Good Morning Eventing Nation! I wish I could add ‘Win a Free iPad’ to this morning’s title like the title of John’s post yesterday, but I guess we can only give away Apple technology every so often on an Eventing website. If you are just returning from Siberia and missed yesterday’s news post, you might want to visit
this link to enter the contest.
Anyway, onto the news:
One change I noticed at the beginning of 2011, from watching a few of the US training sessions and following a few of the ‘A-lister’ blogs, is that personal fitness among riders is being regarded with increasing importance. As John wrote about in his training session recaps, the USOC organized fitness testing among riders to gauge their fitness levels, an action that I believe sparked a desire in many of them to improve themselves physically over the coming 2011 season.
The Brits must be doing some of the same as they have organized a 10K race in July to raise funds for the World Horse Welfare. July is still a way’s away so hopefully the early notice will allow more people to get training and support a great cause.
[Horse and Hound]
Boyd and Silva Martin are embarking on a project to create a series of training videos. It will be interesting to see how the Martin videos will turn out as they have such different styles of riding, and even ride in different disciplines! Video is a great training tool, I know for me personally that seeing the feeling or movement done in it’s most correct form is ten times better than hearing sentences from an instructor or reading words in a book. [Boyd’s website]
Smartpak has launched a new ‘blog’ aspect of their website to keep customers updated with posts from the riders they sponsor.
Allison Springer is one of them, and in her most recent Smartpak blog, she describes the horses making up her team for the spring season. Its always nice to see when riders do things, like writing a blog for instance, to give back to their sponsors.
In some sad news, Debbie Winkler, an American show jumper, died in a riding accident yesterday. According to this German
press release, Debbie Winkler was American by nationality, but after traveling to Germany in 1986 to train with Hans Gunter Winkler, a relationship that later developed into marriage; she made the decision to remain permanently in Germany. Her accomplishments as a show jumper were many, but perhaps most notable was a second place finish at the prestigious Frankfurt Grand Prix in 1998.
Last week I mentioned that their was a Valentine’s Day Make A Wish event in Ocala, Florida last week.
The USEF just released an article on that event, in which top riders like Karen and David O’Connor were in attendance. The event featured a discipline swap, where Pat Parelli tackled a jumping course
not on Catwalk, and the O’Connors cow-roped or calf-roped, whatever the correct terminology is.
Horsetalk is usually the news site I link to most, because although they are based half a world away in New Zealand, they have a creepy way of getting the American news before even the Americans do. This is a
great article on the
top pet toxins of 2010. I’d say that on average the ratio of people working on horse farms and the dogs on those farms is about 1:1.
Due to the nature of the job and the fact that we can’t be around our dogs all the time, the article serves as a great reminder to always be cautious of potential hazards to your dog’s well being.
Polo players exercise 12 horses at once
Pure Thoughts Horse Rescue is donating horses for Fete Cheval, an event that will take place at the Palm Beach Equestrian Center. The event will feature Gymkhana races and top names like Nick Dellojoio, Mario Deslauriers, Brianne Goutal, Laura Kraut, Beezie Madden, and Rodrigo Pessoa.
[COTH]
The rumor is that the Girl Scouts were kicked off of the HITS Termal jumper show in California because they were selling cookies. I guess HITS wasn’t getting their cut.
Best of the Blogs: Hannah Sue Burnett Eventing
Lastly, the Royal Oaks California training session schedule for has been announced for Thursday and Friday [USEF HP Facebook Page]:
Thursday February 24
8:00am Maris Burns (Dev B)
8:45 Allie Slusher (Dev A)
9:30 Amy Tryon (HP A)
10:15 Allie
11:00 Amy
11:45 LUNCH (HP D)
12:15pm Tiana Coudray (HP B)
1:00 Max McManamy (Dev B)
1:45 Tiana
2:30 Amy
Friday February 25
8:00am Max
8:45 Allie
9:30 Tiana
10:15 Allie
11:00 Amy
11:45 Tiana
12:15pm LUNCH
12:45 Maris
1:30 Amy
1:45 Amy
That’s all for now, Eventing Nation. See you soon.
