To greet the horsemen and women of Olympia 2016, here’s some hot Olympia action from 1922. Let’s hope they have a few more bums on seats in W14 this week! It’ll be superstar dressage horse Valegro’s last competition before he returns to Carl Hester’s yard for a gentler life altogether.
Category Archives: Horse Shows
Colonel Gaddafi, a Very Young Michael Whitaker and Fantasia in Libya
Thank you Matt for this spectacular oddity from Adam Curtis at the BBC. In 1982, Libya held an international showjumping contest that featured top British riders and a thousand-strong Bedouin “fantasia”. Head-tossing barb horses in embroidered bridles, a dictator at the height of his powers and one very dour Yorkshireman, who really does not want …
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Sunday Morning Time Travel
Wonderful news for overworked writers who don’t have time to maintain their blogs: British Pathé have uploaded their stock of vintage film clips to YouTube. As the old slogan of the British tabloid the News of the World used to claim, “all human life is there”, and quite a bit of horsey life too. So …
Whole Heap of Little Horse Links
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 …
Whole Heap of Little Horse Links
Billionaire Roman Abramovich has purchased Pringle, one of the best showjumping ponies in the UK, for his daughter Irina. (Daily Telegraph) Mustang round-ups in the US are halted after video evidence of abuse of the horses is presented (Salt Lake Tribune) The owner of a pit bull that chased a police horse for a mile-and-a-half …
Someone Trying to Stop the Abuse of Horses? Time to Invoke the US Constitution!
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 …
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Whole Heap of Little Horse Links
Carol sent me a blogpost about a herd of Arizona horses who have been reclassified from “wild” to “feral” and now face a round up, which some suspect will result in their eventual slaughter. The leader of the band, Champ, was an internet hit last year when he was pictured rescuing a filly from the …
Cruelty Licked
Thank God. Some mainstream coverage of the scandalous abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses. ABC News went for a big trainer and obtained horrific undercover footage of him beating and electrocuting horses. Jackie McConnell is now being prosecuted. A brief and disturbing video is here, along with an article. The documentary also goes into the practice …
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 – …
If Wishes Were Horses: Lost Heroines
There aren’t many web resources on Pat Smythe; it’s best to rely on the books she wrote at the height of her fame and her later autobiography, Leaping Life’s Fences. British Pathé has come up trumps however, and you can spend hours there looking for footage of all the showjumping greats from Stroller to Mr …