Congratulations Amanda and Rob! Photo courtesy of Megan Murfey.
It was a special wedding weekend for eventers! Cross country jump builder Rob Mobley and rider/judge Amanda Miller were married in North Carolina. Meanwhile four-star eventers Daniel Clasing and Kaitlin Spurlock tied the knot in Virginia. It’s incredible to think that a shared passion of horses brought each of these couples together. Congratulations and best wishes to the newlyweds!
Eventers have tons of stuff so we have to be fairly organized when we go to an event. A long format event, however, is a whole different ball game. There are extra phases, horse inspections and vet box to pack for. Here’s a helpful list of things you may need at a classic three-day. [What to Pack for a Classic Three-Day Event]
One might reasonably assume that an obese horse is overweight because it eats more than its skinnier pasture mate. But that may not be the case. A recent study showed obese horses may actually more active and eat less while lean horses spend more time eating and be less active. [Do Obese Horses Spend More Time Eating Than Lean Ones?]
With Samorin, in Slovakia, recently withdrawing its bid to host the 2022 World Equestrian Games, the FEI is once again seeking expressions of interest. This is not a unique scenario and the cost of running the Games is a likely reason finding a committed host is so difficult. How can we lower costs? [The bid for WEG 2022: Let’s discuss it over lunch]
Monday Video: This should be easy now that #NoStirrupNovember is over!
My mom always says, “It’s not what you eat between Thanksgiving and Christmas but what you eat between Christmas and Thanksgiving that counts.” It’s a passable excuse to over-indulge in the abundance of delicious baked goods that seem to always be within arm’s reach during the holidays.
If you love baking but would rather not add another yet batch of Christmas cookies to your own counter, try these holiday treats for horses. They’re easy to make, customizable and horses love them! They also make a great gift for your horsey friends.
In the market for a new four-legged partner? You may find your unicorn on our sister site, Sport Horse Nation. To help with the search, we’re going to feature a selection of current listings here on EN each week. We include the ad copy provided; click the links for videos, pricing and contact information.
Sorry for all the acronyms in the title. I just couldn’t help myself. Here are five off-track Thoroughbreds in search of a new partner in crime.
Forward Thinking, or Thomas, is an 8-year-old, 16.1-hand OTTB gelding. He has a lovely balance and would excel in the dressage ring, as an event horse, or as a jumper. He’s been off the track since Dec. 2016 and has settled into post-track life well, living both in a stall and out 24/7.
Thomas loves going off property and is very well behaved on his outings. He’s jumping 2’6″ courses at home and off property, has gone on a few hunt trail rides over the summer and been the best behaved horse despite the chaos, and has really enjoyed cross-country schooling. He’s always willing to try, and learned about water, ditches and banks pretty quickly. He could also make a nice foxhunter. Sound, no vices, easy keeper.
Thomas is ready to start his show career, wherever it might take him. Motivated seller hoping to find him his special person! Located in Virginia.
Iron Ginny is an 8yr old 16.2h bay TB mare with chrome. Lightly raced and retired sound on clean legs in 2014. Purchased by non-horse people and eventually abandoned in a boarding barn. Lightly worked and trail ridden (which she loves!) until put into event training this September.
Easy going in the barn. Uncomplicated ride, but sensitive and will not tolerate a green rider. Solid dressage foundation, jumping 2’6″ with ease. Has completed one combined test at the KY Horse Park, schooled at the indoor jumper shows, and recently schooled XC and loved it! Banks, ditches, water no problem!
Nice feet, good gaits. Loads, ties, cross-ties, good for farrier. Quality mare for well-educated amateur or junior rider. Can handle a mistake at the fences. Still green, but willing. Will continue to show indoor jumpers and dressage this winter and school XC weather permitting. Located in Ohio.
Neko Lad is a 17 hand (measured) 2013 registered Thoroughbred bay gelding. Neko came off the track this spring (sound) and was rested until about 3 months ago, when he was put into 3-4 day per week work. He is schooling training level dressage and jumping around 2’3″ courses.
