Online Exclusives

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And The Hits Just Keep on Coming…

It may have been staged three weeks ago, but unsavoury matter is still rising out of the effluence of the world endurance championships at Samorin.
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Saddle Fit and the Various Disciplines

The question was put to me recently whether or not it was “harmful” or “wrong” to jump in your dressage saddle or do dressage in your jumping saddle. Theoretically at least – presuming that these are not necessarily regular
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Ancient History Affecting Modern Horses

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 21
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Protest Properly and You Will be Heard

It’s four years since I began following the endurance scandals in detail, and during that time I have encountered several frustrations for legal reasons: sometimes when I have heard about something truly shocking, the FEI statute of limitations, or
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Apprenticeships in the Equestrian Industry

It’s that time of year again when school has begun for students of all ages. From the moment students enter high school, emphasis is placed on achieving high grades to prepare for post-secondary education. The reality is only 18 per cent of student
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Guided Towards Disaster?

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 wh
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Why is Eventing Gold Eluding the Brits?

When will the British eventing team win gold again? This has been niggling at me for some while and, it seems, worrying the elder statesmen of our sport, for whom it was quite a topic during Burghley. Rio was the first time since 1996 that Britain ha
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Equine Anatomy: Attending a Dissection Clinic

One of the things on my bucket list has been to attend an equine dissection course in anatomy at the University of Guelph. Unfortunately, every time it was offered in the last couple of years I have been away at a speaking engagement and so I missed
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Judges are Judges and Vets are Vets…..?

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 tim