2012 World Endurance Championship

Saturday August 25 2012

It was epic. Not just the race, but the weather, the horses, seeing dear friends from around the world that I haven't seen for a while.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Before the start: USA's Valerie Kanavy (previous 2-time World Endurance Champion) and Reach for the Gold. They finished 20th.

Watch out for photojournalist extraordinaire, and crazy driver, Brazilian Cidinha.

Spain's Nobby getting doused at one of the vet checks.

Water crossing on trail.

A friend Miguel from Argentina. He rode a beautiful horse! But he didn't finish.

Maria Alvarez dousing Nobby while cantering through a crew point. Riders don't slow down a bit, they grab water bottles from their crews, pour it on their horses and toss the water bottles down, never missing a hoofbeat. Nobby and Maria are the previous double World and European Endurance Champions. No matter what team you supported, you probably also rooted for Maria and Nobby. They finished 4th this ride, but I am quite sure they got the biggest cheers of everybody, all day.

I believe these are Omani riders. Oman got the team bronze medal.

Mine and the Raven's friend, Alexandra Toft. Somewhere I have a picture of the two of them when we had breakfast Friday morning. Alexandra finished 51st - she was caught out in the big storm that stopped the ride.

Another friend Yvonne Ekelund from Sweden. She finished 44th.

Three of the three Portuguese riders finished. This is 14-year-old (yes! 14!!) Joao Maria Moura. He finished 47th. 

I don't know where these 2 gentlemen are from, but they seemed to be having fun every time I saw them during the day!

One of those quick British heavy rain storms that dump for 2 minutes and move on.

Steph's friend, the King of Malaysia. He finished 38th - his first World Endurance Championship completion!

Valerie Kanavy and a Malaysian rider going out on the 5th loop.

This is Japan's Kyoko Fukumori - that's her up top also. This gal had the biggest smile on her face all day! Her horse looked great all day but was pulled at vet gate 4, at the re-check. She STILL had the biggest smile on her face. She was so happy just to be there participating.

USA's John Crandell and Heraldic. It was a big surprise and blow when he was eliminated at the 5th vet gate.

USA's Riverwatch, being trotted out by Heather Reynolds' sister. Heather and Riverwatch finished 36th.

This is the storm that ended the ride about 6 PM. Huge deluge, big wind, and wicked lightning. Riders got whatever placing they were in at the time - those unfortunate enough to be caught out on course had to carefully make their way back; those fortunate enough to be in a vet gate when it hit did not go out again. As long as the horses passed their last vet check, it was a finish for them. Luckily nobody got hurt in the storm! 

Tragic news not regarding the weather: on the first loop, Netherlands' Donna Oudshoorn's Karrihm fell and broke a shoulder and had to be put down. That's Donna and Karrimh on the left before the start. RIP, Karrimh.

Waaaaay many more photos are at
http://www.endurance.net/international/GreatBritain/2012WEC/

There will be more to come, stories and videos! Now we're on our way home!

World Endurance Championship Vet In

Friday August 24 2012

A few photos from vet in day at the World Endurance Championship at Euston Park in Great Britain.

A future Uruguayan endurance rider!

Trotting out for the vets.

A friend Miguel, riding for Argentina

The incomparable Nobby! of Spain. That's Jaume with him, Maria Alvarez' husband. Jaume will be riding also (on another horse). That's Nobby up top, too, trotting out for the Spanish coach and vet.

USA's Heather Reynolds (right) and her sister. Heather will be riding Riverwatch.

Sad news for the US team: early on Friday, it was decided that Becky Hart and No Repeat would not participate, and instead, alternate Meg Sleeper and Syrocco Reveille would in her place. At the afternoon vet in, Nicki Meuten's Not Tonight did not pass the vet check because of lameness. Due to FEI rules, it was too late for Becky and Pete to try and vet in. So the US goes with 5 riders instead of six.

It looks to rain at times tomorrow and rain hard... should make the course tough. Will be an interesting ride, with over 150 horses starting, to say the least!