He just completed his first starter trial at the elementary level, placing 4th out of 13 horses on his dressage score of 32. He was complimented many times on his excellent mind at the show. He is dead quiet, sensible and brave. He is scopey enough to run up the levels in eventing, but quiet enough to be a hunter.
He is still owned by his breeder. Sound and healthy. This is a lovely young gelding with a lot of potential and a great brain. Clean legs, great feet. In your pocket attitude. Located in West Virginia.
Summer SunTan is a laid back, easy to work with Off the track thoroughbred. He retired from racing as a 5 year old with no injuries. Has competed in many county jumpers shows with amateurs and pros. Currently competing novice level ready to move up in the spring. Scores 7s and 8s in gaits.
Owner is 83 year old widow looking to down size since she hasn’t ridden in years. Clips, ties, bathes, stands for vet/Shoer/tied at the trailer. Located in California.
Updated price – owner wants to sell before winter!! This is a steal for a horse with LOADS of talent and an INCREDIBLE brain!! Tiz Time To Shine (Tiz Now/Shine Upon) is a really lovely and level headed 5 year old OTTB gelding that’s been well restarted since coming off the track sound a year ago.
He’s schooling BN like a pro and is a straightforward ride in every way. He hacks out with a group or alone, and is easy to ride and handle. He will make a great partner for an amateur or young rider looking to event or spend time in the show ring. Located in Pennsylvania.
Listings included in this article are randomly selected and confirmed to be current and active before inclusion. Sport Horse Nation features user-generated content and therefore cannot verify or make any warranty as to the validity or reliability of information.
What’s in Your Arena? is an EN series sponsored by Attwood Equestrian Surfaces in which riders share their favorite jumping exercises. It’s easy to get stuck in a training rut, and we hope this will inspire you with fresh ideas that you can take home and incorporate into your own programs. Have an exercise to share? Email it to [email protected]!
What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? The answer, if you subscribe to truths put forth by Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is “42.” An effortlessly basic answer to a mind-twist of a question that has baffled thinking human beings for centuries. A two-digit number, which took a supercomputer purpose-designed to answer the question seven-and-a-half million years to deduce. Simply: 42.
In her most recent Bad Eventer blog post, two-star rider and noted eventing philosopher Laura Szeremi lights the fuse on this stick of cerebral dynamite:
Which is more important: having the right canter, or being able to see the distance?
A question that is basically the jumping equivalent of “What is the meaning of life, etc.” And when it comes to answering it, things can get pretty heated. We’ll let Laura take it from here (for the illustrated version, check out her original blog post):
“Without fail every single person I have ever lessoned with (and there have been quite a few in my *cough* four decades in this sport) has had a strong opinion on this subject.
“It’s just not a lukewarm area like … lettuce. Most people don’t get overly passionate about lettuce. They’ll eat it in a taco, or on a sandwich. But they won’t get their blood pressure up over loving or hating lettuce.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons/CC.
“But this canter vs distance concept? Holy cow — I’ve seen otherwise calm trainers cross over into frothing-at-the-mouth-zealots when discussing this topic.
“For many years I’ve had my own opinion on the subject, which is a complex equation relating rider skill to the size of the fence as compared to the scope of the horse.
Diagram by Laura Szeremi.
“But recently I had one of those I’m-an-idiot epiphanies and thought I might not be alone.
“Here’s the rub:
“What the hell is “the right canter”? And how on earth do you know when you have it?
“I had a jump school where things didn’t go quite perfectly.
“And while I was thinking about bits and lines and sensitive horses and all the things that seemed to be going wrong, the fearless leader steps in and says something like, ‘Your canter sucks, you were just hammering down to everything being Bad Eventer.’
“Wow.
“He hadn’t called me out on ‘being Bad Eventer’ in a LONG time.
“A quick perusal of articles on ‘the right canter’ gives me a lot of hocus pocus answers saying things like it’s ‘in the flat work,’ ‘it’s about an uphill balance,’ etc. Not that any of that is wrong, but it still doesn’t tell you how you know when you have that magical canter.
