A Very Important Weekend
Friday, April 22 2011
by
Harvey and I at the first of two open corners on the CIC 3* course at Burnham Market. I'm sorry but look how sweet his expression is! This past weekend was quite an important weekend for me. I’m not actually sure if I mentioned this in an earlier blog but I had a bad fall at the end of last year in the three star up at Blair Castle in Scotland. Long story short my amazing little Harvey and I were three fences from home after having a great run and we ended up crashing through a ditch and palisade. To this day I have no idea what happened. Some people say that Harvey didn’t see the ditch because it was going from light to dark out of the woods and the light was in his eyes.
- Published in Onward, Upward, Z-Blogs
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BRAVA JILLY COOPER!!!!
Saturday, April 09 2011
by Website Editor
Well, here we are again, facing a mountain of deadlines for the June issue, still not sure how we’re getting to Kentucky for Rolex and totally exhausted from the aftershocks of being blindsided by a horrendous cough/flu/walking pneumonia bug that put us in bed for three days… We are not the stay-abed type at all, but we felt run over by a fleet of mack trucks, to say the least, and we’re still a bit wobbly on our feet… Ahhh, but we had JUMP! the latest novel by Brit contemporary writer Jilly Cooper whose bibliography includes: Riders, Rivals, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, and so many more, along with outstanding non-fiction titles. Jilly’s last, published in 2006, entitled WICKED! painted a rather scathing portrait of the power trips involved with public and private schooling (in Britain, known as comprehensive and public), of staff politics, love and lust, and also a subplot exposing, quite literally, pedophiles involved with orphanages and schools. But this is the novel we’ve been waiting for with bated breath: JUMP! was first called The Village Horse but Jilly’s editors & publishers changed her title and JUMP! pretty much describes the action as Jilly takes her readers on a series of high speed adventures into National Hunt Racing with the Willowwood syndicate. The protagonist is the recently widowed Etta Bancroft whose life with bossyboots Sampson Bancroft and two monster-like offspring with spouses to match takes an unusual turn during one of the coldest nights of the winter. Etta finds a badly injured, starving-to-death filly tied up in the woods and rescues her. The animal has been blinded in one eye and traumatized to the nth degree, but such is the power of Etta’s love and compassion that she wins the filly’s trust and restores her to health. Local entrepreneur Valent Edwards unwittingly provides haven for the filly, and folks from the village of Willowwood get involved.
- Published in Lauren Gallops, Z-Blogs
Tagged under:
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Gatcombe
Sunday, April 03 2011
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Last weekend went well at Gatcombe Horse Trials with Harvey and Bree. I ran Harvey in the Open Intermediate and my new mare, Bree, in the Open Novice just as a nice easy run so that we can start getting to know each other.
- Published in Onward, Upward, Z-Blogs
Tagged under:
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It’s All Happening
Tuesday, March 15 2011
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And just like that the 2011 eventing season has begun! This past weekend was Tweseldown, the first affiliated event on the British Eventing calendar. I had my little advanced horse in the Open Intermediate and the Honorable Mary Guinness’s five year old in the Prenovice (equivalent to training level in the US). As I warmed up for the OI dressage test I had a look around and quickly remembered why I am in England.
- Published in Onward, Upward, Z-Blogs
Tagged under:
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It’s That Time of Year Again- Cross Country Schooling
Tuesday, March 01 2011
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At the beginning of last week I looked at my schedule and I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. I’ve started riding for Mark Todd a few days a week, I have my three horses, and I am also riding a few for Sam Albert who rode for Jamaica at the Olympics in Hong Kong. Needless to say, things have been a bit hectic! Also, somehow it is already the end of February and our season starts in a week! This means driving the horses a few days a week to the gallops to get them fit and taking them all cross country schooling. In England, because the majority of riders over here give their horses November and December off, most of the horses haven’t seen a ditch since September or October. This means cross-country schooling can be fairly entertaining. The problem is that most people wait too long to take their horses schooling because the weather is horrific and the ground is like a swamp. You keep telling yourself: “Oh I will just wait until next week and hopefully it will not be so wet.” Well, surprise surprise, the rain hasn’t stopped and the ground has been getting progressively worse. It is England after all! I am included in this optimistic group of people who think the ground may get better. Unfortunately, after waiting and waiting, I had to brave the bad ground and the pouring rain and chuck the horses into my trusty Roberta and get them out for some cross country. Funny enough, its seems everyone else had the same idea and when I took my horses out on Thursday there were around twenty lorries parked alongside the cross country field. This congestion can be explained by the fact that most cross-country places close when it’s this wet. The only place that stays open, rain or shine, is Boomerang
- Published in Onward, Upward, Z-Blogs
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Bits & News Bites…
Monday, February 28 2011
by Website Editor
If only we had more time! But we don’t, so we disappeared for three weeks – blame it on deadline after deadline. We shouldn’t be here now, trying to post a long overdue blog, because – yes, you got it – deadlines!!! Oh, well, you can’t win ‘em all. FIRST ITEM: We caught up with Dr. Temple Grandin at a gallop, literally, a couple of weeks ago
- Published in Lauren Gallops, Z-Blogs
Tagged under:
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Unwanted Horses: Complex Quandary For HorseLovers
Thursday, February 03 2011
by Website Editor
In the February 2011 issue of Sidelines, we tackled head on the issue of Unwanted Horses, a story that seriously challenged us – emotionally, mentally and psychologically. Entitled For The Love of Horses, we went into detail about the plight of unwanted horses, whose numbers continue to increase so that there are too many to save. In spite of heroic efforts by rescue organizations and concerned individuals, horses are falling through the cracks, so to speak, and taking horrific one-way trips to Mexico where humane regulations do not exist. Simply put, the 2007 legislation shut down horse processing plants in the United States, but did nothing to stop the flow of unwanted horses across the northern and southern borders. Canada has strong support to legislate a ban against US horses being sent up there for slaughter, but that doesn’t mean a closure of their processing facilities. Mexico has a contract with the European Union: should that be terminated, horses destined for the abattoir will find their way into the local meat market.
- Published in Lauren Gallops, Z-Blogs
Tagged under:
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“As Good As Any and Better Than Most”
Monday, January 17 2011
by
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- Published in Onward, Upward, Z-Blogs
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WHOA HO HO – MERRY MERRY MERRY!
Thursday, December 23 2010
by Website Editor
Wow – what happened to December? Once we started feeling halfway healthy again, it was go-go-go in terms of meeting deadlines. Some stories, however, just don’t happen easily. That’s been the case for months with the story about Unwanted Horses. It’s a huge issue, driven on a lot of emotion and sentiment for these magnificent creatures. Finally it’s done, three days after deadline, and we just wish we would get the corrections or all-clear so we can email it to the editor who may be contemplating sticking pins into an elfish effigy that looks very much like us… whoa ho ho – OUCH! Holiday Cheer Christmas in Middleburg (VA) takes place the first Saturday in December. There’s a whole day of activities, starting with Breakfast with Santa & the Silent Auction at Middleburg Elementary School.
- Published in Lauren Gallops, Z-Blogs
CEqE The Basics & Build From There
Monday, December 06 2010
by Website Editor
When you set out to stabilize a young or green horse on the flat, you’re CEqEing for the foundation, the basic building blocks which will stand your equine in good stead for the rest of its life. Years ago (read younger and unaware of our mortality), we often took on ‘remedial’ projects, rehabbing Thoroughbreds off the track for foxhunters who held down full-time jobs
- Published in Lauren Gallops, Z-Blogs