Great Britain: Cornish Guardian Equestrian

Thisiscornwall.co.uk - Full Article

Kathryn Pearn
October 17 2013

THE Cornish Endurance team stormed to victory in the Celtic Challenge at the two-day Ridgeway Barbury Castle Ride in Wiltshire.
Holding off a strong challenge from Ireland, Wales and Scotland, Cornwall posted their first ever win in this hotly contested competition.

"It was a real team effort," said Veryan Barnaby, Chairman of Endurance GB South West. "Crews and spare riders all helped to ensure that everyone completed their ride and successfully passed the final vetting. We were thrilled to bits to win."

Results were based on the total distance ridden by each team and the time taken, with penalty points for riders who exceeded the speed allowed in the Graded classes. The Cornish team successfully competed the maximum distance with zero penalties...

Read more here:
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Cornish-Guardian-Equestrian-Kathryn-Pearn-ndash/story-19947764-detail/story.html#axzz2hzWV4fYe

2014 Normandy: The Organising Committee promotes the Games in Barcelona

Alltechfeiweg2014-normandy.com - Full Article

October 1 2013

France was guest of honour at CSIO Barcelona from 26-29 September for two reasons. First came victory for the "blue jackets" in the final of the Nations Cup, then the Normandy 2014 Organising Committee promoted the Games by holding a press conference for the international media and a field-based promotional operation to reach Catalonia’s horse-riding enthusiasts!

The French team wins the Nations Cup final

The French national team - comprised of Simon Delestre, Patrice Delaveau, Eugénie Angot, Aymeric De Ponnat and Pénélope Leprévost, and led by Philippe Guerdat – dazzled by winning the new-look Nations Cup series, beating Brazil by just one point! The level of competition was very high, since among the other 7 nations present were Great Britain, reigning Olympic and European Champions; the Netherlands, who have already won two Cups this season; Canada, including multi medal-winner Eric Lamaze; and Brazil, winners of the qualifying competition. Two days earlier, Normandy native Patrice Delaveau triumphed in the Longines Cup, the most important individual class at CSIO Barcelona, on Carinjo Hdc. All in all, it was a great performance by the French team just under a year before the Games begin!

The 2014 Games presented to the international media

Just a few hours before the final of the Nations Cup, Fabien Grobon, Chairman of the Organising Committee, Laurent Cellier, Director of Sports, and Celine Gualde, our press relations consultant, took advantage of the international media presence at Barcelona Polo Club to hold a press conference for around fifty journalists. It was a great opportunity to present the 2014 Games again...

Read more here:
http://www.alltechfeiweg2014-normandy.com/en/news/the-organising-committee-promotes-the-games-in-barcelona--a239.html

Toads, snake poison and dead horses

NZZ.ch - Full Article

Doping in endurance riding
October 12 2013

[google translation from German]

The Endurance is horrible because of doping-like practices continue in the headlines. For Princess Haya, President of the International Equestrian Federation, a huge burden. Because her husband is brought into connection.

by Peter Jegen

Etti Plesch, born Countess Maria Wurmbrand-Stuppach 1914 in Vienna, had a penchant for fast horses and rich men. "Horses and Husbands" is the name for the biography published after her death in 2003, starting with the fact that the total of six times married woman twice the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe won with the gallopers and Psidium Henbit, at a young age with An American millionaire's son was verkuppelt. Because the poor family only possessed the title of nobility.

«Horses or spouse" according to the biography would be called, which could draw the Jordanian Princess Haya bint al-Hussein one day once. For the life of the President of the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) her husband is becoming increasingly difficult to stressful mortgage.

Sheikh Mohammed and the doping
The 39-year-old Princess Haya is a second wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the 64-year-old ruler of Dubai. This maintains one of the largest horse with Godolphin racing stables in the world, was hit in the spring of a big doping scandal. Full coverage anabolic steroids were administered as a control training in Newmarket (England) showed.

Guilty as the trainer Mahmood al-Zarooni was branded, meanwhile, Sheikh Mohammed immediately cooperated with the authorities to close the affected stall left in his emirate of Dubai exacerbated the doping regulations.

The damage was done, however, and the efforts to achieve a drug-free sport horses seemed hardly credible, because Sheikh Mohammed did not come out of the headlines. He himself was as endurance riders already closed due to doping, and in one of his English stables where horses are trained for endurance riding, in a raid in September 124 medical products were confiscated, which are not authorized in the UK for horses.

An explosive Fund because the Endurance as opposed to horse racing, a discipline of the FEI, with the Princess Haya to act as the President for an ethical handling of horses and against doping. Of which her husband apparently seems not too much to keep.

As in the Chamber of Horrors
Efforts to ease term limits on the FEI peak at the beginning of November in Montreux upcoming General Assembly from 8 to 12 Years, Princess Haya recently declined with thanks. You will not be the end of their term of office end of 2014 continue to be available, they left with reference to their statements made to the office know.

However, as they are likely to have influenced the recent events, especially the Swiss Equestrian Federation for months by the FEI and a workup of doping in endurance riding, the so-called Endurance calls. A FEI Commission has now established, but lack the independence, from the Swiss. Also complained that primarily improve the situation in the future, but not proven doping should be worked up.

The latter is urgently needed because it seems like going to and fro in the chamber of horrors. The Swiss Association President Charles Trolliet, himself vet says that the FEI has tested positive between January 2010 and December 2012 at 41 international events horses in Endurance, primarily on steroids, anti-inflammatories and painkillers. The figures come from a statistic that has for the same period, 29 tested positive for jumping horses and states that 82.9 percent of cases in the Endurance rider from the Arab concern.