Lots more pictures, and you can follow the race more or less live by tweets here:

http://www.endurance.net/international/GreatBritain/2012WEC/

Thursday at the WEC

Thursday August 23 2012

We're on the grounds of the World Endurance Championship in England: Euston Park, near Newmarket, homeland of English Thoroughbred racing. The USA Team is staying on the grounds of Shadwell stud owned by Shaikh Hamdan. Spectacular place. The team looks happy and relaxed and the horses look great!

Tonight was the Opening Ceremonies - dancers, fire, fireworks, and dancing horses! The best part about this whole thing is reuniting with friends from around the world that I've gotten to spend time with over the years and whom I love dearly.

Here are a few shots from the day. Vetting in is tomorrow, and the race is Saturday so… more to come!

Up top is USA's Becky Hart and No Repeat.

This is USA's John Crandell's Heraldic.

The horses and riders will pass by this castle/abbey on two of the loops.

The Opening Ceremonies!

Black Caviar Update

Herald Sun Photo

February 24 2012

After Australia's rad racehorse Black Caviar's win last Friday in her 19th consecutive race, which came only one week after her previous win, she was possibly going to run again tomorrow, on only 6 days' rest again, in the $1 million Blue Diamond Stakes.

However, it appears owners and trainer Peter Moody have decided her next major goal will be at Royal Ascot in England in June. She will possibly go for her 20th win in a row in Adelaide or Brisbane before she flies to England. Those of us who know racing (and probably most of us who don't) are probably breathing a wee sigh of relief she is not running her third Group I race in 3 weeks tomorrow, although the trainer was confident she would have won again.

Moody said, "There's nothing wrong with her. To the contrary, she's at the top of her game. But it's all geared around having her at her peak when she flies across to England for the 6-furlong Diamond Jubilee Stakes. That's the Royal Ascot race the owners have had their sights on for some time and everything is being tailored like a Savile Row suit to have her cherry-ripe for that race on June 23."

There in England it is possible that Black Caviar, the world's current number 2 racehorse will meet the world's current number 1 racehorse in Frankel, though Moody's not committing to anything other than the Diamond Jubilee Stakes. (Frankel was 9 for 9 at the end of last year as a 3-year-old; his 6 length win in the 1-mile 2000 Guineas is called 'one of the greatest displays on a British racecourse". He has yet to start this year.)

(All this, and really, I'm not that interested in racing anymore after Zenyatta - really!)

Top photo is by the HeraldSun.com.au

Here's a video from last October comparing the two

**CORRECTION: Black Caviar was to run in the Futurity Stakes at Caulfield racetrack on Saturday. Not the Blue Diamond Stakes.
Thanks to Lorrie for pointing that out!

Seren Arabians: The Girls

Wednesday September 1 2010

Lest you think it's just the boys that rule the roost at Seren Arabians, there are a couple of gals that need mentioning.


Winter Queen, (by Silvern Idyll out of Queen of Diamonds), 21, is over 90% Crabbet, and was bred by the Duchess of Rutland, and bought by Seren Arabians in 2005. She's the dam of Seren Procyon (by Hanson) who, in August of this year, graded with the highest score for a 3 year old in the endurance section of the BEF Futurity performance grading, with a "higher first" premium, just 0.07 points below the score for "elite".


Winter Queen is also the dam of 2-year-old Seren Bellatrix Malika (by Hanson). She's over 90% Crabbet.


Shadowed Gold, 19, (by St John out of Magic Moonshadow), is 100% Crabbet. She came to Seren Arabians with Winter Queen in 2005. Since arriving here she has produced Seren Hanau in 2008 (by Hanson), the colt which the Atkinsons think will be Hanson's successor as primary stallion. She currently has a colt by her side, Seren Winged Shadow, by Winged Saint.


Seren Canopus Hanifa, 14, (by Hanson out of Hamatan), is 100% Crabbet, bred by Seren Arabians. She has been bred to Winged Saint.


