The FEI’s new Olympic format has been the subject of much debate and discussion recently, but what is all the fuss about? Does it really matter if there are three riders in a team or four? Surely dropping the eventing down a star level is a good thing if more riders can compete? Why the […]
Last weekend 16-year-old Taloubet Z won another World Cup qualifier in Germany and in England a racehorse called Cue Card won his third Grade One Bet Fair Chase. Both are outstanding horses in their disciplines and no doubt in various news reports words like “great” and “legend” were used freely when describing them; legitimately, as […]
As well as writing for this publication, I edit the English language website for of a European-based equestrian media outlet. It is primarily about equestrian sports news. Much of the content comes to me from Europe and not always in English, so sometimes it takes a bit of time to establish exactly what the news […]
I had something else in mind for the subject of my latest blog after two more endurance fatalities and controversy (again!) over the appearance of blood on a Marilyn Little ridden event horse, but frankly I am beginning to tire of opening equestrian news sites and seeing more depressing reports of cruelty or abuse, so […]
Recently I spent an afternoon in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Amongst other things there are various pieces of equestrian apparel including some 16th and 17th century bits. Those are real horror stories looking at them from the enlightened 21st century, although the workmanship is quite staggering, particularly when looking at the mass production of […]
This week I was going to write about something else but another event rider has lost their life and the subject cannot be ignored. People defending the current state of eventing will tell you that no more people are dying now than thirty years ago which, statistically, is correct. But as usual with those sort […]
I wrote a piece after WEG 2010 that was in part responsible for changing certain FEI rules regarding welfare and conduct of officials so forgive me for thinking we had sorted out who was who and which official was responsible for which task. Last time in this blog, I also wondered if preventing abuse had […]
The 2016 Olympic Games Equestrian has been somewhat marred by a series of disqualifications in the show jumping for misuse of whip or spur. Although those were all unacceptable incidents, are the machinations required to get a Dutch dressage horse to the ring and Kiwi eventer to the first jog justified and surely such actions begs […]
We are getting within sight now of the Olympic Games and the final selections of team managers are starting to appear in the news. Some teams, of course, don’t need to make a selection for the equestrian disciplines, having only qualified one or two riders. Others have a thornier problem – the Irish show jumping […]
I already touched on this in my last blog but you cannot open any sort of equestrian publication at the moment without reading about the latest eventing fatality, be it either yet another theory as to why, or another teary eulogy. The trouble with all of it is that the few facts we have got are […]
