In the latest in Paris Olympics teasers, we’ve got this short, sweet, truly tantalising glimpse of the building that’s currently underway at Versailles, getting the palatial estate ready to host the world’s best horses and riders – and several thousand of their biggest fans. My current emotional state whenever I receive even the most mundane update about Paris is pure and abject exhilaration, so these little glimpses at the building works themselves? Sensational.
National Holiday: Happy Easter Monday to all those who celebrate! It’s also the 21st day of Ramadan, which honours the Martyrdom of Imam Ali, and it’s the Assyrian New Year, too. Oh, and it’s April Fools’ Day, so don’t take anything you read on the internet as gospel today.
US Weekend Action:
Bouckaert Equestrian H.T. (Fairburn, GA): [Website] [Results]
Galway Downs International H.T. (Temecula, CA): [Website] [Results]
Jumping Branch Farm Spring H.T. (Aiken, SC): [Website] [Results]
Morven Park Spring H.T. (Leesburg, VA): [Website] [Results]
The Event at TerraNova (Myakka City, FL): [Website] [Results]
UK Weekend Results:
BEDE Events’ Thoresby Eventing Spring Carnival (Newark, Notts.): [Website] [Results]
Your Monday Reading List:
Finding joy and purpose in eventing isn’t always about winning every class. For Lucy Walter, who transitioned from spending her adolescence riding lots of different barns’ horses across the disciplines, getting her own horse in her teens was part of a strict bit of bargaining – one that helped her get a handle on her anorexia, set herself on a secondary academic pathway, and find grit and gumption in tackling the training process. Here’s her story so far.
Could a mouthguard help you avoid a concussion on cross-country? Research across other high-impact sports suggests so. And while it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see them become a requirement, this could be an easy way to add additional protection to your arsenal when you’re jumping solid fences at high speed. Get those numbers in full in this report from H&H.
This is a really tough, but necessary, read. When Marlo Baird decided to get back into riding, she found the perfect partner in lease horse Nero, with his kind eyes like Ferdinand the Bull. All too soon, though, he was gone – a victim of the neurological strain of EHV, which he picked up at a show at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, where several horses who’d been exposed to the virus at the Desert Horse Park were in attendance, their trainers flouting the rules of isolation after exposure. Prepare to shed a few tears for both sweet Nero and Marlo, but consider this one required reading across the horse world. It’s a very small minority of horse folks that would decide to go against veterinary rules and endanger other horses, but I truly hope that this reaches them.
Could be be harming your horse by lungeing him? The short, but insightful, answer to that question comes from Jec Aristotle Ballou, who explains that yes, lungeing can have a negative impact – but with some creative, clever workarounds, you can make sure you’re helping, not hindering, his body. Here’s what she suggests.
Morning Viewing:
Let’s catch up on the latest with Badminton Grassroots-bound Donut:
