When the racing is over
June 9th, 2008 by adminEastover Faith was a champion on the Maryland circuit, winning nine races, until an arthritic hock ended his career.
Infinite Crescendo once soared through New Jersey’s claiming ranks, earning more than $350,000 until he fractured an ankle.
Now, they spend their days grazing and lolling about on a pasture at Lumberjack Farm. They are the lucky ones: Former pro athletes enjoying their retirements.
But that is not always the case. Some race horse owners view their winning colts as nothing more than commodities that lose all value when they’re no longer winners. Many owners have no interest in feeding a 1,200-pound pet for 20 years or more after their competitive careers are over.
“I don’t think people — when they think about the glory of owning a race horse — they don’t realize that the horse lives long after the career is over in racing,” said Laurie Lane, the New Jersey chapter president of ReRun, a Lexington, Ky.-based organization that pays farms to rehabilitate race horses.
Source: AbcNews
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Horses bring joy to disabled
June 9th, 2008 by admin
Fenton resident Arlene Hovey loves to see her son enjoying life — just like the other kids his age.
“It’s nice seeing him feeling independent,” she said.
Her son, Joshua Hovey, 17, is one of more than a dozen youths ages 5 to 18 who take part in the therapeutic riding program run by the Livingston County Therapeutic Riding Committee. Volunteers walk on either side of the horses while physically or mentally disabled riders enjoy trail rides, mounted games and other horse-based activities, such as obstacle courses.
“It’s fun,” Joshua said.
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Shetland Ambassadors in Hong Kong
June 4th, 2008 by admin
In a gesture of goodwill, the American Shetland Pony Club is sending a gift of two American Shetland Ponies to the Hong Kong Equestrian Federation to salute their efforts in hosting the 2008 Equestrian Olympics. The two Shetland riding ponies are currently in quarantine in Lexington, Kentucky awaiting their flight to Hong Kong scheduled for June 6th. The two show ponies will fly from Chicago to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Equestrian Federation (HKEF) will host a special presentation ceremony on July 10th in Hong Kong to receive the ponies.
Established in 1888, the American Shetland Pony Club (ASPC) is one of the oldest breed registries in the United States. When ASPC Marketing Director, Johnny Robb, read about the efforts that the Hong Kong Equestrian Federation and the Hong Kong Jockey Club put forth to host the 2008 Olympics, she was moved. In these unsettled times, it was exciting to see one country put forth such energy and resources for an effort that will unite equestrians worldwide, said Robb, It is an example of the true spirit of the Olympic games.
Photo Credit: Washburn
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The Mustang is in Danger
June 2nd, 2008 by admin
It’s not news that America is a cowboy nation, but it may surprise many that we are destroying the horse we rode in on.
Since the early 1970s, mustangs — wild horses — have been protected under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act, spearheaded by Velma Johnston, a.k.a. Wild Horse Annie. In 1950, she saw blood spilling out of a truck on a Nevada highway, followed it, and then witnessed injured and dying mustangs being offloaded at a slaughterhouse. She led a battle to stop the cruel roundups, resulting in the passage of federal protection signed into law by President Nixon in 1971.
Under that law, horses are to be “considered in areas where presently found as an integral part of the system of public lands.” Their management falls to agencies inside the Department of the Interior, primarily the Bureau of Land Management, which culls the herds based on the land’s grazing capacity and what’s required to sustain the wild horse population. But the government also balances the needs of horses against other uses of the range — and that means corporate cattle ranching. Today, instead of being protected, mustangs are in danger of being “managed” out of existence.
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Homes needed
May 30th, 2008 by admin
Many wild horses struggle to survive the harsh conditions of the desert, and over-breeding puts too much stress on the resources.
That’s why the bureau of land management wants to find folks to adopt some wild horses that they gathered up recently.
The yearling mustang shown in the picture isn’t used to people, but, without people, this colt might not make it past it’s first few years.
“We could possibly lose horses from starvation or drought,” says Gus Warr, the head of the Utah division of Wild Horse and Burro Adoption, which is a program run under the Bureau of Land Management.
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120 abused horses seized
May 30th, 2008 by admin
Marion County officials Thursday said they seized as many as 120 abused and malnourished horses, miniature ponies and donkeys from a Marion County woman.
Marion County Animal Services investigators learned of four unconnected properties stretching from Summerfield to the Fort McCoy area, where “emaciated, blind and crippled animals (were) suffering needlessly due to lack of sufficient food, nutrition and farrier care,” said county spokesman Judge Cochran.
Cochran said the county filed the necessary paperwork Thursday in the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court in Marion County and issued the owner of the animals, Francine Derby, a petition for protection and custody to take them.
Cochran said late Thursday the county had not yet removed the animals from the properties, but the documents gave the county possession of the horses, ponies and donkeys.
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4 horses killed by lions
May 27th, 2008 by adminNyanga National Park has lost four horses in the past month to lions, which mauled to death three in the first instance before killing one more.
Sources from the park said the attacks by lions had taken a worrisome consistency. “The horses were not being kept in their respective stables but were being kept huddled up in a pen without protection and this made it easy for lions to attack them.
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New homes for the Kaimanawa horses
May 22nd, 2008 by admin
A recent appeal for people to re-home Kaimanawa horses from the annual muster has left many potential owners having to wait patiently until next year. While not all horses mustered are suitable for re-homing due to their age or condition, for the second year running, all that were suitable found a good home. Thus the muster had positive results for both horse lovers and environmentalists as not only is the habitat protected and a healthy Kaimanawa horse population maintained but also the population of well cared for Kaimanawa horses in private ownership continues to grow..
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The McCurdy Plantation Horse
May 16th, 2008 by admin 
The McCurdy Plantation Horse Breed was developed by the McCurdy family of Lowndesboro, Lowndes County, Alabama, in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. The McCurdy family were plantation owners, and needed well-gaited, durable horses to oversee and work the land. When the Tennessee Walking Horse Registry was established in the early 1930’s, the McCurdy family registered their own horses as Tennessee Walking Horses (indeed, several McCurdy-bred horses are in the original Foundation registry of the Tennessee Walking Horse). Over time, as their reputation and prominence grew, others began breeding their stock to McCurdy family horses. Thus developed in Lowndes County and throughout Central Alabama, a breed known simply as the McCurdys, or McCurdy Walkers.
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Horses being abandoned
May 15th, 2008 by admin 
In the classic Hollywood western, a cowboy portrayed by John Wayne gallops across the sagebrush steppe and rocky ridges of the American West with only his horse for a companion.
What the films don’t show is the cowboy buying and hauling hay for his horse, or what happens to the horse when it is too aged, infirm or irascible to ride.
Those more mundane details are at the heart of a debate about growing cases of mistreatment of horses in the United States, at a time when hay and grain prices are skyrocketing and when options for disposing of unwanted horses are dwindling.
Just a year ago, the sale of an average horse suitable for recreation - one with neither prized bloodlines nor a performance record to heighten its status - would have fetched several thousand dollars.
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