While wild horses in the right environment can blend beautifully into their background, the better to fool predators, it’s another story with domestic horses – especially those pressed into service in battle. The Camoupedia is a blog dedicated to the art of becoming invisible. Fascinatingly, it includes three posts about the camouflaging of horses in …
Category Archives: Belgium
Department of Zero Surprises and Some Hope
Tons of low-grade Canadian horse meat were purchased and passed off as halal beef by the Dutch businessman who is now in custody as French authorities investigate the scandal in which horse meat from Romania wound up labelled as ground beef. (The Globe and Mail – and for my background piece on the scandal, Spiegel …
Continue reading “Department of Zero Surprises and Some Hope”
The FEI, the Princess, the Sheikh and the Problematic Dead Horses: A Round Up Of Recent Articles And Sources
I’m holed up in the library working on book two, far from 2013, so here’s a round up of some recent pieces on how the FEI Endurance scandal is trotting along. We’re in the middle of the FEI’s General Assembly, and it seems the FEI would rather the horse welfare issue just went away. Pippa …
From the Sea to the Somme
Thank you to Andy Smerdon for getting in touch with me about his project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. Andy’s an amateur historian with a special interest in the use of equines – hosses and mules – in World War One. With his Tennessee Walking Horse Mack and …
The Black Market In Black Beauties: A Piece For Spiegel Online About The Horse Meat Crisis
How bureacracy has failed both horses and consumers, and how a long-held quest to provide cheap red meat for the working man ended in fraud. I need to add the credit for the Saint-Hilaire translation, which will appear here when I have time! Meanwhile, here’s something on the history of hippophagy, something on bute, and …
Plus Ça Change: British Ponies To Slaughter
Letter to The Times, September 22nd, 1928: “I am taking all possible measures to find out whether the Dartmoor ponies are going to Belgium for slaughter, and, if so, how and where they are killed. We have already traced one truckload which was travelling from Friday to Sunday in England. Miss A. M. F. Coles, …
Continue reading “Plus Ça Change: British Ponies To Slaughter”
If Wishes Were Horses: Diminutive Dianas
Here’s some Pathé footage of the International Horse Show at Olympia in 1920 (spot the hydrangeas and the standard lamp shades!), the King’s Gold Cup in 1921, opening day in 1922 (plus side-saddle) and a little showjumping. You can just make out the backdrop of Lowther Castle in this film from 1923. And this – …
Save Money on Rubbish Collection – with Horses
From Anthony Dent’s Donkey: The Story of the Ass From East to West. Dent was born in 1915 in North Yorkshire, just to orient you. ‘When I was a child in a small coastal resort in the North-east the most senior employees of our local council were two old men and a donkey, who between …
Continue reading “Save Money on Rubbish Collection – with Horses”
Horse Nonsense pour Tous Les Lundis
It is Monday. It may not occur to you to sweeten the day by watching Belgian stop-motion animation, but it’s exactly what I’d recommend. Panique au Village was a TV series which became a feature film. It stars a cowboy called cowboy, an Indian called Indian and a horse called Cheval. I don’t think it …