The Ponyhof

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Rollkur and the blue tongue

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I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou...
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Michael Morpurgo: War Horse

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It's been a shamefully long time since I did a review. My fellow reviewer will not be contributing to this. I made the fatal mistake of buying her the first two Georgia Nicholson books, and so all hope was lost as far as horsey book reviewing went. Added to that, she is now off in Germany on her school trip, wildly excited as this is the first time she has been Abroad. She was so full of whoomph she managed to get up effortlessly at 3.00 am on Wednesday so we could get to Kettering in time for the 4.15 am start. Although I am definitely a lark, and usually wake at 5.00 am at this time of year, 3.00 am was pushing it a little, particularly as I didn't sleep well, being too petrified of oversleeping and missing the off..... despite having own mobile, son's and husband's all set for a 3.00 am alarm call. When son did this trip (though it was France in his case) one of his friends did miss the coach, and so his mother chased it down the M1 before finally catching up at...
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Review: Susan Richards - Chosen by a Horse

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Susan Richards - Chosen by a Horse Constable: £7.99 This is yet another book that's been in the review pile for months: so long, in fact, I can't remember when I got it. It's about a rescue horse: a Standardbred mare called Lay Me Down, and the woman who rescued her, Susan Richards. Lay Me Down was rescued when she and her companions were seized by their owner, who had neglected them so badly they were nearly at the point of starvation. At first, it wasn't even clear if Lay Me Down would survive, but she and her foal both did. The foal was reclaimed by the abusive owner, who had to sign all the foals over to his vet in lieu of fees, but Lay Me Down stayed. She really was a quite exceptional mare, and Susan Richards shows you just what a complete sweetie this horse was. Despite the horrors she had known, she bore no one any malice, and was always accepting and kind: no mareish nasties at all, unlike one of Susan Richard's other horses, the Morgan Georgi...
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