Silihah, 18, (by Silver Fahd out of Malihah), is 100% Crabbet. Seren Arabians got bought her in 2005, as part of the big push to get more 100% Crabbet breedings going, when they heard that 53 Crabbet foals had been born in the time it took for 200 Crabbet adults to die. She's the dam of Seren Hanag (resident 2-year-old colt) and Seren Hanos (yearling colt living in Idaho with the Yosts).


Silver Serendipity, 4, (by Winged Saint out of Silver Ingot), is 100% Crabbet. Silver Ingot was treated for colitis for several months - and her gut problem turned out to be Silver Serendipity! (The mare's pregnancy had been mis-diagnosed.) Seren Arabians bought both the mare and foal when Serendipity was two. She's four now, and Silver Ingot is 27. Silver Ingot is a near perfect Crabbet horse, in Jan and Dom's eyes, and they have her down south at a facility where they would love to get an embryo transplant with her...


Seren Capella, 10, (by Hanson out of Seren Sirius Blue Lightning - who's out of the Seren foundation broodmare Blue Bandaila) is a high percent crabbet mare. Jan and Dom bred her, though she is now owned by Rebecca Kinnarney. She won the 2-day Exmoor Experience last year, completely barefoot, and she now has a filly foal by Winged Saint by her side.

The girls are a feast for the eyes, too. Who would you choose, if you could ever convince Dom and Jan to sell you a horse?

Seren Hanita - The Miracle Filly

Tuesday August 31 2010

It was a dark and stormy night...

...Unusually cold, wet, and windy - wretched weather for June on the fells of Cumbria.

A mountain rescue group was camping at High House, and Dom had brought the mares and foals into the barn for the people to see and visit with. He had just turned the horses back out, when from a nearby field, the pregnant mare Dominita came up from across the way to say hi to Dom. He said hi, and as she turned away to walk off, he got a glimpse of her tail, and something else - an amniotic sac.

The mare wasn't due to foal for 3 more weeks.

On shaky legs, Dom followed the mare to the very bottom of the field where he found a ghastly sight - a foal, who had just been born further up-slope, had rolled or fallen down the hill, and landed in the freezing cold water of a marsh in this frigid weather.

In the dark and the storm, Dom managed to drag the foal out of the water, "but the foal was all wrong, dreadful."

He ran back to the house and got Jan, and on the way out grabbed a large empty gunny sack (that large loads of gravel are delivered in), halter and lead rope, and they grabbed the mountain rescue leader and another woman, "We have an emergency - we need you now!"

The four ran back outside and down the hill to the mare and foal, where the men scooped up the foal and shoved it in the big sack and carried it up the hill, while Jan caught the mare and led her up to the barn and Laura opened the gates on the way.

They didn't have any stalls ready for foaling since none was expected yet, so they put the foal on bare rubber mats and rushed to scatter straw around it. They looked at the foal, and "It was a nightmare," said Dom and Jan. "She was convulsing from no oxygen, she had no hair, couldn't blink, had no reflexes, couldn't suck, could barely coordinate any movements, and she was freezing cold."

As an understatement, Dom says, "She just wasn't all that good!" They dried the foal off and covered it in straw and immediately called their veterinarian Jane, who promptly came out in the storm.

Jane gave the foal steroids to get its lungs working right, while Jan milked the mare Dominita. That in itself was a miracle because for one thing, Dominita had been a somewhat unbroke and difficult mare to deal with when she arrived a few months earlier, and Jan says, "I had never milked anything before!"

"But the mare was good as gold, totally calm and trusting," and Jan got enough milk from her for Jane to tube it into the foal.

From then on, the fight for the filly's life took on epic commitment. As former mountain search and rescuers themselves, Jan and Dom were used to dealing with emergencies and first aid, but all this was far beyond what they'd ever seen or done. They took hourly shifts for 2 days to attend to the foal. "It was a hellish experience."

The worst part was the convulsions, and trying to keep the foal from hurting herself. "I had bruises on my face and arms," Jan recalls, "from laying on her and trying to keep her head still." The convulsing lasted hours - a day - it's hard to recall how long it went on.

