Yadkin Valley Hounds Blog

NC Horse Council Town Hall Meetings Set

yadkinvalleyhounds — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:10:36 +0000

The North Carolina Horse Industry Total $1.9 Billion!
THE NORTH CAROLINA HORSE COUNCIL CORDIALLY INVITES YOU
To a Town Hall Meeting to hear the Report on the Findings and Recommendations of The Equine Economic Impact Study
Please select the location most convenient for you to attend:
Monday, September 28, 2009, Western North Carolina Agricultural Center, Fletcher NC
Tuesday, September 29, 2009, Rockingham Community College, Reidsville, NC
Wednesday, September 30, 2009, Hunt Horse Complex, Raleigh, NC
Tuesday, October 6, 2009, Southeastern Agricultural Center, Lumberton, NC
Thursday, October 8, 2009, Senator Bob Martin Eastern Agricultural Center, Williamston, NC
All Meetings will begin at 6:30 pm
Light refreshments will be served
Copies of the Report will be available for those who attend
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL
919 854-1990 or 1-800-529-9206

Posted in General Topics

Next Time You Think You’re Getting Old . . .

yadkinvalleyhounds — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:07:11 +0000

. . . consider Lorna Schuster who celebrated her 98th birthday at a meet with the Heythrop Hunt in England. Val Lewis submitted this photo, which appeared in Horse and Hound. Mrs. Schuster has hunted with The Heythrop since the age of 18!

Posted in General Topics

Mecklenburg Hounds Hunter Trials

yadkinvalleyhounds — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:07:31 +0000

Saturday, Sept. 19th, 9 a.m. Honeysuckle Farms, Tom Starnes Road, Waxhaw. Click below for all the details:
MHI Hunter Trials 2009

Posted in General Topics

H.E.R.O. Horse Rescue Group Needs Your Help

yadkinvalleyhounds — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:06:58 +0000

An open letter from our fellow YVH member, Lesley Hunt:
I have worked for several years to help other horse rescue volunteers like me provide equine foster care and adoption homes. Recently I became president of H.E.R.O, Inc., which stands for Horse Education Rescue Organization, a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization. Almost every day I get calls about horses and/or donkeys that need to be rescued. Of course, the members of H.E.R.O. cannot take them all. I am hoping that you might be able to help me in finding foster/adoption homes for the ones we have rehabilitated. Perhaps you, or someone you know, would be interested in fostering an equine. Expenses are tax deductible, to the extent of the law, because we are a 501 (C)(3). Please go to our website, www.heroequinerescue.org and view the available horses. Then call the number on the site or call me at 336-816-1817 so we can pursue the possibilities. Thank you for caring,
Sincerely,
Lesley Hunt

Posted in General Topics

YVH Hunt Button Front-and-Center in MFHA Artwork

yadkinvalleyhounds — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:45:29 +0000

YVH’s button, donated to the MFHA as part of the 2007 Centennial Celebration, enjoys a prominent position in a “Memory Mirror,” created by artist Julie Honsinger.
The piece includes buttons from 155 recognized and registered hunts, which are arranged alphabetically in two rows — the outer perimeter of the piece and the inner perimeter of the mirror itself. Because YVH is the last donor hunt in the alphabet, our button is one position left of center in the inner row, clearly visible in the photo below:
The Memory Mirror is part of the 2007 Art Tour coordinated by the MFHA and Cross Gate Gallery. It measures 24″ X 47″ X 5″ and weighs 45 pounds.
The history of Yadkin Valley Hounds 1975-2007 is included in the Centennial Celebration book published by MFHA and is finally available for purchase next month.
YVH also has one of the best videos included in the companion Centennial DVD. Our video was produced during the 2003-04 hunt season by members Will and Deni McIntyre and edited for submission to MFHA by Evie Good’s son Fletch. The DVD is also available for purchase from MFHA separately or with the book.
For more information on how to order the book and/or DVD, click here.
To read more about the artist and the Memory Mirror, click here.

Posted in General Topics

Pilot Mountain Trails Open Again

yadkinvalleyhounds — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:31:05 +0000

PILOT MOUNTAIN STATE PARK BRIDLE TRAILS RE-OPENED AFTER HEAVY JUNE RAINFALL. For more information call 336-325-2355.

