Postcard: Cavalry Training, originally uploaded by leucanthemum b.
Sulz at Bloggerdygook has a nice idea:
I hope to make someone’s day by sending a postcard. All you need to do is give your name & address via the contact form below, or e-mail me directly if you prefer to do so; the address is at the end of this post.
Read the rest @ Bloggerdygook.
Joe Dunphy’s therapy horse Romeo was stolen from an Uxbridge, Ontario-area pasture sometime Friday. Although he hasn’t called the police yet (eh?!), he’s “hoping his pleas and a little goodwill will lead to his friend’s safe return, and he’s offering a reward as a little incentive.” Link (with video)
From the Uxbridge Horsemen’s Association website:
Lost or stolen horse, Romeo, is still missing from his Owen Rd pasture in Uxbridge, contrary to a recent report. A 19 yr old, Belgian/Tennessee Walker chestnut gelding, one white sock on left hind with a star and snip above his nostrils. Contact Bob Harrison at 905 852 5877 or the UHA website if you wish to remain anonymous.
Related posts:
Appylacians, originally uploaded by MaiKoh.
From thehorse.com:
The Appaloosa Project is a research initiative being conducted by a team of researchers from Canada and the United States. It is a long-term effort designed to identify and isolate the main genes responsible for Appaloosa patterning, and to investigate key physical traits associated with these genes.
The Appaloosa Project’s new Web site, www.appaloosaproject.info is designed for breeders and enthusiasts of Appaloosas and all other spotted breeds. The site presents the most current scientific research into Appaloosa coat patterning in layman’s terms.
Appaloosaproject.info comprises three parts: a general access area open to all visitors, an educational resource area, and an electronic classroom. Subscribers to the resource area have access to articles and in-depth answers to many commonly asked questions on Appaloosa genetics. On the site’s interactive forum, the researchers will answer members’ questions relating to their own breeding programs, and members can learn how to apply new knowledge about Appaloosa genetics in order to increase the odds of consistently breeding well-marked foals.
“Not only can Appaloosa breeders from all over the world access the most recent, researched information directly from the source, they can ask the researchers for assistance,” said Appaloosa Project Coordinator Sheila Archer.
Formerly a free Yahoo-based group with more than 1,000 members, The Appaloosa Project will now require a subscription for full access.
“We are at a critical point in our research, and need to find new ways to raise funds,” Archer said. “It is our hope that by moving to a subscription-based service, we can achieve our research goals faster, offering our educational services as a means of fundraising for research initiatives.”
The Appaloosa Project has a number of studies underway that will impact [sic] breeders of spotted horses.
Some of the most eagerly awaited research is the completion of the search for the ‘Lp’ gene, the key gene responsible for causing a horse to have Appaloosa color characteristics. Members of the Appaloosa Project discovered the location of LP on equine chromosome 1 (Terry, Archer, Brooks, Bernoco and Bailey, 2004), but the ongoing process of identifying the gene and the causative mutation is a painstaking, lengthy, and expensive. This research will ultimately result in the development of a DNA test.
Related posts:
Recent breakthroughs in colour genetics
Starving horses were part of an unusual breeding program
Horse colour demystified: the basics
Horse colour demystified: the cream gene
Quiz: what colour horse would you be?
Horse colour demystified: the dun gene
The folks at Soup Or Nuts have a little’un, and the mare is not allowing it to nurse. Like Scarlett O’Hara’s maid, I don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ no babies, so if you have any good advice for them, please share it! (Not here. There.)
From Deliciously Clean Reads:
GUESS WHAT? I have a copy of this book in my hands! And it’s for YOU! This is how you can become the owner of this new copy of HORSE PASSAGES by Jennifer Macaire…Simply leave a comment on any Deliciously Clean Reads post between now and Monday, April 30th. Comments can be about anything, but I would appreciate if they were relevant to the book reviewed or your feelings about Clean Reads in general. Your comment must include your name (of course, it can be just a first name, or if you’re really shy, just an online alias). Names of commenters will be tossed into a hat, and I’ll announce a winner one week from today on Tuesday, May 1st.
Sorry, time’s a bit tight, but you can still make it! You can also win a saddle through one of the latest Blog Carnival entries.
Related posts:
Freebies!
Are you a Barn Babe?
Win a horse
A few more freebies (plus contests)
Win Flicka on DVD
Call for submissions: A Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers
Riders on their horses are silhouetted during the horse show “Hommage Apassionata” in Malaga, southern Spain, April 28, 2007. Link
Related posts:
Apassionata with Andalusian stallion
Grulla mustang stallion. Image source
The dun gene is easily the most misunderstood of all the colour genes. Let’s get this out of the way first: buckskin and dun are not the same thing. A buckskin with a dorsal stripe does not automatically become a dun; they are two separate genes (though a horse can have both; more on that in a moment) and horses without the dun gene can be linebacked. Like cream, dun is dominant: a horse must have a dun parent in order to be dun itself. It’s not thought to manifest differently in its homozygous and heterozygous forms; research is still being done on that. Like champagne, it shows on both red-based and black-based horses. As yet there is no genetic test for dun but you can participate in a current study which is working towards that goal.