They dressed the foal in dog clothes - from the Atkinsons' dog search days - and hourly took her temperature, then either took clothes off or added more. The foal couldn't stand up to nurse - her skeleton was soft and bending so she couldn't support herself, so she was always laying down. Dom and Jan had to continue milking the mare, then squirt milk down the foal's throat while she laid in the straw.

After a few days, the foal got to where she could stand up if someone lifted her up, so Dom or Jan had to lift her up every hour or so to nurse. After a few nights, Jan found her up on her feet on her own nursing, and that night at 2 AM, the filly wouldn't let Dom take her temperature. "That was great! I knew she'd get better from there."

By the end of the week, the filly was looking pretty good - standing and nursing on her own, and getting stronger every day.

One might wonder why they took a chance on putting so much effort into saving a foal that had been absolutely on the limit of any chance of survival, but the reasons were obvious. "Where there's life, there's hope," says Dom, "and she wasn't suffering. As long as we could stop her from injuring herself, she had a chance."


"And mum was being so good," Jan added, always staying calm, and letting herself be milked by humans, letting her baby be handled.

Hanita's a big strong 2-year-old now, not showing any signs of her traumatic entry into the world. "She's very sensible and isn't defective at all."

She is, in short, a miracle filly.

Seren Hanita, 100% Crabbet filly by Hanson out of Dominita

Cumbria Challenge

Monday August 30 2010

There just happened to be a local endurance ride this weekend near Seren Arabians - the Cumbria Challenge, and it just happened to be one of the most gorgeous locales one could imagine. Dom and Jan Atkinson took me on Sunday to the ride venue in a large green field overlooking a wide valley, and some terrically scenic points out on the trail.

The ride was held over Saturday and Sunday, combining an 80 km Cumbria Challenge Endurance Ride, a 100 km Cumbria Cup Endurance Ride, various distances of Competitive Rides, and pleasure rides.

Novice Competitive Rides run from 32 - 48 km (20 - 30 miles) to be completed between 8 - 12 km/h (5 - 7.5 mph). Penalties are given depending on the horse's final heart rate, and riding faster than 12 km/h means elimination at the Novice level. The speeds and distances increase until at Advanced Level you can compete in the Endurance rides, 80 - 160 km.

Around 50 riders showed up on Sunday for all the distances and categories, and the last of the rain showers blew through right around start time, 8 AM, for the 80 and 100 km rides. It was mighty windy and chilly the rest of the day - and always with that gorgeous light that falls on the fells and valleys, the heather and green grass of Cumbria in northwest England.


The trails followed mostly Bridle Paths or Bridleways - the old pack trails between villages, now legal rights of way and recreation trails for hikers, riders, and bikers. Many of these trails are bordered by drystone walls - some 70,000 miles of them are used as boundary fences, the use of which dates as far back as the Iron Age (1200 BC to 400 AD), and the earliest remains of which may date back to the Medieval period (5th to the 15th centuries).

On horseback in Cumbria you've also got a good chance of riding by monoliths and ancient stone circles (which could possibly date back to 3700 BC) , old Roman roads, old rock cairns.

Hadrian's Wall runs across Cumbria, and don't forget that King Arthur's Round Table, a Neolithic Stone Age earthwork (that actually predates King Arthur by 2500 years - but it brings in the tourists) can be seen in nearby Penrith. So if you squint your eyes and the light is just right... you never know what you might see riding along the next ridge...

And you'll see a great variety of horses besides Arabians in the Cumbria rides. In the various sampling of riders I asked, I saw combinations of the Cob, appaloosa, pinto, clydesdale, shire, hanoverian, connemara pony, thoroughbred, and standardbred.


(Many more photos can be seen at www.endurance.net/international/GreatBritain/2010CumbriaChallenge/ )

Seren Arabians: The Boys

Sunday August 29 2010

I mentioned in my first article on Seren Arabians, somewhat in jest, that the Atkinsons have horses for sale... but they may not sell you a horse. They joked one evening about changing one of their ads from saying "Young stock to view" to "Young stock to view... but not for sale." They do want to make sure their horses go to good homes, but, well... they just have some good ones that they can't - quite - make themselves put on the sales list...

