New England Patriots defensive tackle and human mountain Vince Wilfork will be playing against the rival New York Jets this weekend in an NFL divisional playoff game. While most of his team is exchanging taunts and veiled foot references with the Jets, Wilfork is talking about a possible career training racehorses after his football days are over. Wilfork told a harness racing site, Harnesslink.com that “In the offseason I plan to spend time learning the trade of training. Maybe in my post-football career I will become a trainer.” Wilfork currently owns a harness horse and a racehorse that his wife gave him for Christmas. When asked if he would like to try driving a harness horse someday, he said “I would love to,” but at 325 pounds I think he’s going to need two harness horses. It’s just a shame that the Patriots are going to get crushed this weekend. Now for some eventing news and notes…
–The USEA has closed a considerable loophole by requiring that online transfer or ownerships must be accompanied by a bill of sale. Previously, literally anyone could submit to change ownership of a horse to anyone, and there have been multiple instances where ownership was illegitimately changed either for malicious or entertainment purposes. The flip side of the coin is that now we have to mail our bill of sale to the USEA, which could raise privacy concerns with respect to the price and terms of sales. It might be more private to simply make a USEA change of ownership form that can be downloaded and signed by both parties, because ultimately the USEA will be relying on a signed document either way. That said, the new system is definitely a step in the right direction. [USEA]
Friday Morning Update: The USEA has updated the press release by adding the sentence: “Please blackout price or any other private information you don’t wish to share.” (see above link) This is a simple and easy solution to address the privacy concern.
–Canada has released their 2011 eventing dressage tests. Get to memorizing those tests Canada so you can be ready to practice them when the snow melts in June. [Equine Canada]
–Ocala HITS will be broadcast live online this year. Lots of eventers, including Buck, usually like to go over to the jumper show to school their horses. We’ll let you know if any eventers are going to be on the online video and you can watch them have their warmup jumps stolen by egomaniacal jumper coaches. [Hunter Jumper News]
–Holly Hudspeth’s 4* horse “Stewie” is settling in quite well at Boyd’s. Boyd, of course, is riding Stewie while Holly is pregnant. Boyd says that Stewie is extremely fit and that they are working hard on the dressage. Stewie’s first event is the Pine Top intermediate in February. Incidentally, Boyd rode Stewie at Pine Top last year on his path to Rolex while Holly was recovering from a wrist injury. [Boyd’s Blog]
–The Colin Davidson memorial gathering is coming up this weekend. Remember that if you can’t make it this weekend, donations can be sent to: The Colin Baird Davidson Charitable Fund, The Fourth Floor, 1205 North Orange Street, Wilmington, Delaware 19801.
—Best of the Blogs: Best fashion of 2010 from 3D3W
–Remember Paul the German octipus who became a sensation in 2010 for picking World Cup games and then died a few months later? Well the Germans have found their next animal sensation in a cross-eyed opossum. I’ll just let the video explain…
But seriously Germany, leave the poor animals alone
That’s all for now. Coren has arrived in snowy Aiken and is working on getting her internet sorted out, but we can look forward to her rejoining us with our Saturday morning links post tomorrow. I’ll be back throughout the day with a healthy dose of ridiculousness. See you soon…
