I thought it would be interesting to compile the horse welfare promises of this year’s US presidential candidate promises. Which platform is best for your horse? Hillary Clinton, Democrats “As president, Hillary will … Protect horses by ending the slaughter of horses for human consumption and cracking down on the practice of horse soring, in …
Continue reading “Trump, Stein or Clinton? How Would Your Horse Vote in 2016?”
Composer Eve Harrison teamed up with Scottish schoolchildren to write a musical about the horse meat scandal, called The Unspeakable. If I weren’t on the move just now I would dig out a 17th century story in which Scottish children chased and stoned a man known to eat horse meat. (BBC) The FAO reports that …
Professional child jockeys (as young as 4) in Indonesia (SBS) Virtual racehorses on the game Digiturf sell for $7,000 and $9,000. (ESPN) The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration goes ahead, although welfare concerns knock out some leading competitors. DIg into the comments here. (Tennessean) The number of horses slaughtered in Ireland this year appears to …
The American Quarter Horse Association is being sued for not allowing the registration of cloned horses. (ABC News) A New Yorker suggests that the local Boris bike system is replaced by one providing horses. (Gabe Capone) The suspicious death of a racehorse in West Virginia. (Bloodhorse.com) A profile on Marty Irby, a Tennessee Walking Horse …
The US Equestrian Federation has finally – yes, FINALLY – banned the chains, weighted shoes, pads, collars and rollers used to produce the monstruous “big lick gait. Good news for the beleagered Tennessee Walking Horse. (The Horse) This week was, mercifully, a week in which images of Shetland ponies wearing woolly jumpers flooded the internet. …
A young Scottish showjumper who’s only been riding for three years has been sponsored by Euromillions lottery winners. (Horse and Hound) Meanwhile a nineteen-year-old started a millionaire’s fund of his own when he became the youngest ever winner of the showjumping CN International via Karen K. (Spruce Meadows) Corrective surgery for thoroughbred yearlings before auction. …
We talk very easily about “a gene for this” or “a gene for that” but most of our characteristics have more complex biological origins than a single strand of DNA. That’s perhaps why it’s such a surprise to read this story, which my brother, Sarah Everts and Christine Wilsdon all sent me. Researchers at Uppsala …
Continue reading “Nature Wins Over Nurture in the Gaited Horse”
I stick to talking about horses here and rant elsewhere, with friends, about politics, economics and what’s happening to writing and to journalism. This is one post where the both interests intersect. We all know about the decline of journalism thanks to the free content we’re all addicted to reading online: good reporting requires cash …
Continue reading “Local Heroes for the Tennessee Walking Horse”
Since ABC News exposed the horrific practices of sections of the Tennessee Walking Horse community to the eyes of America, things have begun to move. The American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Equine Practitioners have called for an investigation. Pepsi dropped their sponsorship of the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, and it …
Continue reading “Something Rotten in the State of Tennessee”
A leading Tennessee Walking Horse industry group sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday, contending that the government’s effort to impose minimum penalties for soring and abusing horses is unconstitutional. … SHOW Inc., the Shelbyville-based horse industry organization, filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth, claiming that the new …
Continue reading “Someone Trying to Stop the Abuse of Horses? Time to Invoke the US Constitution!”