Oh yes, you know what I’m talkin’ about! Here are some ladies you should meet.
1. Ruffian
Foaled in 1972, this niece of Secretariat is considered by many to be the greatest racing filly of the modern era, if not all time. She won all ten starts against fillies, but in a televised match race with Foolish Pleasure on July 6, 1975, both sesamoid bones in her right foreleg snapped. Her jockey, Jacinto Vasquez, tried to pull her up, but she ran on for another 50 yards, unwilling to give up the race. Attempts were made to save her but after waking from anesthesia Ruffian fractured the new cast causing greater damage and she was euthanized. Ruffian is buried near the finish line in the infield at Belmont Park. It has been said of her “The only race she ever lost was the race to save her life.” Read more | The Ruffian Breyer
…so let’s just get to the facts: a donkey named Jenny fell into a septic tank near San Antonio, and it took firefighters a couple of hours to get her out. She was unharmed but very, very dirty. More at Raincoaster’s blog.
Related posts:
Dutch rescuers try to save trapped horses
Firefighters rescue horse from icy pond
Hat tip to the muppetastic Raincoaster.
Archaeologists work at a 4,000-year-old Thracian chariot found south of the town of Nova Zagora, some 220 km (137 miles) east of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, Monday, April 23, 2007. The chariot has two wheels with its roof made of heavy bronze in the form of eagle heads, with a folding iron chair, and contains three horse skeletons among its treasure hoard. Link
Related posts:
Young boy finds prehistoric horse bones
Horse teeth and climate change
8000-year old horse figures found in Anatolia
The Round-Up Association (Pendleton, Oregon) is hoping to let its bucking horse kick on letters across the nation.
On April 16, the association applied to the U.S. Postal Service’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee to put the Round-Up logo on a stamp for the 2010 Centennial Rodeo. Read more
Barbaro would have turned four this Sunday (April 29), and his fan Sharon Crumb has organized a celebration of his life at Delaware Park, site of the colt’s maiden win in October 2005. I think that’s a nice idea, and she’ll have plenty of company; apparently over 500 FOBs (Friends of Barbaro) have committed to showing up. Some things do give me pause though:
“I can’t let Barbaro go,” a choked-up Crumb said. “I won’t let Barbaro go.”
I don’t doubt for a moment that Ms. Crumb’s distress is very real, and that the death of an animal she may never have seen in person has hit her hard. I do have to ask why, however. We all grieved when his valiant fight was for naught, taking comfort in the fact that his medical saga will benefit future injured horses. Refusing to “let him go” smacks of deeper problems, or at the very least a good ol’ fashioned dramabomb. On Sunday, NBC will be airing a one-hour documentary called Barbaro: America’s Horse (not to be confused with the HBO documentary in the works). The compulsion to mark anniversaries this way is a perfect expression of what Pat Forde refers to as “drama-addicted America”.
Five months ago I wrote:
If you are still moved by Barbaro, if you really love horses, don’t send him a card. Don’t make another video pastiche for YouTube. Do something for all the other horses who don’t have the world on their side…If you really love horses, and not just because it’s cool to be sentimental over Barbaro, do something meaningful for all the horses who serve us, and suffer in silence, yet still trust humans to do the right thing. They deserve it just as much as any Kentucky Derby winner.
I still stand by what I said. If you were and are genuinely moved by Barbaro, and love horses, then for God’s sake dry your eyes, pick up a shovel, grab your wallet and get moving. He’s dead and we can do no more for him. We can remember him, yes, but if he is to live up to his fans’ claims of greatness then those fans should be working on leaving him a more tangible legacy than a heap of tear-stained tissues on the grounds of Delaware Park.
Update: Oh, all right. Here’s a slightly more sympathetic take from ESPN, The Church of Barbaro.
Wild Burros of the Owens Valley, originally uploaded by Snap Man.
The House voted Thursday to prevent the government from selling off for slaughter any wild horses and burros that roam public lands in the West.
The 277-137 vote would restore a 1971 law preventing the Bureau of Land Management from selling the animals for commercial processing.
The protection was removed in 2004 when former Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., inserted a measure in a spending bill allowing their sale. Read more
I hope they’ll be looking into alternative ways of keeping the populations down, such as making it easier to adopt these critters, immunocontraception, etc. About a quarter of the mustangs and burros rounded up never find homes…
Bridlepath
Bridlepath 