Argentina: Successful second edition of the Bragado Endurance Festival

Endurance-world.com - Full Article

13 May 2019
Race report made with the assistance of Cecilia Hynes

Bragado Endurance Festival, Bragado Endurance Club, Bragado, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Friday 3 and Saturday 4 May 2019. Organised for the second consecutive year, Chacras del Bragado received more than 150 entries in its BEF (Bragado Endurance Festival), with M7 Stables Sponsorship.

After last year’s magnificent organisation, many riders and spectators joined the event. There were Uruguayan, Chilean, American, Chinese and local riders.
This time, the heart rate monitor system for the horses was “Kronos”, and same as last year Yamamah APP showed the live results.
On Thursday, after the horse admission, a horse auction was held, to partially subsidise the expenses of the Argentinean team who will compete in the Pan American Championship in Llay Llay (Chile) in October. These horses were donated by Argentinean breeders to promote the sport and help the Argentinean riders. The auction was a success and all horses were sold...

Read more here:
http://endurance-world.com/successful-second-edition-of-the-bragado-endurance-festival/

Endurance GB responds to FEI Royal Windsor Endurance Ride result

EnduranceGB.co.uk

Commenting on the FEI Endurance 80km CEI-1* and 120km CEI-2* at Royal Windsor, Endurance GB Chair Rebecca Kinnarney said: “The opportunity to compete at a major FEI ride here at Windsor gives British riders a wonderful experience at a showcase venue and we were delighted that 14 of our riders completed the CEI-1* class successfully.

“The work of the veterinary commission was exemplary throughout the course of this ride and the Technical Delegate and organising team adapted to difficult conditions at the start in the mist to ensure safety.”

Commenting on the disqualification of the first rider to cross the line in the 120km CEI-2* for breach of a sport rule in respect of use of the reins as a whip, she added: “Endurance GB welcomes the application of the rules by the Ground Jury at Royal Windsor Endurance in respect of this rider. While most other equestrian disciplines allow whips and their rules accordingly pertain to excessive use, FEI Endurance rules simply don’t allow whips to be used. Something being used as one was witnessed by the Ground Jury in this case, and so the rider was subject to a strict liability test.

“In the light of the current FEI investigation into the ‘reshaping’ of endurance, the outcome of the Ground Jury’s deliberations at Windsor sends a clear signal to all those involved in the sport as riders, trainers and crews as well as those watching the sport closely from the side lines that the welfare of the horse is paramount.

“Endurance GB are grateful to the Ride Organisers, HPower, and to the Crown Estate for enabling this event to go ahead.”

The top six British riders to complete the FEI CEI 1* were; 8th, Lauren Mills (HS Jamal), 19.272km/hr; 10th, Anna Bridges (Crystal Wissam), 19.254 km/hr; 11th, Louise Rich (Oakleazefarm Czamak) 19.106km/hr; 12th, Georgina Vaughan (Polaris) 16.661km/hr; 13th, Nicola Chappell (Viniculture) 16.615km/hr; 14th, Sarah Ainsworth (LB Armanii) 16.614km/hr.

How a teen became the first woman to win the grueling Mongol Derby

NYPost.com - Full Article

By Hailey Eber May 11, 2019

She was less than a day into a 10-day, 1,000-kilometer horse race, but Lara Prior-Palmer was already in trouble.

She’d been in high spirits when she set off from the start line with her 29 fellow competitors that morning, but now the 19-year-old British teen was all alone in the middle of the Mongolian steppe, the landscape stretching out before her. Her fellow riders had all left her in the dust, and she couldn’t figure out how to work her GPS. The small gray horse she’d been given to ride was lame, so she’d gotten off him and been walking alongside him for hours in the heat and humidity, both of them thirsty for water they didn’t have...

Read more here:
https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/how-a-teen-became-the-first-woman-to-win-the-grueling-mongol-derby/

VA Tech Senior Races Horses Across Three Continents

TheRoanokeStar.com - Full Article

– Amy Painter
May 8 2019

Hanna Bartnick contended with sharks, bears, and sandstorms during her capstone project and transcontinental odyssey.

As 23-year-old Bartnick raced her Boerperd gelding along South Africa’s aptly named Wild Coast, the duo negotiated jagged boulders, water crossings, vertical climbs, and narrow trails crowned with thorns.

