This Week in Horses – July 25, 2014

Happy Friday, readers! I hope you had a productive week and have plenty of barn time planned for this weekend.

• This news roundup tends to be on the lighter side, but there are a couple of disturbing stories this week that have stuck with me, so I apologize in advance for bringing everyone down. In one incident, a horse in West Virginia named Catnip was strangled by two teenage boys (who have not been identified or caught yet.) She survived the initial incident, but died a few days later. In the other, less tragic but still disturbing incident, Dusty, a horse in upstate New York had his mane and tail cut off and was spray painted with a lazy R type symbol. Fortunately, other than lacking his natural flyswatter, he is unharmed, but it’s still an unsettling crime. Spread the word if you know people in either of these regions. Maybe we can help root out some info about the perpetrators. As they always say, someone knows something.
  
  
• If these stories have you a bit on-edge, Debi Metcalfe of Stolen Horse International offered some advice for keeping your horses safe and your barn secure. It stinks that we have to think about this stuff, but it’s better to spend some time on preventing crime rather than trying to put the pieces back together after a crime has occurred.
• Okay, so let’s move on to something upbeat. Here’s the story of a surprise baby who grew up to fail at racing but win at showing, for those of you who love the Cinderella stories.
• Here’s another one. Raayna the Arabian was found last winter abandoned and starving in Northern Minnesota. Now with her foster human, 17-year-old Maddie Kanda, a rehabbed Raayna will be competing in the Trainer’s Challenge event at the University of Minnesota, after which she will be adopted into a new forever home.
• The Queen is in trouble. Well, sort of. One of Her Majesty’s racehorses, a mare named Estimate, tested positive for morphine last month and might have her second-place win at the Gold Cup at Ascot disqualified. Estimate was one of five horses to test positive for banned substances. This article suggests a poppy field next to the feed milling plant could be to blame. I wouldn’t want to be the person responsible for that screw-up.
  
  
  Estimate wins at the 2012 Royal Ascot
• In Great Britain, you can buy breeches at the supermarket, evidently. Now discount chain Aldi is even selling its own line of budget riding apparel. We have Aldis here in the U.S., but I sort of doubt we’ll see the equestrian department on this side of the pond.
• Show jumper Beezie Madden broke her collarbone a few months ago, as we reported here, but she’s back and getting ready for the World Equestrian Games. Madden and her horses are competing in Europe, hoping to make the U.S. team. She spoke with a news anchor from her home region in Central New York:

That’s it for this week. Until next time…

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