The Near Side: This Week in Horses — June 12, 2015

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

• Perhaps you’ve heard: American Pharoah won the Triple Crown last weekend. There are a million articles with a million angles out there about the horse, the people around him, what this means for racing, etc. It’s overwhelming. So just read this TIME interview with trainer Bob Baffert, in which he talks about The Pharoah, his own shockingly white hair, and the Burger King king.
• And how awesome is jockey Victor Espinoza? He’s donating 100% of his Belmont winnings to his favorite cancer charity.
• Yo, American Pharoah. I’m really happy for you. I’mma let you finish, but Secretariat was the best racehorse of all time.
• Moving on, the full skeleton of a horse believed to be part of the colonial Spanish Cavalry in the late 1700s was unearthed in Florida this week.
• Check out this story about Brandy, a carriage horse who helped transport supplies in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• It’s good when people stand up for abused and neglected animals. However, it’s important to make sure you know what you’re reporting before you do it. A concerned neighbor learned this lesson after calling the Scottish SPCA about a neglected donkey. A donkey made out of fiberglass.
• Here’s your inspiring equestrian story of the week. A 62-year-old woman who was paralyzed in a car accident at age 30 is back in the saddle again. She’s currently preparing to show her horse, Razz, in an upcoming gaited horse show (not a horse race, as the headline implies.)
• It’s great to see horses-helping-people-helping-horses, as is the case with this program that pairs up off-track Thoroughbreds with inmates.
• A survey of British motorists showed overwhelming support for the idea of making horse riders pass a test before they can ride on the roads. Fine, but stories like this one out of Massachusetts, in which a man was arrested for harassing riders on the road while behind the wheel of his pickup, makes me think that some drivers should be required to take anger management classes in order to renew their license.
• And finally, here’s what happens when a horse goes to scratch an itch just as the photographer is pressing the shutter button. Headless horse!

Bad timing, or really great timing? Photographer captures “headless” horse: https://t.co/qzDVSyLMjh pic.twitter.com/zwxQjZIRkf







— Horse Illustrated (@HI_mag) June 9, 2015

That’s it for this week. Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

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