Ireland: Excellent start to ILDRA’s Endurance Season for 2019

Farmweek.com - Full Article

By Bree Rutledge - March 4, 2019

THE 2019 endurance season for ILDRA (Irish Long Distance Riding Association) kicked off brilliantly on February 17, with all 10 CTR (Competitive Trail Rides) riders and horses successfully completing their distances. Tollymore Forest Park had an initially misty start to the day, however, this soon transformed into sunshine with perfect riding conditions for both horse and rider alike. Riders enjoyed the mountainous views across the County Down landscape and coastline, whilst meandering through the forest park trails along the River Shimna...

Read more here:
https://farmweek.com/excellent-start-to-ildras-endurance-season-for-2019/

Anne’s Mongol Derby III, Preparing for the Horses and the Journey Ahead

Everythinghorseuk.co.uk - Full Article

03/03/2019
ehuknews

How does one prepare for Mongolian horses? That is one question I have an easy answer to, you don’t.

Here in the Netherlands, where I live, we do not have horses that come anything near the Mongolian horses. Not in size, not in temperament and not in strength. The Mongolian horses are bred for centuries for their habitat, work, and lifestyle. Nothing to be found like that near my home, sadly.

Meanwhile, I ride a lot of different horses. Big and small, and I take my trusty backpack anywhere. To me, the distance does not really count at the moment, however, the time in the saddle does. Four hours without sore muscles, five hours without sore muscles… And so on...

Read more here:
https://everythinghorseuk.co.uk/annes-mongol-derby-iii-preparing-for-the-horses-and-the-journey-ahead/

New Zealand: Horse trekking adventurer Chloe Phillips-Harris speaks to Jack Tame

Newstalkzb.co.nz - Listen

Newstalk ZB, SectionAudio, Publish Date Saturday, 2 March 2019

If you google Chloe Phillips-Harris, an almost unbelievable collection of headlines pops up.

She has snowboarded behind a camel through the Gobi Desert, was detained in Kazakhstan after immigration officials refused to believe New Zealand was a country and was part of a group who came up with a new sport ‘horse wakeboarding’.

Chole has written a new book 'Fearless: The life of adventurer, equestrian and endurance rider Chloe Phillips-Harris' about her adventures and joined Saturday Morning with Jack Tame to discuss her amazing journeys around the world.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW:
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-morning-with-jack-tame/audio/horse-trekking-adventurer-chloe-phillips-harris-speaks-to-jack-tame/

EQA Interview with Julie Veloo on Learning to Ride in Mongolia

EquestrianAdventuresses.com - Full Story

February 21 2019
Author: Krystal Kelly

Julie is a Canadian girl with the true heart of an adventuress. Growing up in the far North of British Columbia, she was accustomed to brutal winters and wild lands. Horses weren’t a part of her childhood though, in fact she held onto a fear of horses well into her adult life. Her interests of anthropology and travel eventually led her to Mongolia with her husband, where at the age of 50 she decided to challenge herself as part of understanding the Mongolian culture. She sat on a horse for the first time and was only led around the paddock by a small boy, but when she dismounted a whole new passion had been ignited inside her and she was never the same again.

“I had no clue that I was going to turn into the crazy horseback riding lady,” she chuckles before continuing. “Now, I am an associate member of the Long Riders’ Guild with about 25,000 kilometers under my belt and a fervent desire to hopefully make 100,000 before I die.”

Her interest in the Mongolian culture was a crucial factor in learning to ride. “I wasn’t planning on learning to ride,” she says, “It was just that I saw all these gorgeous little Mongolian children thundering by on their horses out in the wild steppe…” She realized that if she wanted to understand the culture, she needed to learn to ride. How else would she know what it’s like to herd thousands of animals or experience what it’s like traveling from one Ger—the nomadic homes also known as yurts—to another on horseback as the Mongols have done for thousands of years? She wanted to know what the Mongolians already knew: what it feels like to be “at one” with an animal...

Read more here:
https://equestrianadventuresses.com/2019/02/21/learning-to-ride-in-mongolia/

Fine and suspension in WEG Endurance fallout

Horsetalk.co.nz - Full Article

March 1, 2019
Horsetalk.co.nz

The fallout from the abandoned Endurance race at the World Equestrian Games in North Carolina continues, with the FEI Tribunal suspending a leading figure in the sport.

In doing so, the three-member tribunal also laid some blame in the case on the FEI over what it said was a poorly managed race which caused frustration and anger among the participants.

It rejected most of the grounds on which the FEI had taken the case against the chef d’equipe for the Spanish endurance team, Dr Ignasi Casas Vaque.

However, tribunal members Armand Leone, Laurent Niddam and Henrik Arle found that Vaque, a veterinarian, had displayed incorrect behaviour towards event officials arising from the cancellation of the endurance race...

Read more here:
https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2019/03/01/fine-suspension-weg-endurance-fallout/

Suspension for Endurance Chef at the Centre of WEG 'Riot'

Horse-canada.com - Full Article

February 28, 2019
by: Pippa Cuckson

Leading endurance figure Ignasi Casas Vaque has been suspended for 12 months by the FEI Tribunal for his part in the angry scenes that erupted when the World Equestrian Games endurance race was cancelled.

However, in an interesting twist, Tribunal rejected assertions that it was Casas Vaque who brought equestrianism into disrepute. Tribunal noted the FEI “stained” itself by running the badly-organised event at Tryon.

A charge that Dr Casas Vaque [“the Respondent”] made “death threats” to ground jury president J-P Allegret was also not upheld. Tribunal also rejected the FEI’s claim Casas Vaque committed the criminal offence under North Carolina law of “inciting riot.” However, Tribunal did rule that he displayed incorrect behaviours “multiple times...”

Read more here:
https://horse-canada.com/horse-news/suspension-endurance-chef-weg-riot/

Radical changes may be needed to protect Endurance horses, committee told

Horsetalk.co.nz - Full Article

February 24, 2019
Horsetalk.co.nz

Radical changes may be needed in some areas of Endurance to ensure the welfare of horses, the head of a major equine charity says.

The comment came from World Horse Welfare chief executive Roly Owers, who this week met with the Endurance Temporary Committee appointed by the FEI to review the discipline in a bid to return the sport to its roots of Endurance riding rather than Endurance racing.

The committee met with a total of 26 stakeholders representing each of the FEI Regional Groups, World Horse Welfare and the Alliance of Endurance Organisers.

The following day, the committee held its third in-person meeting to progress its agenda.

“We are heartened,” Owers told the committee, “that the FEI is taking the strong initiative to ‘take back’, in the FEI president’s words, the sport of endurance, placing far greater emphasis on equine welfare in what has been a rapidly growing, but all too often, controversial discipline...

Read more here:
https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2019/02/24/radical-changes-endurance-committee/