“That’s when I figured out that calling it ‘the right canter’ leads you down the wrong path.
“It has more to do with rhythm and adjustability than the canter itself. You can have a beautiful uphill canter on a 12′ stride and it’s still not the right canter if you ask the horse to move up or slow down and nothing happens.
“The other piece of the puzzle I only discovered when I changed horses … and this secret of the universe is that the canter can’t change unless you want it to.
“I was cantering around a tight turn to a fence, and for the first time in my life I saw that I was going to meet the fence perfectly before I had even made the turn.
Photo courtesy of Laura Szeremi.
“That had never happened before.
“It turns out that the WonderPony, as amazing as he was, never gave me the same stride to anything. He bombed around cross country like the epic XC machine he is.
Photo courtesy of Laura Szeremi.
“But our stadium demons were real.
Photo courtesy of Laura Szeremi.
“And now I know a big piece of that puzzle was that we never had a consistent stride.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons/CC.
“Sooooooo. Part of the elusive ‘right canter’ is one that doesn’t change unless you ask it to, and that changes immediately, when you ask it to.
“This exercise turned out to be more of the answer than I knew.”
Canter pole Olympics! Turned a 5 stride line into a 10 & a 3! #Boom #Zebrasaurus #BadEventer
“Canter pole Olympics! Turned a five-stride line into a 10 and a three!”
And there you have it, folks. Two canter poles, set 72′ apart. A galaxy of possibility. How many strides can you fit in or take away, while keeping the step length perfectly even? Do try this at home!
Pull out the hay bales and hide the manure pit, y’all: we’ve got a barn wedding to put on! On the equestrian/actress’s 32nd birthday, her FEI-level boyfriend of two years Karl Cook popped the big question with a rock worth more than your truck and trailer, and she said yes!
The two can often be spotted together on the West Coast circuit shows, from HITS Coachella to Del Mar. They also share a stunning chandeliered barn in Southern California that we think would be ideally suited for some exchanging of vows if we do say so ourselves.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbh_rIaFbku
Kaley Cuoco, best known for her role of Penny on CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, has been an equestrian longer than she’s been famous, and has always found ways to ride. At one point Cuoco and her two co-stars Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons were making $1 million per episode, but they reportedly took a voluntary paycut to even their salaries with newer cast members Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch.
Kaley has a handful of FEI performances to her name, including the Longines Masters in LA in 2016, and has had many successes in the high J/AO divisions with her talented string.
Karl Cook, who long before he was dating a Hollywood starlet had a reputation for audacious looks in the ring and exploding with personality on the circuit, has had an impressive career in his nearly 27 years. (Fun fact: if the FEI Database is to be believed, Karl’s birthday is Christmas Day!) In his youth he made three appearances at the NAJYRC and in his professional career, three appearances at the World Cup Final (One aboard his current mount Tembla and twice on Jonkheer Z). In his first NAJYRC performance, he won the individual AND team show jumping final.
He’s also been on a handful of Nations Cup Teams, most recently the Nations Cup in Langley, British Columbia in 2016 where Team USA came in fourth.
In addition to sharing a passion for Show Jumping, both Kaley and Karl are also passionate advocates for animal adoptions and rescues. Kaley has been a spokesperson for The Humane Society and has flown around the world to bring awareness to a variety of animal plights, and Karl has taken up a more public banner on the topic since meeting her. Kaley’s many dogs are all rescues.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcDEAbAFhcT
Basically, despite being huge stars in their fields and absurd amounts of money, they seem to be some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and we wish both of them all the happiness and horse shows in the world.
A post shared by Holly Payne Caravella (@hollypayneequestrian) on
Happy belated birthday to Doug Payne! His sister Holly shared a classic throwback in celebration of his birthday yesterday, and honestly it’s the best thing we saw all day. We already knew he was a talented event and show jump rider, but there’s some vaulting promise too!
