Thursday News & Notes Presented by Stable View

What Christmas looks like to horse people. Photo courtesy of Kate Brown.

This last week of December always feels like some kind of fever dream, and quite honestly it’s a trick for me to even remotely remember the days of the week. The idea of starting a whole new year can be overwhelming in a multitude of ways, as people share their goals for next year, and look back on what was yet another strange year of life in 2021. Anyway, I just hope I get a better grasp on the passage of time, and specifically days of the week, next year.

News From Around the Globe:

Earning national recognition in the sport is a victory that takes years of hard work, and for some, the hard work started with the YEH program. Increasing in popularity since its creation in 2004, the mission of the program is to identify upper-level event horses during their 4- and 5-year-old years. A true testament to the program’s success, this year, two YEH graduate horses represented the U.S. at the Tokyo Olympics, the historic winner of CHIO Aachen was a YEH graduate, the USET Connaught Grant Recipient was a YEH graduate, and almost every national year-end leaderboard has at least one YEH graduate ranked in the top 10. [Leading YEH Horses of 2021]

Do you have a grumpy-faced horse in the barn? Lots of times we label them with undue names, due to their expression in the stall, but they are just trying to communicate something and we’re missing it. Tristan Tucker, an Australian Grand Prix dressage rider who is specialized in natural horsemanship, shared an interesting post on Facebook about horses that make grumpy faces and how we as humans should respond to it. [How to Positively Reinforce a Grumpy Face]

We love nothing more than snooping around in famous barns, and even though he isn’t an eventer, Peder Fredericson took the No 1. spot in the 2021 FEI Longines Show Jumping rankings, after an individual silver and team gold with All In at Tokyo. So, he’s like, pretty good, I guess. He also has a super cool facility on the southeastern coast of Sweden. [Inside World No 1’s Barn]

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