‘Blue tongues’, a dumped former racehorse and other things the equestrian world is talking about
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Welfare concerns
Researchers have raised “considerable welfare concerns” related to double bridles, submitting pictures of top horses at two World Cup events this year. The experts from universities in Australia, New Zealand and Finland, and photographer Crispin Parelius Johannessen, sent the FEI images that appear to show “blue tongues” and open mouths. In a letter, the group added that they are working on a report on welfare in competition horses but “in the interest of transparency and ensuring that evidence of potential horse abuse is provided expeditiously… we have made it available as evidentiary photographs, with metadata to confirm that they are temporally linked and not simply ‘moments in time’.
Homes sought
A thoroughbred who was found emaciated, covered in sores and tied to a fence at Ballinasloe horse fair a few months after he had last raced is doing well. Eight-year-old Dash was taken in by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) after he was found last autumn. He had won over €20,000 in racing and had last been on a course in July.
“Sadly, for Dash, he passed through several hands, and it is believed that he was used for trotting, before being rescued by the ISPCA,” the charity’s head of animal welfare, Denise McCausland, said. Dash has made good progress and will be looking for a new home “in the coming months”.
No Grand Slam
There will be no Grand Slam of Eventing this year, as Rolex has ended its sponsorship. The six-figure sum offered to any rider who won Defender Kentucky, Mars Badminton and Defender Burghley consecutively had been running since 1999, and had only been won by two people; Pippa Funnell in 2003 and Michahel Jung in 2016. H&H reported last year that Rolex would no longer back it, and the organisers of the three events had sought a new title partner. But a statement this week said the series “will not be contested in 2025”.
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