National Holiday: National Roof Over Your Head Day
Leaving the comfort of home and traveling to an unfamiliar venue with a young horse can be pretty nerve wracking. You never really know what kind of horse you’re going to have when you get out there. Will he be barn sour or overly eager? Will he insist there are trolls hiding in the ditches? Who knows! But hey, the unpredictability of baby horses is half the fun, right?
Elisa Wallace recently took several young horses to Full Gallop Farm‘s sprawling cross country course in Aiken, SC. The goal was to build their confidence, so she approached every new experience with an open mind and only two rules: no bolting and no bucking. Watch these young horses find the fun in cross country.
Julia Krajewski and Samourai du Thot. Photo by Leslie Wylie.
Last month we learned that Julia Krajewski’s horse Samourai du Thot tested positive for the controlled medication Firocoxib during the 2017 FEI European Championships at Strzegom, Poland, in August. When the B sample was also confirmed positive, Julia was disqualified from the European Championships resulting in Germany losing its team silver medal.
At the time Julia was unable to determine how Samourai du Thot had ingested the Firocoxib and maintained that neither herself nor her team was at fault.
Julia had 21 days (until November 30) to decide if she would pay a sanction to the FEI or appear before the FEI Tribunal to explain her case and has spent that time conducting an extensive internal investigation. Ultimately, she decided to accept the sanction due to insufficient evidence to prove her innocence.
“I am grateful to have been offered support and advice by two experienced experts from UK, one a specialist solicitor, and the other a toxicologist. We have reconstructed the complete routine around Sam from August, 3rd to August, 20th, to get a total review of training, feed and nutritional additions, his whereabouts and the persons present or in charge of him at any time,” Julia said in a statement on November 30.
“We had all feed in question tested for Firocoxib, with negative results. The course of events in my team and in the stable during the Championship have been investigated, the blood samples we could get hold of further analyzed, without revealing any helpful insights. I questioned our hosts at the training camp and the FEI steward in charge of the stables at Strzegom.
“To rule out mistakes of our team, the vet bills of all my horses during previous years have been checked. Equioxx or Previcox, the only medicaments which contain Firocoxib, have never been prescribed or obtained. A contamination through urine (of man or dog) can meanwhile be out ruled.”
Based on their investigation, Julia and her team determined that the controlled substance could “only have been absorbed through the pharmaceuticals Previcox or Equioxx at any one time between the dressage and cross country test at the European Championships.
“The results of these extensive investigations allow me to rule out with certainty a mistake in my own stable management. Neither me nor any person from my team or surroundings have, knowingly or unintentionally, administered one of these medicaments to Sam.”
However, because Julia was unable to explain the exact circumstances surrounding the ingestion of the controlled substance, she has accepted the FEI sanction and subsequent fine.
“According to FEI regulations, I had two options: I could accept an ‘administrative sanction’, which means paying a substantial fine and ending up with a ‘record’ in the FEI register. Or I could demand a hearing before the FEI Tribunal, which would either acquit me, or convict me to a competition ban of maximum six months (which not only applies to starts as rider, but also as a coach).
“The rider is the person who is considered responsible for the horse in every way, thus the verdict will be ‘guilty’, unless I can prove how exactly the substance Firocoxib has gotten into my horse. Being innocent myself, is not sufficient to avoid a verdict including a ban.
“I must regrettably admit that the goal ‘acquittal’ is not attainable. The evidences which we were able to collect are not sufficient to advocate an application to the FEI Tribunal. Consequently, I will accept the administrative sanction.”
Julia lamented that while the case is closed in the eyes of the FEI, she remains unsatisfied.
“I will have to ponder the consequences this incident implicates for my future. Not to know what really happened to Sam will remain a constant worry to me. The wellbeing of my horses is always my first priority, and I will take every possible measure to make sure that something like that can never happen again. I will make use of the next months to design the best possible security for my horses both at home and at competitions.”
“The Allisons” (Allison Thompson and Alison Wilaby), who finished 1st and 2nd in the Thoroughbred Makeover Eventing division in 2017; Alison Wilaby also won Dressage. Photo by Stephanie Griffiths.
