Horse Illustrated Magazine

Happy Friday, everyone! Here’s what’s been happening in the horse world.

• The Devon Horse Show begins today. It’s still on my bucket list and unfortunately, this won’t be the year I cross it off. But if you’re in reasonable driving distance of Eastern Pennsylvania, please go and let me know if it was as magical as I envision (in spite of all the recent melodrama within the show’s leadership.)
• Perhaps you’ve seen the viral video of a 4-year-old rider learning to canter on her tiny pony. Here’s more on the young Swedish equestrian, who is also learning how to jump and is making me wish even more that I had had a pony when I was little.
• First graders learn to love reading by reading to horses at Michigan State University, and that’s pretty great. Do they have a companion program where students do math with horses? I feel like I would have been more motivated in that subject as a kid if it had meant hanging out at the barn.
• In this age of so-called unwanted horses, you never really hear people say that too few horses are being bred. But that seems to be the gist of the explanation behind why the Canadian Horse has been classified as “critical” by the Livestock Conservancy.
• Check out this challenging rescue of a horse who fell into a creek bed in Oregon last week. The horse, a 10-year-old named Major, earned appreciation from his rescuers for being exceptionally calm and quiet during the whole operation. Watch below.
• And another daring rescue as a team of cowboys helped remove a herd of horses from their flooded pasture in Texas.
• One time I bailed on a wedding to go to a horse show (and I have no regrets.) Who hasn’t ditched an event to spend more time with horses? Last week, the king of Bahrain allegedly snubbed President Obama to go hobnob at a show in England. At least that’s how Politico is framing it.
• Best wishes to Dakota, a Tennessee Walking Horse who has served with the St. Louis Police Department’s Mounted Patrol Division for an astounding 20 years. Dakota was recognized by the department for his long service as he commenced his well-deserved retirement this month.
• And finally, a British equestrian believes that her horse detected her breast cancer before she even knew about it. There’s no way to know if that’s true, but one thing’s for sure: Having Myrtle the horse in her life helped Helen Mason get through her cancer treatment with a positive outlook. Good job, Myrtle!

That’s it for this week. Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

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Leslie Potter is Sr. Associate Web Editor of horseillustrated.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LeslieInLex.