This Week in Horses — February 6, 2015

Happy Friday, everyone! Here’s what’s been happening in the horse world this week.

• Let’s get this awful story out of the way. A horse is dead and a rider injured after a verbal altercation with a driver turned violent during a midnight ride. The driver was eventually caught and arrested.
• In happier news, horses in costume. Why wait until Halloween when your horse has the perfect costume for Super Bowl Sunday? The horse’s name is, of course, Pat.









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• When the National Horse Show was resurrected in 2011, it was called the Alltech National Horse Show. Alltech backed out last year, leaving the event title-sponsorless. For this year, Canadian Pacific Railway has stepped in, so it looks like the NHS-turned-ANHS-turned-NHS will now be the CPNHS. More importantly, it will continue existing for at least another year.
• We’ve been talking about the Budweiser Clydesdales for weeks, but can you take one more story? Anheuser-Busch announced that the latest addition to the Budweiser herd was born on Sunday just before the Super Bowl. They named her after the game’s location, Arizona.
• Picture a sheriff in rural Wyoming. Cowboy boots, hat, maybe a bolo tie, right? Wrong, at least in Sublette County where the new sheriff has required deputies to don the official uniform and banned the popular western accouterments. Actually, he didn’t say anything specific about bolo ties, so maybe those are still OK.
• Buyer beware. A teenager in New Mexico spent two years flipping burgers to save up for a horse of her own. She found her dream horse advertised online and sent the $1,000 payment. See where this is going? There’s no horse. There was never a horse. And now this poor kid is out $1,000. Scams abound in the horse world, unfortunately. Always go see the horse in person before writing a check or get someone you trust to do it on your behalf. An expensive lesson, to be sure.
• Suffolk Downs rises again. We discussed the closure of the Boston Thoroughbred track last year. It seemed like the track was done for good, but now there’s talk of resurrecting it. Personally, I look at the photo in that article and imagine how you could bulldoze most of the existing structures, plant some trees and build some fences and have a really awesome recreational riding facility. Riding and owning horses is a much better way to lose money on them than betting is. C’mon.
• This Week in Horses Getting Stuck in Things: A 25-year-old horse named Old Bitty survived a fall into a cistern. Meanwhile, a horse named Phantom was rescued by firefighters after getting stuck in a bathtub. I assume the tub was being used as a trough, but they never really explain that. Any other guesses?

That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend!

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Leslie Potter is Sr. Associate Web Editor of horseillustrated.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LeslieInLex.