You’ve been asking, so here they are

Thumbelina and Radar, the world’s smallest and tallest horses respectively, together at last. Source

Related posts:

World’s largest horses

World’s smallest horse

Thumbelina on tour UPDATE: more pics!

World’s tallest horse (now on video)

A challenger for the title?

Thumbelina honoured for her charity work

Yoo, hoo, parents…

This might not be the best idea you ever had.

(See also: Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing)

Equine blog roundup

Procession, originally uploaded by MaiKoh.

A quick look at what’s happening in the equine blogosphere:

Kimberly at I Gallop On shares a horsewoman’s secret…

Barn Goddess has some great photos (bonus: palomino!)…

Rising Rainbow at MiKael’s Mania reveals five things we didn’t know about her…

Jerri at Learning Horses offers five reasons to watch someone else ride your horse…

Jane Savoie has twelve things you must know about putting your horse on the bit…

petArtistWithPeaches muses on the joys of peastone gravel…

Deanna at Improving Communication Between Horse and Rider schools us on relative space…

Fran Jurga reports on what (or who) might be behind the latest outbreak of equine influenza in Australia…

Fugly Horse of the Day has some sobering auction results (take the polls while you’re there, too!)…

Two contests at Karen’s EasyCare blog: Name the new EasyCare boot and a video competition…

Transylvanian Horseman has some tips for spotting princesses in your midst…

There are plenty more great blogs in my sidebar; check ’em out! If you’ve got a site you’d like to see on Bridlepath, I’m all ears…

The Morgan Mile

The Girls!, originally uploaded by poe_kayla.

From last year’s press release:

For the second year in a row the Morgan Mile Road Race created history as Morgan Horses were started from “scratch” and raced eighty rods down the same road that Justin Morgan did over two hundred years ago. More than one hundred spectators lined the Morgan Mile in Brookfield, Vermont as twelve Morgan horses raced in an official race sponsored by the Vermont Morgan Horse Association. Modern-day registered Morgans trotted down the historic Morgan Mile Road where the famous Morgan horse named Figure and later called Justin Morgan or the Morgan Horse raced down this old Vermont road. He was raced against two New York running horses in 1796, defeating both easily. That stretch of road is known as the “Morgan Mile” to this day and is located close to the place Justin Morgan is said to have lived.

The next race will be held September 15th on the Morgan Mile Road in Brookfield Vermont. More info: http://www.morganmile.com

Belgium, horses, and shrimp (oh my)

Image source

As dying trades go, Belgium’s horseback shrimp fishery must be among the most arcane and outdated.

Men in bright yellow overalls and sou’-westers ride their plodding workhorses across the sands into the North Sea at low tide to trawl for shrimps in just the way that their forefathers have done for more than 500 years.

There are now fewer than a dozen left of the hundreds who once plied the same trade all around the North Sea — in France, the Netherlands and Britain.

Are your house and barn prepared?

Check out pluralized’s great photostream at Flickr

From Nan at www.equineU.com:

September is National Preparedness Month. EquineU.com is inviting all equestrian related businesses, non-profit groups, bloggers and horse owners to participate in the Raise Awareness for Home and Barn Preparedness campaign.

To help educate horse owners EquineU.com will distribute an online preparedness toolkit for businesses to use to promote horse owner emergency planning. The tool kit includes PDF files that may be downloaded or posted on your website, links to videos, a list of resources and events for the month and more. Preparedness Partners will be featured on the EquineU.com website.

To become a Preparedness Partner, register at equineU.com.

About EquineU.com

EquineU.com is dedicated to helping horse owners be ready in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. Their mission is to bring awareness of safety issues to the equestrian facility by providing quality educational materials through its website and podcasts.

About National Preparedness Month 2007

National Preparedness Month is a nationwide coordinated effort sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security each September to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools. More information is available at www.ready.gov.

This September will be the fourth annual National Preparedness Month. For the first time, the month will focus on different areas of emergency preparedness:

September 1-8; Back-to-School (Ready Kids)
September 9-15; Business preparedness (Ready Business)
September 16-22; Multicultural preparedness (Listo Campaign)
September 23-30; Home and family preparedness, including pets, older Americans and those individuals with disabilities and special needs (Ready America)

Photos available upon request.

