Sunday, July 29, 2018

Italy: Exhausted Horse Provokes New Endurance Controversy

Horse-canada.com - Full Article with video

July 28 2018

An FEI Endurance Championship is again at the centre of controversy, with video evidence of a highly distressed and exhausted gold-medal winning team horse at the Maktoum/Meydan-sponsored FEI European Young Riders in Pisa, Italy, on July 26.

Spain’s CS Rogelia was deemed “fit to continue” at the final veterinary inspection following the 120km race. But this video clip, shot while leaving the final inspection area, shows the horse physically held upright by numerous crew and other helpers on the slow walk to the clinic, where it was still being cared for 36 hours later.

A “pass” by the vets gave CS Rogelia and Martina Codina Sala Planell seventh place individually, enabling Spain to claim team gold; with two others out of the competition, Spain only had the minimum three counting scores left.

A four-star official who provided the video to Horse-Canada.com said this was not the only “disgusting” scene at the championship, and pointed to apparent conflicts of interest...

Read more here and see video:
https://horse-canada.com/horse-news/exhausted-horse-provokes-new-endurance-controversy/

Friday, July 27, 2018

Australia: Local riders enjoy success at 2018 Tooraweenah Championship

OberonReview.com.au - Full Article

July 26 2018

Oberon-born Andrew Bailey and Courtney Anderson (nee Freeman) of “Native Dog”, Oberon shared line honours at the 2018 Tooraweenah NSW Championship 160-kilometre endurance ride last weekend.

It was déjà vu for Mr Bailey as he cantered across the line riding Twynham El Zephyr. In 1991, he won the National Championship 160km Tom Quilty Gold Cup Endurance Ride on the same course, riding Tantawanglo Hamal Zahab.

Tooraweenah, in the foothills of the Warrumbungles, is experiencing the same dry times affecting all the state, but that didn’t stop a wonderful committee providing a great course and event, according to Mr Bailey...

Read more here:
https://www.oberonreview.com.au/story/5542479/local-riders-enjoy-success-at-2018-tooraweenah-championship/

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Sue Phillips Is Taking Every Variable Into Account For The World Equestrian Games Endurance Course

Chronofhorse.com - Full Article

By: Amber Heintzberger
Jul 24, 2018

On Sept. 12, hundreds of elite athletes from around the world will gather before dawn to set out from the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina, for the world endurance championships. They’ll make several loops and cover almost 100 miles through the nearby countryside, returning to the TIEC for intermittent veterinary checks, during the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games.

And course designer Sue Phillips will be anxiously awaiting the results of her first World Games championship.

But Phillips, who hails from Poetry, Texas, outside of Dallas, is anything but under-qualified for the job. She’s a four-star technical delegate, course designer and judge, as well as an official FEI steward. She’s been an official for more than 25 years and also has competed in endurance.

“When you come in as an official who rides, your brain functions like an organizer: You think about how it should be organized, through years of putting on local rides,” she said. “You also have to be a star-rated FEI official to be a course designer for endurance. I’ve worked as an FEI official but not a course designer for a championship, but I know what we need to do and what we need to accomplish, and I have a great crew working with me...”

Read more here:
http://www.chronofhorse.com/article/sue-phillips-is-taking-every-variable-into-account-for-the-world-equestrian-games-endurance-course

Newfoundland equestrian competing in Gobi Desert Cup

TheWesternStar.com - Full Article

Sadie-Rae Werner
Published: July 26 2018

For Lorie Duff, horses have always been a way of life, taking her from the dairy farm in Topsail where she grew up, to Ottawa, and soon, to Mongolia where she will compete in the Gobi Desert Cup.

Duff started riding at Avalon Equestrian Centre and would go out with her friends on the weekends for trail rides. She went on to be the representative for Newfoundland and Labrador at Equestrian Canada, and now owns Liberty Lane Farm in the nation’s capital, where she teaches Liberty training and horsemanship.

Liberty Lane Farm was named for a construction project she had done in with her father in Newfoundland.

Duff’s relationship with equestrianism changed dramatically in 2014 when she awoke to find the right side of her body paralyzed. After having emergency neck surgery due to degenerating discs, Duff spent one and a half years recovering. During this time, she started looking at horsemanship in a different light.

