Evidently there was a food fight at the O’Connors a couple nights ago, which culminated in Karen pieing OCET member Hannah Burnett in the face. Niccccceeeee. Thanks to Lauren K for sending us the photo.
Good Morning Eventing Nation. It’s already Thursday, it’s already September, pretty soon we’re going to be saying 2011 is already over! Is it just me or has this year passed by really quickly? You know winter’s approaching when it doesn’t get light enough to ride these days until about 6:35 AM and it gets dark at about 7:50 PM (Ask me how I know this.) Back to the relevant, Plantation Field HT [Entry Status] is this weekend, which means we have another full weekend of event coverage to look forward to.
The first piece of news for the morning is contained in a developing story about the New York Senator, Thomas Duane, who is trying to re-instate the ban on performance enhancing drugs such as Lasix, on racetracks in the state of New York. Lasix is a diuretic which is very widely used on race horses in North America to prevent bleeding, but also has performance enhancing components. What I didn’t know about Lasix is that it’s banned on race days in all countries outside North America. I guess since racehorses at the elite level compete less against horses from Europe that it isn’t as big a deal as it would be to, say, Eventing. But one would think that it would create some kind of disparity between North American and European based horses. New York actually was the only state who banned the use of Lasik some years ago until 1995. What is your take on Lasix in race horses, Eventing Nation? Should New York ban the substance once again? [Horsetalk]
I may go buy an iPhone just to have this app. We now have the app of the century (for Eventing anyway) which allows you to track your cross country course and learn your minute markers without ever having to take a meter wheel out onto your course. Genius. [Talking Horse]
Speaking of Canadians, Kyle is back at home in the US after his less-than-great trip across the pond this fall. After an unluckly pulled shoe resulting in a fall early on in the course at Burghley, Madison Park and Kyle rerouted to Blenheim the following weekend only to have a second disaster strike and Madison Park get pretty seriously injured. That sort of disappointment would be extremely hard to take, and the way he’s handling it is certainly admirable. The good news is Kyle hasn’t lost any sense of humor through the whole ordeal, judging by his comical blog:
Kyle: “Trying to keep up with the blog is going to take some effort, but I will try to get something done every couple of days if the interest continues to be there. Doing this one one handed with my 5 month old shaking and drooling like Pavlov’s dog when the bell went off. It’s a little difficult to translate what she has to say, but it’s a mouthful to be sure.” [Carter Eventing]
Leslie Threlkeld was the photographer at the FEH/YEH competition at Cedar Ridge Farm a couple weekends ago. Check them out here.
The award for the world’s dumbest horse goes to Sky, the horse that got his two hind legs stuck out the back window of his stall. I’m really curious as to how he got both his hind legs caught up there in the first place, but firefighter troops were called to remove him from the stall, and the best part of the story is that he emerged from the whole incident with only a few superficial cuts and scrapes. [Horsetalk]
When are we going to get one of these commercials running on American television?
I’m running out of news so I’m going to call it a post. Have a great Thursday, Eventing Nation! I’ll see you soon.
