Today we get a chance to remember one of the true visionaries and leaders in the history of mankind. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested over 20 times, his home was bombed, he was personally assaulted at least 4 times, and his phones were wiretapped, but he never wavered from his commitment to leadership through peace. When he was 35 years old, Dr. King became the youngest man in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and he donated the considerable monetary prize to the civil rights movement. On April 4th, 1968, he was assassinated at a Memphis, Tennessee hotel while preparing to lead a protest march. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life will forever stand as evidence that a great man driven by a great cause can create lasting change in our world.
With the possible exception of racing, equestrian sports in the US are some of the least racially diverse sports in the country. But at least for today we should be reminded that racial challenges still very much affect many other parts of our world. Now for some quick eventing news and notes…
—Pure Vida Eventing got some new Ecogold boots and so can you
–In her Sunday morning post, Annie linked to Boyd’s blog post about Remington heading to ‘boot camp’ at Katie Prudent’s in Wellington. It is becoming pretty trendy for top US riders to spend these first few weeks of January in Wellington, touching up on the dressage and show jumping before the eventing season starts.
–Speaking of Katie Prudent, she has received a lot of flak for the US team’s performance on Sunday at the WEGs, much of which I think is undeserved. Many of the US riders chose not to ride with Katie leading up to the WEGs and those that did ride with her, such as Kim, saw considerable improvement. I know that Katie was debating whether or not she would return to help the eventers in 2011 and for our sake I hope she does.
–The USEF Annual Meeting is this week in beautiful Lexington, Kentucky. Let’s be realistic, conventions are just an excuse for the higher-ups to spend 3 hours a day talking about important issues and then the rest of the time getting their Marmaduke on. I won’t be attending the USEF Annual Meeting this year–heck, even if I was in Lexington I still probably wouldn’t attend. I can only imagine that Saddlebred rule change open forums must be scintillating. “Should we actually stop people from causing horses pain to make them prance bigger this year?…Nah, maybe next year.” Nonetheless, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open for the good stuff all week and and write/link to it as usual. More importantly, if ‘The Marmaduke’ was a drink, what would it be?
It’s getting late, and I have an early morning, so let’s wrap these up quickly:
—Another horse lawsuit, this time in the UK
Mugshot of the week
—Best of the Blogs: And then there was mud
That’s all for now. Notice I got though the entire post without mentioning the Jets, Rex Ryan’s cholesterol, or The Hoodie. Check back throughout the day for more ridiculousness and/or news. Go eventing.
