The Cambodian show jumping’s championship wrapped up over the weekend when Meong Sochea and his pony Benjimen won a four-rider jump-off in the ‘Grand Prix’ division. The event was held at the Cambodian Country Club horse park and FEI President and HRH Princess Haya was on hand for the competition, as was Prince Norodom Sirivudh, brother of Cambodia’s legendary King Sihanouk. My favorite sentence from the Cambodian newspaper article is: “Tep Mona was the lone female contestant in the pack, but after some good initial jumps she was eliminated as her mount Unique was in less than competitive mood.” No worries Tep, we have all had those days. The runner up sentence is: “Much was expected from last year’s runner-up John You, but the Australian astride Radical had to retire with a saddle slip.” The only thing better than local US newspapers writing about horses is local Cambodian newspapers writing about horses. [The Phnom Penh Post via JER]
We have had some long news and notes posts lately, so let’s enjoy a few short notes today:
–Mercifully, the voting has closed on our Ecogold contest…540 email notifications later. Gmail sent me an email congratulating me for being the most popular email account on Valentine’s Day–so I have that going for me…which is nice. Just so everyone knows there is a method to our madness, we will use a random number generator (from 1 to 540) to pick which of the entries wins. We’ll contact the winner and then announce it on EN, probably tomorrow.
–The top US and Canadian horses will get their first chance to compete at the advanced level this coming weekend at Rocking Horse in Ocala, FL. St. Barths, Madison Park, Ballynoecastle RM, Special Blend, Slate River, and Lightning Bound are just a few of the names that stand out from the Rocking Horse advanced entry list. The Pine Top spring advanced in two weekends will host most of the other big-name east coast horses.
–For our USEA member readers, entries for Rocking Horse Winter III, Twin Rivers, Texas Rose, and Sporting Days all close today. The Rocking Horse Spring HT, Feather Creek, FENCE, Morven Park, and the Galway CIC3* all open today so get your entries in.
—Dressage horses are the stress bunnies of the equestrian world, according to highly paid and well trained scientists with nothing better to do with their time. It’s like a police officer pulling you over for expired license plates–you desperately want to say something like ‘must be a slow day at the office, eh sir?‘ The study, led by Martine Hauberger from the University of Rennes in France, studied horses at the Ecole Nationale d’Equitation at Saumur.
The horses were all kept under similar conditions and researchers attempted to control for all other variables than work type. Dressage horses showed “the highest excitation components”, and vaulting horses were most quiet. The study claimed:
“dressage horses, trained to obey to precise orders – that is, to suppress any kind of emotional expression – presented stereotypic behaviours more frequently and ‘stronger’ forms of stereotypies than did horses from other disciplines.”
I’m not sure that dressage horses are asked to suppress any kind of emptional expression, but the results are interesting and, for what it’s worth, I would probably be pretty stressed out if I had to be a dressage horse. That kind of in-depth analysis is why they pay us the big bucks. [Horsetalk]
–‘Photo Shoots 101’ with Lauren Sprieser includes advice such as wear pastels, no fundies, and smile. Fortunately for me, I never have to worry about people asking to take my photo. [COTH]
–Sad stories keep coming from Newbury, where an underground shock is suspected to have electrocuted two horses over the weekend [BBC Sport]
–Jack and Jill say what happens in the pasture stays in the pasture [Jack and Jill’s blog]
–You can win a free year’s supple of Omega Alpha Sinew-X by sharing your success stories [Barnmice]
–Pennfield has four new dealers to introduce: Luznar Feed Mills in New Symrna Beach, FL, Dan’s Discount in Umatilla, FL, Suwannee Hardware in White Springs, FL, and Higby’s Country Feed in Dixon, CA. See the Pennfield dealer directory for the dealer closest to you.
–Let’s say ‘goodbye’ to Valentine’s Day as only talking dogs on Youtube can:
That’s all for now. We have lot’s of fun lined up today on Eventing Nation including hopefully another Samantha article and of course all your eventing news and ridiculous commentary. See you soon.
