Found 586 Results from Straight-Up

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Enduring the Endurance Meeting

Things at the FEI GA finally spiced up at the end of a very long presentation by the Endurance Strategic Planning Group (aka ESPG). Especially when a diminutive and predictably sun-tanned little fellow named Malcolm McDonald got hold of the microphone during the question period. Why predictably tanned? Well, because Malcolm is the Jamaican federation’s […]
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Yawnfest 2013

Now that I’m finally allowed into something, here I sit in the cathedral atmosphere of the FEI Rule Change meeting that always takes place the day before the GA. The point of this session is to acquaint the NFs with any potentially contentious rule changes (except for the Olympic qualifications, since that was a separate […]
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Foiled!

I’m not even in Switzerland yet, and the FEI is already making my blood boil. The issue is of great concern to my Canadian readers, so I’ve posted this saga-before-the-saga over on Straight-Up, which you can reach by clicking here. I’ll check in here tomorrow – I’ll have lots of time on my hands, now […]
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Now It’s Personal

As many of you know, I am on my way to the pristine, EU-resistant soil of Switzerland to attend the 2013 FEI General Assembly this week. If there is any single session of the three day talk-fest of especial relevance to Canada and to people in other countries of the Americas who have been in […]
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GDF Lite (Day Two)

**Note to readers: I wrote this post on my flight from Amsterdam to Toronto on Thursday, but between the flying (no wifi on KLM flights yet), the weather, Toronto’s epic traffic and my schedule doing work in my ‘other’ career, dressage freestyles, this is the first moment I’ve had to sit down and post it. […]
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Bright Lights and Dim Bulbs: GDF Day One

As is always the case with DQ Land’s annual international shindig, there was the good, the bad and the ugly this year, and none of it (well, almost none) was boring. I thought I would introduce an emoticon-based system of rating the presentations this year, you know, like, to maybe attract more young readers to […]
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The Chronicles of Fat Kid and Smartie

I know I said I would be GDF blogging on Low-Down, but since my ‘conversation’ with Trond  (aka Smartie) started here, I decided that for continunity’s sake I would wrap this up here (at least until the FEI GA next week, where I will be sure to have at least one chat with the FEI […]
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FEI Responds to Punitive Games

Karen Robinson’s Straight Up blog, The Punitive Games, contained a number of factual errors, which we would like to correct and also add some more details in order to provide readers with a bigger picture of the proposed qualification system for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. First and foremost the FEI would like to correct […]
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Clayton Fredericks Unplugged

Hi everyone! The November issue of Horse Sport contains an interview I conducted with Canadian Eventing High Performance Technical Advisor Clayton Fredericks, as he approaches the first anniversary of his position. Below, please find the extended interview, which contains a great deal more than there was room to print in the magazine. Enjoy! On Cultivating Greatness An […]
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Global Jammin’

Well, here I am on the eve of the Global Dressage Forum (the real one, not that ersatz imitator in FL), and I’m as excited as I’ve ever been to be attending once again. If you are not cut of DQ cloth, you might wonder what the  big deal is with this annual meeting of […]