Posted in Interested in Weekend Trail Riding?

Warning: YVH did not send you photos from Tagged

yadkinvalleyhounds — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:35:32 +0000

Yadkinvalleyhounds has gotten on the list of Tagged.com and as a result, you may receive an email that says either “Evie has sent you photos on Tagged” or “________ has sent you photos on Tagged”. This is not true. This is spam from a social network that misleads you into joining a web site that will generate a lot of commercial emails to you.
I recommend you delete this email. Do not click on the YES or NO box, even though it warns that “you must click on one of the boxes.”
To read more about this on snopes.com, go to
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/tagged.asp

Posted in General Topics

Two Fascinating Photos

yadkinvalleyhounds — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:25:20 +0000

Body clipping at its best! Taken at the Equine Affaire in Columbus, Ohio. (submitted by Marcia Maynard)

Are these hounds hunting coyote? (Submitted by Nancy Christie)

Posted in General Topics

A Grande Dame Rescues a Damsel in Distress

yadkinvalleyhounds — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:24:11 +0000

If not for the intervention of Marylou Whitney, Rachel Alexandra’s entry in tomorrow’s Preakness Stakes would have been a study in unsportsmanlike conduct. Instead, it is an illuminating lesson in grace and generosity.
You know Rachel Alexandra — winner of the Kentucky Oaks, trouncing the other fillies with more than a 20-length lead with jockey Calvin Borel aboard.
You know Calvin. He won the Derby the next day on Mine That Bird, at 50-1 odds, stealing the first leg of the Triple Crown out from under all the favorites.
Rachel is so good Borel is willing to pass up a chance at winning the Triple Crown in order to ride her at Pimlico. And he’s the only jockey to leave his Derby-winning horse to ride another in the Preakness.
I hope you know Marylou Whitney by now. She’s the flamboyant 80-something owner of Marylou Whitney Stables, coincidentally the owner and breeder of Mine That Bird’s sire Birdstone. She has a good shot at the Preakness herself with her colt Luv Guv, trained by D. Wayne Lukas.
Don’t mess with Mrs. Whitney. Mark Allen, co-owner of Mine That Bird, learned that lesson when he decided to enter another of his horses in the Preakness in an effort to fill the race with its maximum of 14 entries.
Limited to that number and giving preference to nominated horses, the Preakness was available to the un-nominated Rachel only if her new owner, Stonestreet Stables, paid a $100,000 premium, and one of the other nominees dropped out. Stonestreet’s Jess Jackson, has the money. What he needed was the room for Rachel to be one of the 14.
Allen knew Rachel was a serious threat to Mine That Bird’s chance at the Triple Crown. He’d already lost his jockey to this powerful filly. If he entered his other nominee, Indy Express, maybe he could kill two birds to save his Bird —get rid of Rachel and get his jockey back in the process.
Enter Mrs. Whitney. She must have been disgusted to realize how little regard there was for sportsmanship. She announced that she would withdraw Luv Guv, if necessary, in order to give Rachel Alexandra a place in the Preakness.
Her straightforward declaration immediately castrated Allen’s motivation to enter Indy Express. Mrs. Whitney wanted to ensure a more potent field — one that includes the stellar 3-year-old Rachel Alexandra.
As it turns out, there’s room for Luv Guv too. So Mrs. Whitney will be there tomorrow, undoubtedly hoping the best horse wins.
Here’s to you, Mrs. Whitney. You go, girl.

Posted in General Topics

The greatest horse in the world will get to stretch her legs in the Preakness

yadkinvalleyhounds — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:40:21 +0000