***


Winged Saint, a 100% Crabbet stallion, is currently the primary stud standing at Seren Arabians. His purchase in January 2009 was somewhat serendipitous because of the sudden death of Hanson - Seren's foundation stud - in July of 2009.

The 20-year-old stallion was bred by the Moulton Stud in 1990. By El Santo (a British National Champion) out of Silver Blue Wings (a successful show horse and sister to a dam of champions), he was inaccessible to breeders most of his life, never having been stood at stud by a stud farm. Nevertheless, among the few foals he did produce, he still managed to sire a British National Champion.

The moment he went up for sale in 2009, Jan and Dom Atkinson drove down to have a look at him. They knew right away they wanted him. "We didn't study him too closely to know he fit our criteria," says Dom. "He had an excellent temperament, conformation, movement, and he was 100% Crabbet and was a proven sire: he hadn't sired much, but he had sired (i.e. he wasn't sterile), and he had sired recently - including a National Champion, and a proven endurance daughter."

Now that he is officially standing at stud, he'll have a chance to prove what many people have though him capable of - being a successful sire and carrying on the Crabbet lines.

***



Three young colts have a paddock-with-a-view to themselves.



2-year-old Seren Hanag, 100% Crabbet, is by Hanson out of Silihah. He's a full brother to Hanos, the young stud colt that the Yosts bought last year and shipped home to Idaho.

***


The yearling Binley Winged Spirit, by Winged Saint out of Binley Silvern Grace was bought at 6 months of age by the Atkinsons. He's 100% Crabbet. Being very keen on his sire Winged Saint, they think 'Spirit' the younger will fit right in with their breeding program. When Spirit arrived at Seren Arabians earlier this year, he slotted right into the barn with Hanos and Perdu, and Hanos' dam Silihah.

***



The yearling Seren Perdaius (Perdu) is the last foal from Hanson and Blue Bandaila. He's 87.5% Crabbet, 12.5% Polish.

Perdu was 6 weeks old when his dam suddenly started losing weight. Within a week she had gone from being okay to desperate. She was diagnosed with lymphoma - a hopeless and very short prognosis. The Atkinsons set about to make the upcoming forced separation as least distressing as possible. They immediately set to weaning him off of his dam onto mare's milk replacer; and they separated Cally and Perdu and another mare Silihah and her foal Hanos, into their own small herd.

Perdu was 10 weeks old when Cally was put down. He spent one last time curled up with his mother, and then he went off with Silihah and Hanos, and never looked back. The Atkinsons successfully kept him a horse and not a pet foal, feeding by hand but keeping him in a herd situation.

Perdu - French for "lost" - got his name because he would wander off from the herd then start crying for his dam. He'd go up and check out all the chestnut mares and be chased away, and Silihah would come running up, bulling her way through the herd, and rescue him and take him away with her.

He's grown into a handsome yearling, one who hangs with his herd, but is not uncomfortable when he finds himself alone.

He's a full brother to the two geldings, Seren Vega and Seren Rigel, who last month took first and second in the Wessex Group C show.

***



In his own paddock, with a 'schoolmistress broodmare' is 2-year-old Seren Hanau, by Hanson out of Shadowed Gold. He's 100% Crabbet. He's a natural successor to Hansen because of his temperament - he's tremendously good-natured - and his size - the Atkinsons think he will reach at least 15.3 hands at maturity.

Jan and Dom laugh recalling his birth: "He was big when born, very mature. Within 15 minutes of birth he was cantering around his mother - he didn't go through that lying down phase at all, he was just phenomenal!"

***



Waiting in the wings, so to speak, is the foal Seren Winged Shadow, by Winged Saint out of Shadowed Gold. "He's a very nice boy, big, quite advanced for his age in physical and social attributes. He's got a lovely inquisitive, confident character."

Dom says, "I've got a horrible feeling he might be staying..."