It wasn’t until horse and rider arrived at the sandy shores of the Umzimvubu River on day two of the grueling Race the Wild Coast competition that the student paused to consider her most dangerous threat – sharks.

Located in the Eastern Cape province just south of Port St. Johns, the river, which feeds into the Indian Ocean, is a well-known breeding ground for bull sharks, making its waters some of the most perilous in the world. While swims were a daily part of the race, Bartnick and her competitors were warned to avoid this particular waterway...

Read more here:
http://theroanokestar.com/2019/05/08/va-tech-senior-races-horses-across-three-continents/

Australia: 2019 Tom Quilty Nominations Now Live

TomQuilty2019.com.au

Nominations for Tom Quilty Gold Cup 2019 have opened

May 8 2019

The Stirling’s Crossing Endurance Club – located in the picturesque Mary Valley on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – will play host to Australia’s most prestigious endurance horse riding event, the Tom Quilty Gold Cup, in July 2019.
The annual Australian Endurance Riders Association (AERA) event is one of the biggest national championship endurance rides in the southern hemisphere, spanning 160 kilometres and attracting over 400 endurance riders from across Australia and beyond.

The club is delighted to host the Tom Quilty Gold Cup in Imbil for the first time and looks forward to welcoming thousands of people travelling from all corners of the land to participate ― whether as a rider or a support crew.

The event will be held at the club’s home base, the Stirling’s Crossing Equestrian Complex which is Australia’s first purpose-built endurance facility. The complex combines state-of-the-art facilities with beautiful, diverse topography and an impressive range of tracks through the neighbouring Imbil State Forest.

Nominate now at:
https://www.tomquilty2019.com.au/

Will the World Equestrian Games Return After All?

Horse-canada.com - Full Article

Due South | April 30, 2019

As the problem-plagued 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) wrapped up in Tryon, N.C., one thing seemed clear – there would not be another WEG, at least next time around in 2022. But hold on a minute before you write WEG’s obituary.

Surprise! There already is one entity coming forward and revealing its interest in bringing WEG back for 2022.

First, though, a bit of history before the big reveal. You must understand that the difficulties involved in staging the WEG as a compilation of eight world championships are legion. (The FEI is now saying there are seven disciplines because it is including para-dressage with able-bodied dressage as one, but they ain’t the same.)

The feeling in many quarters after the Tryon experience was that WEG had just become too big and way too expensive. When the WEG began as a one-off in 1990, it included only six disciplines. Reining and para-dressage were not in the picture.

The success of that event in Stockholm led to a decision that there should be another WEG in 1994, though perhaps the FEI should have quit while it was ahead. Paris, the original host, cancelled, and the Dutch stepped in at short notice. Unfortunately, the 1994 WEG in the Hague was a financial disaster...

Read more here:
https://horse-canada.com/due-south/will-world-equestrian-games-return/?utm_source=Enews+May+6%2C+2019&utm_campaign=EnewsMay62019&utm_medium=email

Take it from the youngest winner of the toughest horse race: "We all have a bold mode"

Salon.com - Full Article

Salon talks to Lara Prior-Palmer about "Rough Magic" and her historic 2013 win of the grueling Mongol Derby

ERIN KEANE
MAY 6, 2019 8:59PM (UTC)

In 2013, Lara Prior-Palmer became the youngest rider and the first woman to win the Mongol Derby, a grueling endurance race across 1,000 kilometers of the Mongolia Steppe. The 10-day cross-country race retrace's Genghis Khan's horse messenger system route from the 13th century. Londoner Prior-Palmer, 19 at the time and a year out of high school with "dead end jobs" and equestrian competitions occupying her time as she waited to hear about applications to work in an orphanage in Ethiopia or an organic farm in Wales, embarked on this adventure not after training for years with dedication and purpose but after coming across the race's website — entry deadline already blown, the fee more than she could afford — and entering, by her own admission, on a whim.

It was going to be either too much, as Prior-Palmer puts it, or nothing at all. Her aunt, the World Champion equestrian Lucinda Greene, tells her matter-of-factly, "I suspect you won't make it past day three, but don't be disappointed..."

Read more here:
https://www.salon.com/2019/05/06/take-it-from-the-youngest-winner-of-the-toughest-horse-race-we-all-have-a-bold-mode/