Good Morning, Eventing Nation! You are stuck with me again today as John, who is about as easy to locate as Waldo in the Where’s Waldo books, is under the weather today.
The first order of business are ride times for Rocking Horse Winter I (FL) and entry status for Pine Top Winter I (GA), both events are taking place this weekend.
One big story of the day is that Phar Lap’s skeleton is returning back to New Zealand after a visit to the Melbourne Museum in Australia. The skeleton returned to Australia as commemoration of the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup, and is now returning home. It seems slightly odd, but at the time of Phar Lap’s death, the body was basically dismembered, the skeleton went to New Zealand, the hide to the Melbourne Museum, and the preserved heart to the Canberra Museum. It was racing minister Rob Hull’s vision to have Phar Lap “assembled” for the big race once again; a vision that almost came true despite not having the heart as it was determined the eighty-plus year-old tissue could not withstand the travel. Horsetalk has this story.
In some rather frightening news, a horse in Missouri has tested positive for Equine Infectious Anemia, as was discovered during a routine Coggins test. According to this article, “The EIA-positive horse was humanely euthanized at the request of the owner and under the recommendation of Missouri’s State Veterinarian Dr. Taylor Woods.” It sounds like all the necessary measures were taken to ensure that the disease doesn’t spread, but this is still a serious issue as a highly contagious disease like this could be easily devastating to the horse industry. I remember at a Pony Club rating a few years ago, the examiner asking one of the kids in my group what the result of the Coggins’ test should be, to which he assuredly replied, “positive.” I passed the rating, he didn’t.
It must be the season for babies as just one day after Totilas became father to a filly named Guinevere, the news is released that Zenyatta, Thoroughbred Racing’s Horse of the Year, will be bred to a stallion called Bernardini, owned by HH Sheikh Mohammed and standing at stud in Lexington, KY. Hopefully little baby Zaynardini will grow up to follow in the rather large footsteps of his parents. [Jurga Report]
Possibly the largest horse abuse scandal of the year is developing in Montana, as a large herd of as many as 700 horses are close to starvation on a ranch in Billings. According to Horsetalk,”The Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office has filed five primary misdemeanour counts of animal cruelty and five alternative counts against [Ranch Owner] James Leachman, who faces five years in prison and a fine of $5,000. He is to appear in Justice Court on Friday.” That seems like a pretty light sentence to me, but with any luck, Karma will serve Mr. Leachman the rest. I think it’s safe to say that, as a community, we feel privileged to have horses as a part of our lives and we take care of them to the best of our abilities. It’s almost impossible to imagine that a person, one of our kind, could display such cruelty to so many horses.
The Badminton show grounds recently served as host for the British Eventing Course Designers Day. Over 30 course designers assembled at the snow covered park grounds to participate in the session led by Eric Winter, Technical Delegate for the 2011 Badminton Horse Trials. The session concentrated on design for BE90 and BE100 levels (the US equivalent of Novice and Training), and the course designers got a chance to practice setting appropriate questions under Winter’s eye.
That’s all for now but stay tuned, either John or I will be back shortly with more entertainment, or distractions, or both.
Go Eventing.
