Dr. Cesar Parra wowed the crowd (and tossed his top hat to ‘em) when he and Furst Fabio boogied to the win at the Gold Coast Opener

Photo by Susan Stickle

Wedding Bells: In January, British eventer Danny Warrington married his beautiful bride Keli in the Turks and Caicos Islands, surrounded by friends and family.

Catching up: Our own dear Eurospy has had what is proving to be a series of unfortunate events, indeed.  After slipping off the road in a snowstorm, she had to be cut out of her totalled car.  Then, when the Dachshund Daisy escaped chasing a cat and got trapped between two metal shipping containers in a builder’s yard, the Fire Brigade had to be called to rescue her using Airbags normally used in pileups, to move the containers three inches for her to squeeze out.  One 4” tall dog, four burly (and HANDSOME) firemen, one engine and quite a few spectators later, Daisy is freed.  The humiliation never ceases.

Lee Pearson and Mark have had their £33.8m (it went up!) bid has been accepted on the Victorian gothic manor with 127 acres.  Madonna isn’t the only one in the real estate market!

Going for gold – and then some!  Oliver Townend of Great Britain has his heart set on becoming only the second rider in history to win the $350,000 Rolex Grand Slam of Eventing, awarded to any rider who wins the Rolex Kentucky, Mitsubishi Motors Badminton and Land Rover Burghley Four Star Events in succession.  Oliver has won the first two legs, and at Rolex Kentucky next April, he will seek to join Pippa Funnell also of Great Britain, who did it in 2003, as the only riders to win the Rolex Grand Slam of Eventing.

Allie Lawaetz says that her event horse that she sold to Mexico won his first event under the Mexican flag.

She and Kevin are building a farm in Palm Beach Point where Lauren Hough will base.  Allie also did a bit of shopping at the PSI auction.  She bought Cessana for Lauren to ride along with her 9 year old, Skywalker.

February’s cover guy, Cesar Parra, and his Rheinlander gelding Furst Fabio proved that disco isn’t dead when they danced their way to the win in the FEI Intermediaire I Freestyle at the Gold Coast Dressage Opener.  Rocking away to “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind & Fire, they not only secured the win but had the audience dancing along to the beat.

The USEF is back in Aiken for the fourth time for 2010 Eventing High Performance Training Sessions scheduled between February 7 and March 17.  A fairly stellar group will be in town, headed by Chef and TA Captain Mark Phillips, Oded Shimoni and Katie Prudent. The sessions will be for A & B listed riders.  A full list of participating riders is available at www.usef.org.

Steffen Peters on Ravel, Isabell Werth on Satchmo and Anky van Grunsven on Salinero headed up an all-star cast at the Exquis World Dressage Masters in Palm Beach in February, kicking off a second year of the globe’s richest lineup of dressage events.  The CDI5* event Feb. 4-6 was the first meeting of the three top combinations since the German and Dutch women—now both mothers—were runners-up to Steffen and Ravel at the World Cup in Las Vegas last April.

A blast from the past:  Kenn Acebal is now living outside Atlanta, GA and has developed another top mare.  As you may remember, Kenn was the original rider and trainer of Peron, Michelle Gibson’s Olympic Team bronze medal mount.  Kenn also loaned his horse, Lenox (aka ‘The Ox’) to Robert Dover to finish sixth in the World Equestrian Games some years back.  We look forward to seeing Kenn during the 2010 season!

Congratulations Andrea Michna on her new Grand Prix horse “L’Aviateur.”  All eyes will be awaiting your debut in the ring.

Eagle-eyed Beth Collier was on hand to track the trends.  What’s hot?  From the Gold Coast Opener CDI Show: white show gloves with BLING—a row of crystals; show boots with a line of crystals near the top.  Looks like the DQs are no longer opting for just a pair of diamond earrings!

And from the NowI’veSeenItAll Category:

Composite Stirrups www.ontyte.com/products.html

Description:  OnTyte Magnetic Stirrups are plastic polymer stirrups that are twice the strength of other plastic stirrups, while still maintaining the look, feel and functionality of a standard stirrup.  $220.  OnTyte’s Magnetic Stirrup System contains a magnet and your boots contain metal plates that attract the OnTyte stirrup to your boots. If you already have boots, send them to OnTyte for resoling.  That’s one way to keep from losing your irons!  (Beth says that we really need a Technical Delegate to comment on this product for dressage shows!)

Ruth Hogan-Poulson has issued a new set of riders’ CDs to help equestrians pick up the beat.  Each CD includes a voice-over from Ruth along with different styles of music with a range of tempos.  There is no need to put off learning how to ride a Kur now!  The carefully chosen music and Ruth’s calming voice make it easy for everyone to get into the swing of things.

Horses: Blue Hors Matine was euthanized after breaking her leg while in turnout in her field.  The retired mare earned a worldwide following after her amazing Grand Prix Freestyle at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany.  Shown by Danish rider Andreas Helgstrand, the YouTube video of the freestyle was viewed over 10 million times.  To make the sad news even more tragic, the 13 year old mare was in foal at the time of her death.

Congratulations to Steffen Peters who was honored with the USEF’s Equestrian of the Year Award for his uncanny sportsmanship and achievements throughout 2008.  In 2010, at the USEF Pegasus Awards dinner he was bestowed the title again – this time for simply blowing the doors off the dressage world in 2009.  It was really a twofer, when Ravel picked up the top honors the night before at the 2009 Farnam®/Platform™ Horse of the Year Awards dinner.  2009 definitely belonged to Steffen and Ravel.

Eventing News: A new worldwide Eventing Risk Management Policy and Action Plan aimed at reducing cross-country horse falls was launched at the third annual FEI Safety meeting in MalmF6, Sweden.  Based on a six-year statistical study of the sport, the Action Plan will be a functional and reliable system that will be used to monitor risk factors in Eventing, and to streamline international data and ideas to further understand the root causes of falls.

The FEI Eventing Committee has set the target to reduce horse falls by 10% (and by 20% at 4-star level) over the next three years. Already, data for the period from 2004-2009 shows that, despite a significant increase in the popularity of the sport – a 35% increase in the number of competitions and a 22.5% increase in the total number of starters – the percentage of horse falls has decreased from 2.02% to 1.73%.  This is the first time that a statistical database has monitored the sport on a global basis.

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