Doug’s dog Bacon got a haircut. If I wasn’t as nice as I am I’d say it looks like he got in a fight with a lawn mower and lost.
Good Morning Eventing Nation! I hope your morning has gotten off to a great start and your day ahead looks promising. I, for one, have been appreciating the cooler temperatures we’ve been having these past few days. Summer brought it’s weather in early this year, for awhile I was getting nervous that it was only going to be downhill (or up rather) with the rapid temperature increases. It’s going to be a busy week, so if that sun could manage to keep any sort of distance for the next few days at least, I’d be a very happy person.
As for the news this morning, borrowing a line from the famous Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.”
Maybe I’m a bit biased, but I’d say Eventing Nation does a pretty good job of giving the occasional plug or recognition to other disciplines, but it’s definitely something we could do more of. There’s no time like the present so we’ll start the news off this morning with an interesting article about Shelley Temple, a National Champion in the combined driving world who’s currently raising money to fund a trip to Slovenia to compete in the World Pony Driving Championships. Evidently cargo planes don’t charge by weight of the cargo as even though its only a 13.2 hand pony,
the trip is estimated to cost close to $50,000 just in fares and travel expenses. I guess having to ship the cart makes up for a great deal of the expense, but we wish Shelley the best of luck in the fundraising for her upcoming adventure.
[COTH]Yesterday, Samantha posted a brief article and video about the economic impact the 2010 World Equestrian Games had in Lexington and the great Kentucky area.
To fill you in from Samantha’s report, the economic impact of this past year’s WEG is thought to total some 201.5 million, far exceeding the original projected estimates of 167 million. Steve Beshear, the governor of Kentucky who also has close ties to the sport of Eventing said, “The World Equestrian Games were indeed a success, and this report illustrates the positive result that our local and state governments, our sponsors, the many volunteers, the business community and the citizens of the Commonwealth working together can have.” For more information, click
here.
This news should please Texans everywhere: Heather Morris was chosen as the recepient of this year’s Amanda Warrington Grant. The grant provides $5000 dedicated solely to furthering the recipient’s education with horses. Congrats to Heather and everyone at the Gold Chip team.
[COTH]From the USEA website:
The Cobblestone Farm Horse Trials in Dexter, Michigan (Area VIII) is accepting late entries with a $20 late fee through Tuesday, June 28. The event is scheduled to run July 8-10 and is offering Preliminary, Training, Novice, Beginner Novice, and Starter Levels. Please contact the secretary, Sue Machin at
[email protected] or 734-668-7512 if you are interested in entering.
Britain’s oldest charity, The Horse Trust, was recently named as the official show charity of the 2011 London International Horse Show in December. The show is held over one week, holds a huge variety of classes, and is really one of the big attractions in London. The Horse Trust does a tremendous job of looking out for the welfare of all horses, not just horses that have been abused and mistreated. It’s great to see that particular charity will have their efforts recognized in these upcoming months leading up to the competition. [Horsetalk]
Silva Martin had a great past weekend of dressage-ing by attending the Ride for Life show in Marlboro, Maryland. Silva competed several horses, one of whom is an up-and-coming dressage horse named Stately, owned by Faye Woolf, who managed to win both of his Fourth level tests.
The other star child for the weekend was Sea Lord, a new ride for Silva, but one who’s certainly caught on quickly. Silva participated in the ‘Ride for a Cure’ Freestyle, and from the sounds of it put on quite the performance. The interesting part about Sea Lord is that he is an off-the-track-thoroughbred competing at the Grand Prix level. Thoroughbreds and top level Dressage is certainly not a combination that mixes very often, mainly because the requirements of the thoroughbred in breeding are so vastly different than the ones required in a purpose bred dressage horse. It’s quite an accomplishment just to get a horse to that level, but an even bigger one if you are sitting on something that’s less natural at the work than a typical warmblood would be. Congratulations to Silva on her weekend, I’m sure we’ll see more great things in her and her horses’ futures soon.
[Silva’s Blog]