News Source: Rick Reilly/Life of Reilly/sports.espn.go.com/espnmag:
If you love to see a strong female take on the boys, if you think fillies should be given every chance to compete with studs, if you despise sleazy efforts by rich men to keep girls off the field, we have a heroine for you.
Her name is Rachel Alexandra and she’s beautiful, fast and young. Oh, and she’s a racehorse.
In fact, she’s the fastest racehorse in the world. You can see her run in Saturday’s Preakness, but only thanks to a last-second triumph of brains over bullies.
Pull up a chair:
Undefeated in four tries, Rachel Alexandra is ridden by Calvin Borel, who has yet to even ask her to run. “Most of the time, I just end up pettin’ her,” he says. She’s ranked the No. 1 three-year-old by the NTRA, all sexes. She wins most races by the length of a Wal-Mart. “She could be the next Secretariat,” Borel says.
So how come Alexandra the Great didn’t win the Kentucky Derby? Because she wasn’t entered.
Undefeated in four tries, Rachel Alexandra is ridden by Calvin Borel, who has yet to even ask her to run. “She could be the next Secretariat,” Borel says.
Not run Rachel Alexandra? That’d be like leaving your Lamborghini Diablo in the garage! Making Emeril order Domino’s! Sticking Halle Berry in a nunnery!
“Colts should run against colts and fillies should run against fillies,” explained Rachel’s then-owner, Dolphus Morrison, a man whose thinking is so caveman he could star in a Geico ad. He believes the Derby is a “showcase” for future stallions. He means, of course stallion owners, who can show their horse’s speed in the Derby and then get much more in stud fees when they retire them way too early at the end of the season. Money over history, in other words. So the Derby was won by Mine That Bird, a gelding. So how’d that work out for the breeders, Mr. Morrison?
That left Rachel Alexandra to race in the biggest fillies race in America—the Kentucky Oaks—the day before the Derby. She crushed the field by 20 1/4-lengths with Borel in the saddle. Then, the next day, Borel rode Mine That Bird to a 6 3/4-length win in the Derby. I pulled him aside afterward and asked a hypothetical, “Let’s say Rachel could enter the Preakness, which horse would you ride?”
He looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. “Oh,” he said, “I’d ride Rachel, no question. She’s the best horse I ever sat on.” And, remember, this wasn’t an hour after he sat on a Derby winner, and not even two years since he sat on the 2007 Derby winner, Street Sense.
Borel’s choice reminded me of the one made by Hall of Fame jockey Jacinto Vasquez, who rode both the filly Ruffian and the 1975 Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. A match race was set up at Belmont between the two and Vasquez chose Ruffian. After all, she was 10-0. But Ruffian snapped her leg and had to be euthanized.
Maybe Morrison was secretly thinking about Ruffian or maybe Eight Belles, the filly who finished second in the 2008 Derby and then broke both front legs past the finish line and was put down on the spot, the only death in the 135-year history of the race.
Nobody will forget Ruffian and nobody will forget Eight Belles, but life comes with tragedy. Fifteen men have died at Indy and yet drivers still enter it. Many women have died running marathons, but runners keep doing them. Thoroughbreds are born to race.
But pessimism ruled in Pimlico and we were looking at a Masters without Tiger Woods—until last week. That’s when Jess Jackson, owner of Curlin, bought Rachel—a horse trainer Bob Baffert called “the freak of all freaks”—and immediately entered her in the Preakness. It was now the “Freakness.” The buzz was humming. Horseracing had drama again. Life was good.
Until things got ugly, which they usually do in this game. Because Rachel wasn’t originally a Triple Crown nominee, she could only run in the 14-horse Preakness if 13 or fewer nominated horses entered, which looked like it would be the case. But then Mark Allen, the owner of Mine That Bird, announced he was thinking of entering his other horse —Indy Express—just to bump Rachel, thereby getting his star jockey back. (Hey, Mark, I don’t like your chances for Sportsman of the Year.)
It got worse. Adding his name to the list of co-conspirators was Ahmed Zayat, owner of Pioneerof the Nile, who said he’d also like to block Rachel with an extra horse. Sure! If you can’t beat her on the track, beat her in the registering office.
The whole thing made you want to roll around in stable manure just for the comparative cleanliness of it.
In the end, the female was saved by … a female. Marylou Whitney, a great lady of horse racing, said she’d pull Luv Gov in the Preakness if Rachel wasn’t allowed to race. “We think Rachel Alexandra is wonderful,” Whitney’s husband, John Hendrickson, told the New York Times. “It is ladies first for us.”
Imagine that.
That caused the two conniving owners to drop their scheme in shame and give Rachel her spot in Baltimore.
To repeat: In the face of fear and chauvinism and collusion, the very best athlete will get her chance. And isn’t that when sport is at its best?

Posted in General Topics