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Nothing warms the cockles of my heart quite like seeing a former top-level horse enjoying a well-earned, fat and fluffy retirement being treated like a king or queen. We’ve been treated to glimpses of two such retirements this week, thanks to Liz Halliday-Sharp, whose Fernhill By Night has mastered the art of the mud spa, and Michael Jung, whose La Biosthetique Sam FBW is king of the castle out with his equally fluffy buddies. Talk about living their best lives!
National Holiday: It’s World Wildlife Conservation Day. Find out more about this important day here and help do your bit for endangered species.
US Weekend Results:
Rocking Horse December H.T. (Altoona, FL) [Website] [Results]
Your Morning Reading List:
Rehab rides are basically my whole life right now. They’re…not exactly interesting, are they? Unless, of course, your horse hasn’t been ridden for a really long time and decides to throw in some extra dance moves. But for the most part, they’re just a long ebb of necessary drudgery, and keeping yourself on track to do all the right things in the right ways can be pretty tough. That’s why I’m going to be making best use of RideiQ’s Post Injury Rehab playlist, which is jam-packed with useful information, ‘hack chats’, and in-ear ride-along lessons that’ll give me plenty to do with my thus far rather bored mare. Want more information for your own rehabbing process? Check out Heels Down’s review here.
Grief is something that – horrendous as it is – is an unavoidable component of the human experience. I lost my grandfather just this morning, and found this, from COTH, a particularly comforting read as I sat down at my laptop to cobble my working day together. It’s all about gratitude, and embracing the good that a person – or a horse – brought to your life while they were in it. Because ultimately, aren’t we all so lucky to have people around that are bright enough lights that we grieve them when they’re gone?
Sometimes those bright lights can give us headaches, too, says the mare owner… But if a moody, tricky mare is one of your primary conundrums, you’ll be particularly interested in a prospective new solution, in the form of Pearl Pods, which aim to better the not-wholly-successful glass marble concept. Find out more here.
And finally, it transpires that infrared thermometers might not be the best solution to replace the old thermometer up the bum trick. Apparently, they’re not giving you totally accurate readouts, because they’re much more likely to get a read on surface, rather than internal, temperature. Sorry for the indignity, horses, but the old method looks like it’s here to stay.
Morning Viewing:
Fancy an educational start to your day? This documentary feature on the first horsemen is a great way to get the brain juices flowing (ew):