Thinking about throwing your hat in the ring of this year’s Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover? Do it! The trainer application process opened yesterday, Dec. 1, and runs through Jan. 15, 2018, with trainer approvals to be announced on Feb. 1.
For roundabout the cost of a regular horse trial, you could not only jump-start the career of an off-track horse but also be part of the biggest OTTB lovefest of the year. The 2018 Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium takes place October 4-7 at the Kentucky Horse Park and will feature competition in 10 disciplines ranging from eventing to barrel racing and polo.
Horses and their trainers will compete for $100,000 in prize money and the title of America’s Most Wanted Thoroughbred. The event includes seminars, demonstrations, a sponsor fair, and a livestreamed finale featuring the top five horses in each discipline. Many of the horses are offered for sale, so it’s one-stop Thoroughbred shopping at its finest.
The Makeover is open to all members of RPP so if you aren’t already you’ll need to join. Membership is $45 a year and has several perks including a one-year subscription to Off-Track Thoroughbred Magazine, a copy of Retired Racehorse Resource Directory, a free ticket to the Thoroughbred Makeover, discounts from sponsors and other benefits. Professionals, amateurs and juniors are all welcome to apply.
The next step is filling out an online trainer application, which asks for competition highlights, references, and videos of your riding skills. The application window is Dec. 1, 2017 through Jan. 15, 2018.
There’s a $200 entry fee; if not accepted the fee will be returned minus a $25 processing fee.
Is my OTTB eligible?
The Makeover is open to Jockey Club registered horses that raced or had a published work after July 1, 2016. They must not have begun training for a second career before Dec. 1, 2017 other than a maximum of 15 allowable rides or training sessions that introduce skills specific to non-racing careers. Some trainers will already have horses identified and others will begin a search after they are approved. Trainers can contract with owners or acquire the horse themselves.
What does it cost?
There’s a $200 entry fee; if not accepted the fee will be returned minus a $25 processing fee. Other expenses, such as stabling at the competition, are outlined here.
What if I need to withdraw my OTTB?
Trainers may withdraw a horse from the Makeover at any time using the online Makeover Horse Withdrawal Form. Trainers may replace a scratched horse with any eligible horse as late as August 1, 2018. Replacement horses must be registered with the online Makeover Horse Registration Form.
What does the Makeover competition for eventing entail?
Format for Show Jumping: All horses will be judged over a course set at dimensions for United States Eventing Association (USEA) Beginner Novice (2’7” maximum), Novice (2’11” maximum), or Training (3’3” maximum). Trainers will select their level with their final entry form in August.
Format for Cross Country: All horses will be judged over a cross country course of approximately 12 obstacles. Each obstacle will have at least two options, one at Beginner Novice dimensions (2’7”) and the other at Novice (2’11”). Optional fences may be offered for riders to demonstrate a higher level of training as well. Riders should jump the obstacle choice that best demonstrates the quality and level of their horse’s training. They need not jump all fences at the same level.
Finale: The top three scoring horses will compete for additional points in the finale, demonstrating basic work on the flat and jumping a course that includes show jumps and cross country portables in the covered arena.
Attire and equipment should adhere to that described in USEF Rules for Eventing. Horses can earn a maximum of 100 points per each of the three phases. Overall scores will be the sum of the scores from each of the three phases. Ties will be broken by the cross country score, then show jumping, then dressage. Final placing for the top five finishers will be based on the sum of their three scores plus a fourth score awarded during the finale.
What happens after the Makeover is over?
Owners can choose to keep their horses at the end of the process or offer them for sale. The Makeover Horse Sale is not an auction but an opportunity for buyers and sellers to do business in a setting that allows trial rides, pre-purchase exams and observation of horses in competition.
You know you’re going to have your work cut out for you when your barn-mate texts you a picture of your pony with the caption, “I want to be a brown horse!” Truly, I had to put some solid time in with the metal curry comb and a hard brush before I could even think about putting a saddle on that mess. My pony sure has enjoyed her post-season vacation and, true to form, she’s not about to make it easy for me as we get back to work!
