Leap Day’s Wednesday News and Notes from Horse Quencher


The Cottesmore Leap, photo courtesy of Nico Morgan

Good Morning Eventing Nation! Welcome to Wednesday. It’s that time of the week (at least for all of those that competed over the past weekend) that you’ve finally finished reorganizing your equipment from the past weekend, done the last load of laundry, caught up on the last of your missed phone calls, and then sigh when you realize you only have two days to get ready for the next event to do it all over again, a routine which has become the name of the game in the spring season in the South it seems. Even if you aren’t competing back to back weekends, I’m sure many of you can relate to the similar feeling of the perpetual To Do List. Whether it’s people to call, errands to run, cleaning to do, my to do list just never seems to get any shorter. Oh well, I guess it’s better to be busy than bored, you know the old saying, “An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.”

Anyway, enough of my random aside, let’s get back to the news at hand. 

Phillip and Evie Dutton have just announced that they will be hosting their fourth annual Olympic Gala on Friday March 16th, to benefit the US High Performance squad with a portion of the proceeds going to the USET Foundation. The Gala will be held at the Bridle Creek Training Facility in Aiken. Tickets are 55 dollars, and can be purchased here. [COTH]
For your daily fix of royal news, Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall and wife of Prince Charles, has opened two facilities at the University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Sciences in Langford, England. Word has it that Camilla, who partnered with several friends to form the ‘Langford Trust’, dropped over five million dollars on the buildings and the start-up equipment, but she could be pooling in even more cash in the next few months to outfit the two hospitals with the latest and greatest in diagnostic equipment. Nice philanthropy, huh! [Horsetalk]
Last week it was announced that Robert Ridland will be stepping in as the US Show Jumping Team’s Chef d’ Equipe after the prolific George Morris retires at the end of this year. The Chronicle caught up with Robert for an interview, and although I honestly knew next to nothing about Ridland before reading the interview, I’ll have a great deal of respect for him if he leads his team by the principles he preached in the article. Ridland seems like the quiet, intellectual type, who’s focus is not just on the next two years, or four years, but rather on sustainability of the show jumping program on a long term scale. Sustainability is something the great coaches always strive for because it’s really the final test of a program. No matter how successful a program has been in the short term, it’s much less meaningful if it can’t sustain the same result without a select few riders and horses, and a coach serving as the puppeteer behind it all. We’ll have to wait and see once George finally takes his spurs off, but Ridland seems to have all the qualities to be the next great leader. [COTH]
The FEI Bureau may be suspending the International Dressage Riders Club from association with the FEI after a disagreement has lead them to stating that the Club has an “apparent lack of respect for the fundamental principles of good governance”. I guess the issue stems from the leaders of the IDRC removing two members from their elected positions within the IDRC after the club passed a new Statute at last year’s General Assembly, “which allowed the IDRC General Assembly to remove IDRC members without an opportunity to be heard. The new Statutes had not been provided to members in advance of the General Assembly, nor had they been finalised at the time of the General Assembly,” the FEI said. After several polite attempts from the FEI to the Club, asking them nicely to reinstate the exiled members, to which they received no response, the FEI has decided to take stronger action and suspend the organization in it’s entirety. Those Dressage Queens can sure get a bit hot headed from time to time, let’s hope the conflicts between the two get resolved at some point soon in the future. [Horsetalk]
Horse and Hound published a great article discussing Insurance and liability claims involving horses. According to the article, Riding schools are coming under liability lawsuits more now than ever before, which is a testament to the fact that more people are riding than ever before. Insurance companies have even started to seek out riders with advertisements stating things like,  “Injured on your horse? Was the hack poorly supervised? You may be entitled to compensation; click now to find out for free in 30sec. No win, no fee.” Insurance companies are capitalizing on the fact that horses are unpredictable by nature, so if you are a riding instructor, barn owner, of someone otherwise involved in the horse business, 2012 may be the perfect time to look into your legal protection. You never know when someone may take you to court over an accident, and that release you scribbled out on the back of an old napkin before your student had her lesson probably isn’t going to cut it. [Horse and Hound]
Laine Ashker wrote a great blog discussing everything from her pole dancing fitness class, to riding in the Make a Wish Charity Event for the third year in a row, to the cows at Pine Top that caused her top horse ‘Al’ or Anthony Patch, to have heart palpitations during his Dressage test. Oh and she’s also got a new dog(s), a stray mother with puppies on the side of Highway 19. Laine’s blog

Now for a public service announcement from our good friend Lesley Law: Law Eventing is seeking a working student to start mid-April in Ocala, Florida. Interested persons need to be over the age of 18, have a vehicle, be a fairly confident rider (strong training level or up) with a few years of experience with show horses and be able to commit to a term of at least six months. Students are expected to work six days a week and the hours can be very long during the peak show season months.  Please email Lesley if interested: [email protected]

Best of the Blogs: Holly Hudspeth’s Pine Top Recap

That’s all for now, Eventing Nation! Have a great Wednesday, I’ll catch you later!

From our friends at Horse Quencher: You carefully manage every part of your athlete’s preparation, why leave one of the most critical components to chance? Every cell in the body needs proper hydration to perform to their highest ability, and as we all know, horses can be awfully finicky about drinking, especially when they’re keyed up, ready to compete. Train your horses to drink when you want them to with Horse Quencher. As Chester Weber, 9-time consecutive four-in-hand USA national champion, says “This is the product I never knew I needed, until I tried it. Now, we don’t leave the driveway without it.”

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