She began doing more work on base foundation and liberty training, where horses are unrestrained by saddles and bridles and the emphasis is on building trust between human and horse. She has also been spending more time lecturing and speaking about her philosophies on how horsemanship can translate into other aspects of our lives.

Duff is currently preparing for the Road to the Horse colt starting competition in Lexington, Kentucky in March 2019. If she is accepted, she will be the first Canadian woman to compete in the world championship event.

While at the Equus Film Festival in New York City in November, with the premier of her short documentary, “Humble and Kind,” she met someone who told her that the Gobi Desert Cup was looking for Canadian representatives...

Read more here:
https://www.thewesternstar.com/living/newfoundland-equestrian-competing-in-gobi-desert-cup-228875/

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

From Mogendoura, Australia, to Mongolia

NaroomaNewsOnline.com.au - Full Article

Duncan McLaughlin
July 24 2018

The Ghenghis Khan Highway, Ulan Bator, Mongolia. It’s not your standard postal address but will soon be Cele Stone’s, at least for a while.

The Mogendoura horsewoman is set to compete in two of the world’s great endurance events – the Mongol Derby and the Gobi Desert Cup – racing Mongolia’s native ponies across thousands of kilometres of steppe and desert. Cele said she was the last applicant accepted into this year’s Mongol Derby.

I think only one person has died.

“I didn’t have my acceptance interview until January … I wasn’t sure my experience would be enough,” Cele said. “I was terrified I would be accepted and I was terrified I wouldn’t.”

There was a lot riding on her acceptance, “I couldn’t keep on drinking more, eating more, caring less. I had to choose; choose to live or choose to die. I needed something big enough – scary enough! – to get me off the couch … The Mongol Derby is that...”

Read more here:
https://www.naroomanewsonline.com.au/story/5543486/from-mogendoura-to-mongolia/

Canada: Training for the Mongol Derby requires endurance — and lots of horses

CBC.ca - Full Article

Kelsey Opstad rides horses at Prince George facility from morning till night in preparation for big event


CBC News · Posted: Jul 23, 2018

Kelsey Opstad lies in bed at night, unable to sleep, as she ticks through the list of everything she needs to do before she leaves for Asia in a week.

Opstad, who is from Anchorage, Alaska, has been training at the B.C. Appaloosa Centre in Prince George since May in preparation for a 10-day horse race in Mongolia.

"I picked the B.C. Appaloosa Centre for the sheer number of horses," said Opstad, explaining that she can work with lots of younger, less experienced horses at the centre, which will more closely mimic the horses she'll be riding across the Mongolian plains.

The Mongol Derby, now in its ninth year, is a 1,000-kilometre equestrian endurance race. It is intended to recreate Genghis Khan's famous postal system.

Riders travel for 10 days to different checkpoints, 36 kilometres apart, at which point they switch horses. In all, racers ride 30 different horses...

Read more here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/training-for-the-mongol-derby-requires-endurance-and-lots-of-horses-1.4757314

Italy set to host Sheikh Mohammed Endurance Festival

Khaleejtimes.com - Full Article

July 24 2018

San Rossore Racecourse is one of the great endurance venues of the world

The His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Italy Endurance Festival will take place as part of the Toscana Endurance Lifestyle 2018, supported and sponsored by Meydan, on Friday at San Rossore Racecourse in Pisa, Italy.

Meydan Group was the headline sponsor for the Toscana Endurance Lifestyle in 2016 and 2017, as well, and this year they have announced a record-breaking prize pool of ?1 million, doubling last year's prize and incentives fund for the festival. Azizi Developments, a major Dubai-based real estate developer, will also be sponsoring the Festival as part of its partnership with Meydan that extends to international events. Azizi Developments is a pillar partner of the Dubai World Cup, which includes its sponsorship of one of the world's top Thoroughbred flat sprint races, the Group 1 $1 million Al Quoz Sprint...

Read more here:
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/sport/horse-racing/italy-set-to-host-sheikh-mohammed-endurance-festival

Costanza Laliscia: the young Italian equestrian endurance champion

Sport.quotidiano.net - Full Article Costanza Laliscia, endurance champion, talks about her passion for horses and the sacrifices she makes...