Pippa Funnell and Redesigned, Wikimedia Commons
We have a big week ahead of us here at Eventing Nation. Here are a few quick news and notes from the weekend.
(1) Pippa Funnell won the Bramham CCI3* on Redesigned. From my perspective, Great Britain’s best riders haven’t distinguished themselves yet this year in terms of WEG selection. Of course William won Rolex, but that was on a horse that was his 3rd or 4th best starting the year. Great Britain is sending more than 10 pairs to Luhmuhlen, and, like with the US squad, a great performance in Germany will probably be good enough to make the team. Speaking of the US, I’ve been hearing word in the barns for the past week that at least one of the four US Luhmuhlen entrants won’t be making the trip, but that’s unconfirmed as of now. All 4 US names are still on the Luhmuhlen entries list as of Monday morning. For pictures from Bramham, click here and scroll down.
(2) The Belmont was this weekend, and mostly just reminded everyone that once again we don’t have a Triple Crown winner. The question is: how many people care anymore? The sad reality is that horse racing is declining in the US and has been for some time. Bennett Liebman of the New York Times has a good article about the reasons horse racing is declining.
A few days ago we had a big debate here on EN about what to do about unwanted horses. There are a lot of good answers, but from my perspective the problem of unwanted horses is a supply issue and needs to be dealt with before the horses are born; there is no good solution when you have 100,000 unwanted horses on the ground. I like horse racing as much as anyone from Kentucky needs to, but horse racing does produce tens of thousands of horses every year and doesn’t need most of them by the time they turn 5. Less horse racing probably means less unwanted horses.
(3) In the USEA Area II Chairman’s Letter, Ducan MacRae explains that the Adult Team Challenge has been moved from Waredaca to Millbrook HT in New York (Aug 5-8). A little bird told me that the change was apparently due to scheduling conflict with a summer camp at Waredaca. Either way, I’m glad to see that the ATC has a new home.
Go eventing.