Media Contact:
Nan Bowman
805.929.0921
nbowman@actionedu.com
www.equineU.com

Related posts:

Britain establishes protocol to aid horses in emergency situations

And he’s easy to feed, too

Synthetic racetrack surfaces: the pros and cons

After Barbaro’s very public injury, and nineteen equine deaths at Del Mar last year, the California Horse Racing Board mandated that synthetic racing surfaces be installed at all major thoroughbred tracks before the end of this year. So far, the reviews are mixed: the surfaces are springier, drain well, and don’t require watering. On the other hand, race times are slower and some trainers are reporting that their horses are getting sore back muscles from running on the new stuff. More here

Information wants to be free…

Ataturk on horse, this is momument to the Turkish War for Independence, originally uploaded by meiguoren.

Even in Turkey. Especially in Turkey. Digg this (pun intended) by my sister blogger-in-arms Raincoaster: WordPress is blocked by Turkey(s): a blogger’s revenge plan of action.

Brindle filly

I noticed this stripey girl at Heaven Can Wait equine rescue. Not much is known about her except that she’s a Standardbred cross, 1.5 years old and in need of some TLC. (“But Defrost, what’s a brindle horse?”)

Related posts:

New dilution gene found

Recent breakthroughs in colour genetics

Silver dapple update

Dappled things

Brindle horses

What’s dun is dun

Starving horses were part of an unusual breeding program

One for Ripley’s?

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 science of spots

“Name the foal” contest

Playing with the standardbred foals, originally uploaded by The DeBruler Family.

If you’re going to the California State Fair, stop by the Budweiser Grandstand from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (PDT) on race days to admire a Standardbred foal and get a chance to win $15,000.

Fairgoers are invited to meet the baby racer and participate in the naming contest along with “play to win” games and activities about horses and harness racing.

Contest entry forms will be available at the harness racing exhibit and online at www.sacharness.com and www.chhaonline.com. More details

The Palio di Siena

This year’s running of the Palio horse race in Siena, Italy left viewers stirred but not shaken (sorry, I had to) as film crews captured the event for the next Bond movie:

[T]o the relief of the Siena authorities, the huge crowd and – presumably – the film producers, all horses and jockeys survived the dangerous bareback race.

Several jockeys were unseated as horses crashed into the wall at the notoriously tight San Martino bend, falling beneath the pounding hooves of their rivals. Miraculously none was hurt.

Instead, with Daniel Craig watching from a window high above the Campo, the square where the Palio is run on packed sand, Siena put on a classic show of colourful pageantry and excitement to a background of medieval drums and flags. Link

From Wikipedia: “The Palio di Siena (known locally simply as the Palio), the most famous palio in Italy, is a horse race held twice each year on July 2 and August 16 in Siena, in which the horse and rider represent one of the seventeen Contrade, or city wards. A magnificent pageant precedes the race, which attracts visitors and spectators from around the world.” Is this the world’s longest-running horse race?

Asia Secunda Pars Terrae in Forma Pegasir

I found this 16th-century map of Asia reimagined in the shape of Pegasus over at strangemaps, one of the world’s truly fantastic blogs. Click here for the whole story.

Yow.

Note the left boot still caught in the stirrup. Source

Related posts:

Ow.

Yikes.

Speaking of fugly…

Check out this sculpture in Russia. Even more pix

Oh man, I am in LOVE

with Fugly Horse of the Day:

This blog exists to object publicly to the breeding of fugly, often mixed breed horses which tend to have short, miserable lives and wind up in slaughterhouses. If you are not going to breed quality, don’t breed at all. It is not “cute” to have a cowhocked, knock kneed, fugly draft/QH/warmblood cross foal that you don’t do shit with and then dump for $150 at a killer auction as an unhandled two year old that runs people over. I see it ALL the time and I am SICK of it. If you do this, YOU SUCK. And that’s why I’m online bitching about you. Stop breeding the fugly, folks. There is no market for it. And if you don’t know what fugly is, read this blog and learn. My e-mail is resqtb@yahoo.com and I am usually way behind on e-mail, so don’t be offended if you do not get a response right away.

Another advocate of RESPONSIBLE breeding, hooray! Sometimes cruel but always on target. Go bookmark it NOW. (Found via Carinya Park)

Related posts:

Breeding out the usefulness?

Buy one, get one free?!

Breeding back to the future–while you still can

Bridlepath’s Hall of Shame: Gene Parker

Starving horses were part of an unusual breeding program