World Championship Blacksmith Competition/Massachusetts Equine Affaire/Photo by Rhonda Lane
Outside under a big yellow tent at the Massachusetts Equine Affaire trade show was a World Championship Blacksmiths competition.
Farriers from all over the US competed. The rules and whatnot are explained in the video below. Generally, everyone competing has an hour to make a specific kind of horseshoe.
Tags: blacksmith, blacksmith competition, Equine Affaire, farrier, Massachusetts Equine Affaire, World Champion Blacksmith Competition
Affiliate links, etc. ahead, but they’re still safe to click. Full disclaimer below.
Cover photo by Barbara D. Livingston/Photo courtesy Eclipse Press
Barbara D. Livingston’s horse photography inspires many of us horse enthusiasts. Her 2002 book Old Friends is the source for the name of one of my very favorite equine retirement facilities.
So, when Eclipse Press offered me a chance to review her book (more about that later), I was excited and awed. I also wondered if I weren’t too much of a fan-girl to offer a good review.
But I also realized that the book could serve as a good research resource, if not an inspirational tool, for writers.
Tags: "Horses in Living Color", Barbara D. Livingston, book review, coffee table book, equine photography, horse book review, horse photography, horses for writers
I had another post ready to go today. But a story came into my Inbox, and I must speak up.
Mounted police units all over the US tend to be the first cutback in municipal expenses. Boston’s, the nation’s oldest, closed last year. Other smaller cities have dropped their units.
But what has me so riled up about the dispersal of San Diego’s small herd of police horses is that they’ll be sold at auction on a police surplus site.
Think about it. This is not the Keeneland Sale or Fasig-Tipton or Tattersall’s.
But a public auction in a venue usually reserved for confiscated material.
Is this a fitting retirement for officers of the law?
Tags: Alex Brown, Boston mounted police unit, horse auctions, kill buyers, mounted police unit, San Diego mounted police unit
Even if you only follow horse racing for the Triple Crown, you’ll get a laugh from this gag.
Video of Conan O’Brien’s horse skit OR if the TV Network in Question throws a fit and takes it down, you might be able to see it here on the My Seattle Pets blog. And this version posted on a Chicago Sun-Times blog is on the more-approved Hulu.
Tags: Conan O'Brien, Double Eagle Ranch, Mine That Bird, Snuggie
From our seats up above, we watched four rings of action/Photo by Rhonda Lane
Hey – what’s this dog show post doing on our horse blog???
Because people who love horses often love other animals, too? Don’t worry. I won’t interrupt our cherished equi-centric programming for long. Or for very often. 
Anyway, if you’ve watched the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on TV, you’ve probably wondered what attending would be like.
Tags: dog shows, Hotel Pennsylvania, Madison Square Garden, New York, Rescue Ink, Westminster Dog Show
Probably not. And I know I’m not. 
But Tracy Pinson & Skyjacker’s Mountain High, aka Tuff, are. They won the non-pro division of the 2009 World Finals of the Extreme Cowboy Race late last year in Topeka, Kansas.
Video of Tuff and Tracy’s final round (Sorry. I can’t do anything about the graphic in the middle of the screen.)
And I’m not surprised about their big win, although some horse people using Twitter were.
Tags: cowgirl, Extreme Cowboy Race, Tennessee Walking Horse, Tennessee Walking Horse versatility, Tracy Pinson, Tuff & Tracy
Photo by Eric Pouhier/Wikipedia Commons
What could HBO’s series “True Blood” possibly have to do with the Mongolian musician on the right?
Over Christmas week, Rod and I watched HBO’s re-airing of the first season of its wildly popular Southern vampire miniseries “True Blood.”
While we were refreshing our southern accents after living <cough>ty years among the Yankee infidel , we picked up on details one misses during the first season’s first airing.
And, even though this series is about vampires in northern Louisiana, what we saw and heard led us to find something horse-related.
Tags: Charlaine Harris, horse fiddle, morinkhuur, Sookie Stackhouse, True Blood, Tuvan throat singing
If you live in the US. you might be sick of watching the “Happy Pony” commercial by now. Well, hang in there. You can stand to watch it one more time. And then scroll down to read the post. You’ll dig it. Really.
If you can’t watch the embedded video, click on this link for the Happy Pony commercial.
What if Quentin Tarantino had written the “Happy Pony” standoff?
Tags: AT&T, Happy Pony, Happy Pony commercial, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino
I may be running out of ways to re-write this headline. After all, this is really the Twitter Round-Up.
Still, just in case you’ve missed some of the goodies that have popped up on Twitter in the past few weeks, I’ve got your back:
Tags: Ashlee Bond, Darley Stud, Kid Rock, Mister Ed, Serena Williams, Twitter round-up, Zenyatta
Nigel and rider get last-minute touch-ups before their next class/Photo by Rhonda Lane
Some of you know that I like to spend a big chunk of Wednesday afternoons hanging out at The Kids Barn.
Although, apparently, not so much lately, as other responsibilities have gotten in the way. Plus, the program shifts a bit during winter because The Kids Barn doesn’t have an indoor arena on the premises.
Yet, young riders were still getting lessons up through Dec. 12 this year. And those of you with horses know that Things To Do don’t stop just because the ground froze.
But I did manage to make it to a November schooling show on one of those still-warm autumn days. And our two riders showed their ponies well.
Tags: beginner riding lessons, Connecticut family fun, Hayes Equestrian Center, horseback riding, ponies, pre-school pony program, Southington CT, The Kids Barn
