Good BYE 2014. Don’t let the door hit your backside on the way out. I grudgingly invite you to rest in peace. Certainly you left me in pieces. What a year that was. And it just didn’t let up right to the very end. On December 13 we packed

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I wish everyone all the best for 2015! Happy New Year! Everything is going great with the horses. Vitall is on his A game. I am so thrilled with him. We are really progressing. He is getting stronger and stron

A couple of posts ago, I remarked that anyone who searched randomly through the FEI database was likely, within 20 minutes, to chance upon a horse whose provenance did not stack up. This followed revelations about the failed FEI investigation into w

Global Champions Tour: On September 29th, GCT sent out a promotional video of Scott Brash and Ludger Beerbaum effusing about a new GCT teams concept set to “revolutionize” their sport. I have to say I felt they were busking it a bit, the

Here is another “doppelganger” allegation reported to the FEI early in 2012 and investigated, until apparently fizzling out by the end of that year. The “paper trail” is still hiding in plain sight on the FEI database today. A

One of my all-time favourite films is All The President’s Men, about the Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who unravelled the Watergate scandal and ultimately forced the resignation of Richard Nixon. Woodward had a sour

You know that genre of non-fiction known as the unauthorized biography? As I stared at last week’s FEI announcement (which was released with a smirk and the sound of hands dusting each other off), in which it was explained why we will hear no m

On Saturday, I went National Hunt racing to support a friend’s horse. He was caught on the line for third place, but connections were thrilled as he has come back from a couple of niggles last year and runs and jumps better every time. At 15-1,

As I was saying last week, it is far easier over there to find your ‘young rider’s packer’ or ‘amateur one star horse’ aboard than it is here. This is due to two reasons: 1. What most people don’t know is that in t

In 1982, after qualifying for the European Championships I had to retire my beautiful Hanoverian gelding due to lameness, and my riding career came abruptly to an end. I wish I knew then what I have learned in the past 25 years as a Certified Maste