Mikala Munter Gundersen and Festivo Win Equilite Sponsored Class International dressage trainer and competitor Mikala Munter Gundersen was in the ribbons at the Wellington Classic Holiday Challenge, winning the USEF Third Level Test 3 with Christine DeHerrera’s Westphalian gelding Festivo. The class was sponsored by Equilite, makers of Sore No More, Herbal Blends and Botanical Animal Flower Essences, and Gundersen took home a giant tote filled with Equilite products. “Christine, who owns...

August, September, and October have been very busy months for the Oldenburg Horse Breeders' Society, a division of the Verband der Züchter des Oldenburger Pferdes. After having a successful Elite Foal Auction at the end of August, everyone headed to see many Oldenburg Horses and Weser-Ems Ponies crowned champions at the German Bundeschampionate. Oldenburgs such as the stallion Con Air, who won the six-year-old jumper division, and ponies such as the Weser-Ems stallion, Cyrill WE, who...

Saturday: Australia wins with American close on their heels -- Sunny skies led way to speedy hazards on a very successful Saturday. The out of time favorite, Boyd Exell won the marathon by 0.8 points in front of Chester Weber who is still leading going into cones. In the team competition, three teams were eliminated and one team elected to retire due to disobediant horses. The single horse division also had two competitors which had to retire after severe problems in the hazards. However, no...

Lexington, KY – There were a handful of changes on the leaderboards today as the marathon proved a fair but demanding challenge at the 2009 USEF National Driving Championships at the Kentucky Cup and Lexington Driving Classic which is also serving as a test event for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. The USEF National Four-in-Hand Championship remains in Chester Weber’s grasp, after a second place marathon performance – less than a point behind Australia’s Boyd Excell – was good...

Two Champions "Three-Peat" as Breed Show Wraps Up When individual breed classes took center stage on day three of Dressage at Devon 2009, two horses who had dominated the news in the prestigious show's first two days continued to grab headlines. Perfect Qredit, a yearling colt by Quaterback, added an 83.80% win in the Oldenburg (GOV) division to his Grand Championship, Young Horse Championship, Colt Championship, and Yearling Colts and Geldings title for owner Michelle Coursin, an air-traffic...

Authentic (Shannon Brinkman) Hong Kong, China – Under the unsettled skies of the impending typhoon the individual medals were decided by not one but two jump-offs. America’s Beezie Madden and Authentic out ran six other combinations to be the fastest of the four faulters to win her first Indivdual medal. “In the Olympics there is usually a jump off for medals,” said Madden. “So we expected it. When it ended up being seven to jump off for the bronze it made for a...

Famed publisher William Randolph Hearst, who also established an important horse breeding operation, is credited with having first coined the name “Morab” for the distinct breed of horses that are Arabian and Morgan crosses. He bred his Arabian stallions to Morgan mares to produce horses which were sure-footed, fast and versatile. Consequently, they were well suited to the rough and varied terrain of his San Simeon ranch near the Pacific Coast of California. More than six generations later, the...

Linda Wachtmeister’s and Plain Dealing Farm’s Winsome Adante has taken the lead on the U.S. Eventing Association’s (USEA) All-time High-Point Leaderboard with a record career score of 1,184 points. Giltedge (1,114 points), who represented the U.S. on five international teams with David O’Connor, and who is owned by Mrs. Jacqueline Mars, has headed the all-time high-point leaderboard since his win at the Kentucky CCI**** in 2003 and is now in second place. Hannigan, owned by Bruce Duchossois has...

It was hot in St. Louis on August 2-5 for the American Shetland Pony Club (ASPC) National Shetland Pony Congress, but the ponies who came to compete were even hotter. Some 480 ponies trekked to the new show site, the National Equestrian Center in Lake St. Louis. After almost a decade of hosting the show in Rantoul, IL, show officials were very pleased with the number of entries the new show location attracted. “With a new location, soaring gasoline prices and record temperatures, we were...

For the second day in a row, it was American Chris Kappler who stood in the winner's circle at the CSI-W Blainville Jumping International on Thursday, July 6. The international show jumping competition took place from July 5-9 at the Blainville Equestrian Park in Blainville, Quebec, Canada. Having claimed the win on Wednesday, June 5, riding VDL Maseratie, Kappler brought VDL Oranta out of the barn for the July 6 victory in the Open Jumper-Power and Speed. Only two riders managed to go clear...