Thursday News from Devoucoux

There isn’t all that much news this morning, but just give it a couple hours before the pictures and videos of bad dancing and other party antics come in from David’s 50th bash last night, and it’ll be suddenly turn into a good day for news. 

Samantha is down in Ocala as we speak, doing some more of her fabulous reporting. Yesterday she went to Longwood Farm, and did a couple interviews with Missy Ransehousen and Joe Watkins, I’m sure she’ll find some more interesting topics to cover during the rest of her stay in Ocala. 

The first news blip of the morning is about at celebration in Madrid involving horses being ridden through giant fires in the streets. Yep, that’s right, civilians galloped their horses through the streets of fire on January 16th while a priest presided over the celebration and blessed the horses and riders as they passed by. The celebration is called Las Luminarias, meaning ‘The Festival of the Fire.’ According to ABC news, “Las Luminarias is believed to have started in the eighth century, predating the spread of Christianity.  In northern Europe, the Christians would use fires to try to suppress pagan rites. The horses jumped over the fire not only to burn and destroy the demons and spirits but also to  bring on fertility, welfare and good health.” Like most event riders, I’d consider myself to be pretty brave, game for almost anything involving horses combined with speed and a little danger, but I can say with 100% certainty that I will never take part in the Las Luminarias celebration!  

As we are all well aware of, the USEF Convention took place last weekend. Although the one-fall-and-out rule change was at the center of discussion at least as far as Event riders we’re concerned, there were several other minor rules that were changed or at least revised at the Convention. The USEA did a great summary of all the rule changes, so be sure to check it out. In the words of Denny Emerson, “There is always another way to get eliminated”, so it might be a good thing to do a little refresher with the Rule Book before you embark on the 2012 season. [USEA]

The latest horse to be immortalized as a Breyer model is an American Drum Horse Stallion by the name of Mariah’s Boon. For those unaware, a Drum Horse is a “mix of Shire, Clydesdale, and Gypsy Horses, where none of the three breeds exceed 87% (7â￾„8) of the total make-up, and the percentage of Gypsy Horse blood does not fall below 12.5% (1â￾„8).” Mariah’s Boon, or ‘Boon’ as he’s affectionately known, had a rough start to life, suffering from the extremely rare ‘Hardware disease.’ Boon had a rapidly growing tumor larger than a basketball within his abdomen, putting him in an incredible amount of pain and discomfort. Boon rebounded from the disease, stunning doctors with the amount his condition had improved, to the point of being considered something of a miracle. Boon now enjoys a happy career as a driving horse with his owner, and I’m sure will be even happier when he finds out about all the mini replicas that are to be made of him. [Horsetalk]

In some sad news, Britain has lost one of it’s staple one-day events, Brigstock, as the estate on which the trials were hosted was just recently put on the market. Davjd and Mary Laing, the owners/organizers said, “Brigstock has enjoyed great support from an amazing group of volunteers who, with the organizing team, and of course the strong entry lists of riders have contributed to the events success.” I’m sure many riders across the pond will be very disappointed at the news of the ending to this wonderful event. [Horsetalk]

That’s all for now, Eventing Nation! Have a great day, I’ll see you soon!