Cocktails with toads and snake poison
"Le Monde" wrote a few days ago even of dead horses. The French association had three deaths at endurance events in 2012 registered. And over the sheet tells of a veterinarian that horses will injected intravenously vodka, enriched with the painkiller Sarapin, an extract of the pitcher plant, and toads or snake venom.

What sounds like a horror story, might not be so far-fetched. Reported in the previous year, "New York Times" about similar practices in American horse racing. There were about 30 horses tested positive for dermorphin, which originates from South American frogs. The agent should numb pain, but also make the same hyperactive and thus be more effective than just pain-suppressing cobra venom.

As FEI President still viable?
If the situation continues to worsen and the horses empire of Sheikh Mohammed does not come out of the doping headlines, inevitably raises the question of whether his wife is even more portable than FEI President. Princess Haya is to finish the second term? A withdrawal before the end of next year would in the face of widespread outrage against the conditions in the Endurance hardly surprising.

A premature withdrawal would certainly be a distressing line under a presidency that began so promisingly. Princess Haya, FEI transformed the antiquated in a modern global sports federation and brought a lot of character (Arabic) money. Achievements, currently stand in the shadows, throwing her husband about the equestrian sport.

Revealed: the equine drugs seized by police on Sheikh Mohammed's Dubai government jet

Telegraph.co.uk - Full Article

An illegal shipment of equine drugs seized at Stansted Airport from a private jet owned by the Dubai government consisted of more than 200 doses of 15 different medicines.

By Pippa Cuckson
30 Sep 2013

Among them were injectables which should only be given by a vet and 100 doses of Tildren, a drug which encourages regeneration of bone tissue, and which if prescribed would only be given to a horse once or twice a year.

The extraordinary haul of medicines, which are not licensed for use in the UK, was seized and destroyed by the UK Border Agency and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate in May. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the most powerful figure in British racing, has opened an internal investi­gation into how the plane was discovered to be carrying an array of powerful medicines of a kind which are prohibited under anti-doping rules in the sport of endurance racing.

The Stansted raid, revealed by The Daily Telegraph in September, was followed in August by a seizure by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of other unlicensed equine drugs at Moorley Farm. The farm, near Newmarket, is owned by Sheikh Mohammed’s ­Darley breeding operation and used as a summer base for his endurance racing horses, who spend the rest of the year in Dubai...

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/horseracing/10345923/Revealed-the-equine-drugs-seized-by-police-on-Sheikh-Mohammeds-Dubai-government-jet.html

Kentucky Horse Park in running for 2018 world games

Courier-journal.com - Full Article

October 3 2013
Written by Gregory A. Hall
The Courier-Journal

The World Equestrian Games could be coming back to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington in 2018, the international committee that conducts the event announced Thursday.

If chosen, the park would be the first two-time host for the quadrennial event that began in 1990 and includes eight equestrian world championships.

The Federation Equestrian International announced Thursday that it has received interest from Great Britain, the USA and Canada to host the 2018 world championships. The two U.S. cities under consideration are Lexington, which hosted the 2010 games at the horse park, and Wellington, Fla., another equestrian competition center near Palm Beach.

“The FEI World Equestrian Games is our flagship event, appealing to huge global audiences of equestrian enthusiasts and sports fans, and these expressions of interest by Great Britain and the USA alongside Canada are testament to the power of these Games,” FEI Secretary General Ingmar de Vos said in the statement...

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http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20131003/NEWS01/310030038/Kentucky-Horse-Park-running-2018-world-games?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

South Africa: Dansawil Arabian Stud Endurance Team Impresses South Africa

Thevoicebw.com - Full Article

Dansawil Arabian Stud Endurance team, sponsored by Nutri Feeds Botswana, competed over the weekend of the 4th and 5th of October at the Stella Endurance Ride in North West province in South Africa.

Endurance riding is the fastest growing equine sport in the world and Dansawil Arabians established in 1979 is one of the most experienced endurance Arabian Studs in Southern Africa.

The Stella ride consisted of a 40km novice horse track on Friday and a competitive 80km track on Saturday.

The Springbok Team riding time on this track is 04.02 hours. The track is one of the fastest in South Africa.

The Dansawil Team consisted of two Batswana riders, Willie Herbst and Tebogo Mosorwa.

The team was completed by Felicity Cooper and Louise Herbst as team manager and groom respectively.

Willie Herbst owner of Dansawil Arabian Stud and rider is one of the most experienced endurance riders in Southern Africa having successfully ridden over 16 000km...

Read more here:
http://www.thevoicebw.com/2013/10/11/dansawil-arabian-stud-endurance-team-impresses-south-africa/

Mont Saint Michel & Haras du Pin gear up for Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games

Examiner.com - Full Article

October 11, 2013

The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games 2014 in Normandy takes place August 23-September 7 in France. A group of journalists headed there October 9-12 to check things out. For three days they immersed themselves in the culture, savored the food and viewed the venues where the eight disciplines will be showcased.

Those eight disciplines include Dressage, Show Jumping, Reining, Vaulting, Para Equestrian, Driving, Endurance and Eventing. For the most part the first five will be taking place in the region of Caen. The close proximity of the venues one from the other makes it easier to get from venue to venue via the media shuttles.

If your accommodations are within the city of Caen, the time spent in shuttles will be less. However, for the Eventing and Endurance there will be a bit of a drive to get to the venues where those two events will be held.

Endurance will take place in the vicinity of Mont Saint Michel, a spectacular island commune whose central focus is its church which dates back to the eighth century. The church is surrounded by water which disappears when the tide is low but appears like a moat around this antique building during high tide...

Read more here:
http://www.examiner.com/article/mont-saint-michel-haras-du-pin-gear-up-for-alltech-fei-world-equestrian-games