who was going to win HOTY of the year. Duh. Oh, wait… it’s an award for the horse?
The big news, of course, is that Neville Bardos galloped away with “International Horse of the Year” honors from last night’s USEF awards dinner. Can’t say we didn’t see it coming: You can practically hear the Rocky theme song every time that horse steps into an arena. “$850 wind-sucker grows up to compete at WEG, chase down Olympic dream after barely escaping death by barn fire.” Good job Neville, you phenomenal freak of nature, and keep up the good work.
Tune into the USEF Network tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET for live streaming coverage of the Pegasus Awards, which will include the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to that guy, what’s-his-face, Jimmy Wofford.
Nice, normal links:
Three cases of equine herpes virus (EHV-1) have been confirmed in Orange County, Calif.
Horse and Hound rounds up a list of recently-engaged event riders.
The four horses to be used in the Retired Racehorse Trainer Challenge have been selected.
Strange, unsettling links:
Mark Todd injures knee playing “chicken” with an African elephant.
Top of the Tweets:
Joanie Morris @USEquestrianHP, Director of USEF High Performance Communications, reports that Boyd Martin didn’t get the memo that the USEF awards dinner was a formal event: “SmartPak representative Paul Gisholt swapped outfits with Boyd Martin who slightly underdressed.”
British event rider Laura Collett @CollettEventing gives War Horse two thumbs up: “War Horse = totally amazing and a lot of tears!!!!”
Best of the Blogs:
Have you read Lisa Slade‘s “News of the Weird” blog entries on COTH? Disturbing! Hilarious! Disturbingly hilarious! Catch up on what you didn’t even know you were missing here.
John’s idea of a fun Saturday night in the off-season:
