Great Britain: ‘We thought he’d live for ever’: heartbreak as 40-year-old champion put down

Horseandhound.co.uk - Full Article

Becky Murray
16 December, 2019 18:07

A 40-year-old “horse in a million” who took four siblings to the top of the sport in endurance and showing has been put down owing to colic.

The Helme family, from Lancaster, Lancashire, paid tribute to 15hh part-bred trotter Bobby, who was put down on 9 December.

Mother Helen said the family fell in love with the gelding immediately despite the fact he was “completely different” to what they had been looking for, when he was bought from a riding school in Durham in 1986 for daughter Becci.

“Becci got into endurance by chance and they were hooked. In 1991 they did their first 100-mile ride at Ludlow. Bobby was very strong, and he would do things like mess about when you took his heart rate but then something clicked,” she said.

“He was passed to my daughter Donna, who was 16, who took him to the World Equestrian Games in The Hague in 1994 where she was the youngest rider to compete – it was amazing. They were 34th and the only Brits to get round along with Gill Smedley...”

Read more here
https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/thought-hed-live-ever-heartbreak-40-year-old-champion-put-703323

Double success for Brit in Andalusian endurance horse riding championship

Surinenglish.com - Full Article

Caroline Grahm and her horse Bambina are regional champions in the 80-kilometre category

13 December 2019

Caroline Grahm and her Anglo-Arabian horse Bambina RC followed up last year's success by becoming double Andalusian endurance riding champions over 80 kilometres.

This came after this weekend's final race of the year in Sanlúcar.

Caroline won best rider and Bambina best horse in their first year competing together at this distance...

Read more here:
http://www.surinenglish.com/sport/201912/13/double-success-brit-regional-20191213095154-v.html

Spain: 66th International Raid of Barcelona – Santa Susana

Endurance-world.com - Full Article

13th December 2019
Race Report made with the assistance of The Organisation of Raid de Barcelona – Santa Susanna

Sant Pol de Mar, Barcelona. Friday 6 and Saturday 7 December 2019. The french rider Camille Garbet won the 66th Raid Internacional de Barcelona – Santa Susana, the oldest equestrian endurance competition in Europe.

Garbet completed the 192km two-stage race on the back of his horse Baltika d’Aurabelle with a time of 11:45 and demonstrated its enormous quality in the great end-of-season party of the European endurance...

Read more here:
https://endurance-world.com/66th-international-raid-of-barcelona-santa-susana/

Ep. 306 Rough Magic Author Lara Prior Palmer On Horse Racing In Mongolia, Writing A Memoir And Being Brave

Gapyearradiopodcast.com - Listen

POSTED ON: DECEMBER 9, 2019 POSTED BY: GAP YEAR RADIO

Today we welcome bestselling author Lara Prior Palmer to talk about the gap year that inspired her book, Rough Magic. At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”―an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty-five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. Lara ultimately became the youngest and first-ever woman to win the race. Margo, Julia and Lara discuss the entirety of Lara’s gap year, what it was like competing as a woman and why she thinks all young people should consider the magical uncertainty of gap time.

Listen:
https://gapyearradiopodcast.com/ep-306-rough-magic-author-lara-prior-palmer/

New Zealand: Kohuratahi rider wins Trans-Tasman endurance ride

NZHerald.co.nz - Full Article

Stratford Press
By: Alyssa Smith
11 December 2019

A Kohuratahi horse rider has shown equestrian skills run through her blood, winning an event in the Endurance Trans-Tasman Competition.

The competition had two distances 120km ride and a 80km ride.

The New Zealand and Australian teams each had four members. One of the team members had to be a junior/ younger rider.

Two members of each team had to compete in either the 80km endurance ride or the 120km ride...

Read more here:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=12291492

FEI decision-making: is one country, one vote sustainable?

Horsesport.com - Full Article

The rights of countries with a minimal international presence to decide upon FEI rules are under the spotlight

By: Cuckson Report // Pippa Cuckson

There was an awkward moment at the FEI’s General Assembly in Moscow last month when the rights of new countries to join were challenged by Norway, a FEI founder member in 1921.

President of the Norwegian federation, Tore Sannum, spoke out as Mongolia, Ivory Coast and the Bahamas were being welcomed to the FEI family. The addition brings FEI membership to 137 national federations (NFs). In future, he asked the FEI to insist upon a minimum level of domestic participation, as other sports governing bodies do; without this, the FEI has “credibility” issues, he warned.

Mr. Sannum’s suggestion that countries should not be allowed to join unless they have riders at world championship level slightly backfired, because world championships cannot be entered UNTIL a country belongs to the FEI. The day’s business moved swiftly on – but nonetheless, Mr. Sannum was articulating what delegates from leading NFs often discuss in the bars and lobbies away from the conference hall.

It has always been one-country, one-vote at the FEI, whether you are as established and well medalled as the US (another FEI founder member), Canada (joined 1950), Germany (1927), Great Britain (1925), or as new as Mongolia, Ivory Coast and the Bahamas. That’s democracy – but is it common sense?...

Read more here:
https://horsesport.com/cuckson-report-1/fei-decision-making-one-country-one-vote-sustainable/

Under starter’s orders for toughest horse race

TeesdaleMercury.co.uk - Full Article

8 December 2019

Only about 40 competitors worldwide are selected to take part in the annual Mongol Derby, which is described as “the world's toughest horse race”. Teesdale’s own Fiona Kearton will be taking part in 2020 and Wendy Short went to meet her on her smallholding near Bowes.

THE Mongol Derby covers 1,000km across the Mongolian Steppes, with riders racing across the gruelling terrain in just ten days. Competitors navigate the route with minimal assistance on the local Mongolian horses, which are switched every 40km and spend each night with the native horse herders.

Fiona Kearton has been involved in endurance riding for several years and first heard about the Mongol Derby in 2014...

Read more here:
https://www.teesdalemercury.co.uk/country-life/under-starters-orders-for-toughest-horse-race