Earlier this week, a Vermont woman named Krystal Smith became the national champion of grocery bagging. Krystal beat 21 competitors by filling three grocery bags in 38 seconds. Best of all the event had a $10,000 prize–that’s right, a grocery bagging contest has more prize money than 98% of the events on the planet. [Video] Nothing against grocery baggers–they provide a valuable service to everyone on earth who is too lazy to place their own produce into plastic bags themselves–but we seriously need to find a way to get more prize money in eventing. Now for your eventing news and notes:
—France has released a revised 2011 training list. In November they listed over 40 riders divided by junior and senior status. This week the French Federation has refined that list to 30 pairs by naming specific horses and dividing the riders between 9 pairs who are top selection material and 21 pairs who show potential to be selected in the future. The list contains familiar names such as Stanislas de Zuchowicz and Quirinal de la Bastide, Gwendolen Fer, Pascal Leroy, Jean Teulère, and Nicolas Touzaint. [French training list]
–Galway Downs has sent out a press release talking about the stability created when the property was purchased last October by Ken Smith. Galway’s organizer, Robert Kellerhouse, explains in the press release that he can now focus on developing the venue for events rather than worrying about development plans by the previous owners: “It was tough to make plans when the owners wanted to put houses on portions of the cross-country course or where we park the trailers.” The Smith’s are the third property owner in the 13 year history of Galway and despite all of the transitions the event just keeps getting better and better. [Press Release]
–Show jumper Eric Lamaze of Canada has gotten his first ever non-horsey sponsor–Rolex. And that’s for someone who has already won Olympic gold. I mentioned prize money in the intro to this post, and getting more ‘non-horsey’ companies with huge marketing budgets involved in eventing is a big step in the right direction. [The Globe and Mail via JER]
–Jimmy Wofford’s top 5 cross-country book recommendations on 3D3W surprisingly don’t include one of Jimmy’s books. As we have been saying, look for a new book from Jimmy to hit the shelves around Rolex time, and until then we look forward to more of his recommendations. [3D3W]
—Volunteers are needed for Pine Top Feb. 25-27. A call is going out through the interweb asking for volunteers for Friday and Sunday in particular. If you are available, I highly suggest at least volunteering Friday because the entire Pine Top advanced is running all three phases on Friday and you will get to see most of the top 30 horses in the US run in that division. Plus, volunteering give you major EN Karma. If you are available, I’m told to have you email Janet at [email protected]. [via LD]
–Congratulations to Kim H. for winning our Ecogold contest on EN. Kim wins $330 in Ecogold pads and graciously wrote to us a bit about herself and her horse:
“Wow! I am thrilled, and my horse Elsie will be, too! She is very fussy about saddle pads! Thank you so much for having this contest- I looked at Ecogold pads at the Plantation event this fall, and I was very impressed. I couldn’t afford to get one at the time! I am an old eventer, now competing at unrecognized levels on a home-bred mare. I hope to step up our dressage this year so I ordered dressage pads. Thanks again for your great site- I visit several times a day, sometimes even at work (I am a veterinarian).“
—Now we know where that one IT Chinchilla who disappeared last month went [TOTD] Note: this link will only make sense until noon ET.
—Body clipping 101 [SmartPak blog]
—Courtney Cooper’s brief Pine Top recap [C Square Farm]. As a quick note on Courtney, she was part of a recent sale of one of my horses and I was nothing but impressed. Courtney has a huge sales business and now I know why. Courtney was also one of the first US riders to start wearing helmets in the dressage at FEI competitions.
—“SmartPaks ship free, customers rejoice” [USEA]
—Best of the Blogs: Everyone walked away fine from the Ocala Horse Trials
–If you like Eventing Nation, please move your mouse 3 inches to the right and 5 inches down and click ‘like’ in the sidebar Facebook like box–it makes the remaining IT Chinchillas happy.
Remember, no matter how bad your day is at work, it can’t be this bad…can it?
