Good Morning Eventing Nation! Tuesday is probably the least exciting day for Eventing news as everything worth talking about from the previous weekend was covered in the Monday post, and Tuesday is still a long way from the upcoming weekend. That being said, if the War of the Blogs continues and a few more videos surface of horses putting a single stride in a two stride line, we just might make it through. Joking aside, luckily this particular Tuesday looks like it will be better on the news front.
Speaking of news:
Tim Hadaway, equestrian manager for the upcoming 2012 London Games, is confident the iconic Greenwich Park, where the equestrian events are to be held, will not be permanently damaged as a result of the Games. Obviously a good many people in England aren’t too pleased that London’s oldest Royal Park dating to 1433 will be turned into stomping grounds for a projected 23,000 people and some several hundred horses those two weeks in August. Think about what a local horse show looks like on Sunday afternoon, especially if its been a rainy weekend; the areas housing the trailers, stabling, and food tents look an like they held some sort of demolition derby the night before. Add a few hundred more tents, an extra 23,000 fans, and you start to see where the Londoners are coming from in their objections. [Inside The Games]
Check out this article on Samantha’s website of some of the savvy items she saw for sale on her Wellington trip last weekend.
I’ve always liked Holly Hudspeth; undoubtedly for her skills as a rider but also because we were both grew up in Minnesota! Holly’s latest blog post talks about her recent trip back to the snowy tundra to teach a clinic.
Red Hills is this weekend, and should be one of the most exciting competitions of the spring season. As was mentioned yesterday, an Open Riders Forum will be taking place on Thursday. Judging by recent events, that forum will be very much anticipated by many of the riders and members of the community. Besides that, a staggering 200 hundred horses will be in attendance as well as a star studded list of riders. This press release from the USEA contains everything you’ll need to know.
A field trial is being carried out in the hopes of combating Rhodococcus equi, a bacterium causing severe pneumonia and a great deal of deaths in foals. According to this article from Horsetalk, the bacterium has been seriously affecting breeding stables in recent times, and it only seems to be growing. Hopefully the field trial will prove a solution to the problem.
Speaking of foals and breeding, Rachel Alexandra is confirmed pregnant. Rachel Alexandra was the 2009 Horse of the Year in the Racing World, after emerging victorious in the Preakness Stakes. Curlin, sire of Rachel Alexandra’s foal, is of no small note as he a past Preakness winner himself as well as claiming the Horse of the Year title both the two years preceding Rachel Alexandra. I’ve always wondered how much weight owners and breeders of horses of that caliber put into the actual results of the potential sire versus desirable and complementary characteristics, both physical and mental.
Oli Townend’s triple win at the Isleham Horse Trials last weekend got him featured in a piece from the BBC. Winning a section at an event in England is a considerably harder task than winning one in the US; the divisions are large and really competitive so basically you have to win the flat, jump a clean round, and fly around the cross country to make time. Three blue ‘rosettes’ is quite an accomplishment indeed, but then again, why should we expect anything less from the Wonder Boy of Eventing?
That’s all for now, Eventing Nation. See you soon and don’t forget to enter the Pennfield iPad contest or the SmartPak Phillip Dutton contest.
