September 18, 2011
With regard to this year’s FEI World Pony Driving Championships, which you may have seen mentioned in yesterday’s post, and which you’ll be hearing a lot about in the coming week …
You’re wondering, aren’t you, just where to find Lipica, Slovenia.
While you may not have heard of Lipica, as such, you’ve heard of the Lipizzaner horses, right? Who hasn’t? Well …
September 17, 2011
from a press release sent by the organizing committee at Lipica:
Seventeen nations will be represented at next weekend’s FEI World Pony Driving Championships in Lipica, Slovenia. In all, seventy-seven drivers will compete in singles, pairs, and four-in-hand divisions: for individual medals in each division and — for those nations with enough drivers to field a full combined team — overall, combined team medals, with each nation using team members’ scores from each division to determine the winners.
In the Single Pony division, the reigning world champion, Melanie Becker (NED) and her 2009 world championship pony, Ostara’s Sandor, will defend their individual gold medal.
The 2009 individual gold medalist in the Pony Pair division, Daniel Schneiders (GER), has successfully moved on to the Pony Four-in-Hand division, in which he will compete in Lipica. One of Schneider’s biggest opponents will be the reigning Pony Four-in-Hand World Champion, Tobias Bücker (GER).
The eldest competitor is sixty-five-year-old Hannu Kalalahti (FIN), who makes his world championship debut at Lipica.
David Palkovics (HUN) is the youngest competitor in Lipica. The thirteen-year-old schoolboy will celebrate his fourteenth birthday on the marathon day of his first world championship!
Six teams, each consisting of at least one, but no more than two drivers per division per nation, will be fighting for the team medals. Title defender Germany and the silver-medal Dutch drivers are considered the favorites for the nations’ competition.
The driven dressage and cones competitions will be held in the main stadium, with the cones course designed by Swiss FEI O-level course designer Christian Iseli. He has also designed eight beautiful marathon obstacles, which are situated close to each other in the fields of the Lipica Stud Farm. For the first time, the marathon will include a cool-down section after the finish to allow the ponies to cool down before the compulsory veterinary inspection.
Stay tuned here and to Hoefnet and to the event website for updates!
September 16, 2011
Given the recent spate of wildfires in Texas and other parts of the country, horse owners would do well to check out these tips for landscaping with fire-resistant plants.
September 15, 2011
It would seem that I’ve run out the “easy” carriage-history-related posts from our recent vacation. Unless you’d like to see some photos from Dinosaur World??
And it’s suddenly 6 p.m., and I’m still working on the October issue of The Carriage Journal (which was, of course, sadly neglected while I was on vacation and is now due to the printer in just a few days … ack!).
So this may be all there is for today, I’m afraid.
September 14, 2011
Continuing with the carriage-history references that A.J. and I kept finding on our recent “local” vacation …
While we were at Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill (a lovely historic site that also offers fabulous hiking opportunities, delicious food, and unique accommodations), we found a Kentucky historic marker in the parking lot that offers the following nuggets:
Completed by 1839, the Lexington – Harrodsburg – Perryville Turnpike (KY68) ran through the center of Pleasant Hill. The road became part of the mail stage route between Zanesville (Ohio) and Florence (Alabama). Stages were discontinued here by 1877. The turnpike brought communication and trade to the reclusive Shakers, as well as both Confederate and Union invaders during the Civil War.
This is a photo (from our vacation) of the same road mentioned on the marker. For a number of years, the “modern,” paved KY68 followed this same route, right through the center of the Shakers’ village, an area long known locally as “Shaker Town.” When the newer KY68 was built nearby and the historic area restored, this original road was, shall we say, un-paved.
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The Slower Road 