Straight-Up
Hello! Karen Robinson here. You may already be familiar with my writing, either in the pages of Horse Sport magazine or other publications and websites. I am one of those lucky equestrian journalists who gets to cover stuff like the Olympics; while I'm at such exciting events I am exposed to all manner of side stories and controversy, much of which doesn't make it into my articles. The blog that you will read here is the place I can share some of those stories. When I'm not writing articles or this blog, I design freestyles with my company Applause Dressage. I also ride my KWPN gelding Theo in the safe atmosphere of a dressage ring, having long given up the adrenaline of eventing. And when I'm not doing any of those things, I can usually be found traveling somewhere sunny with my husband Jan, and when possible, Dachshund Chorizo.
Posts
subscribe
Don’t love inanimate objects
September 1, 2010 | No CommentsI know I mustn’t but I just can’t help myself. I cherish my VW Westphalia so unreservedly (and with absolutely no common sense) that I am now buying its third engine. As one of my more sympathetic and understanding (read: fellow VW owner) friends says, ‘third time is the charm’. The van is getting an Audi transplant while my bank account prepares for a one Read more »
Breaking News: Anky sues Astrid
August 25, 2010 | 1 CommentI may have to coin a new term for the reason Anky is suing Astrid of Eurodressage: cyber-abuse. Last night Astrid issued a press release to let the world know about the law suit, which has its day in court (perhaps its first of many, perhaps not) on September 8th. The crux of the matter is a photo that Astrid published along with the FEI’s Read more »
Ed goes Viral
August 24, 2010 | 4 CommentsIf you are reading this and you haven’t seen the video of Ed the naughty pony, you are almost certainly in a tiny minority among horse web surfers at this point. The Youtube video called ‘Ed being very naughty’ strings together a year’s worth of clips of Ed the pony doing his best impression of a rotten little MOFO. I actually think the video would Read more »
A Country, Divided
August 18, 2010 | No CommentsIf you are a reader from outside our True North strong and free, you might want to skip today’s rant and instead visit the aptly named newest creation from John of EventingNation, www.hahahorses.com. Or maybe not. Maybe I won’t bore you to tears after all. Politics are politics, and one of the necessary evils of human existence. I have left the FEI alone for a Read more »
Access to Information - No Limits!
August 11, 2010 | No CommentsIn today’s world of blogs, Twitter, Face Book etc, it is almost overwhelming how quickly news circulates. I’ve been meaning to write about this fact for a while, because I think such unprecedented access benefits the less publicly popular sports such as dressage more than it does, say, soccer, which has long enjoyed instant conveyance through television. But there is a double edge to the Read more »
Back on Dry Land
August 6, 2010 | No CommentsI subscribe to the ‘work hard play hard’ life philosophy, and as such have just returned from two blissfully non-horsey weeks aboard our sailboat. And lest you get any thoughts of me being a richy-rich with a John Kerry-esque $7,000,000 yacht hidden in some tax sheltered patch of dock space, here is a picture of our 42 year old 34 feet of pure floating love. For Read more »
Summer News and Musings
July 22, 2010 | 1 CommentThere is quite a lot going on considering it’s the dog days of summer (what does that mean, anyway?). Of course that little horse show in Kentucky this fall jut might have something to do with it, but here are a few things you might not have known or noticed: Shannon Dueck is training with Wolfram Wittig. Yes, the one and only WW, trainer Read more »
Speed Wieners
July 20, 2010 | 2 CommentsIt’s that time of year again when Hastings Park Racetrack in Vancouver invites the city’s Dachshunds and their owners to be the between-race entertainment. We all know the horse racing industry is struggling to compete against other forms of gambling that don’t require a person to get dressed and leave the house, and nowhere is that more keenly felt than in BC. Our misleadingly named Read more »
A Taste of WEG at Aachen
July 15, 2010 | 2 CommentsIt isn’t really the case with show jumping, but the dressage at Aachen is like a preview of what kind of battle field we can expect two months from now in bluegrass country. The team results won’t be final until after the Special, but I did a little math to see what the results would have been if the Grand Prix test decided the team Read more »
Helmet Heads at WEG?
July 8, 2010 | 6 CommentsI was working on an article about Victoria Winter’s impressive WEG-qualifying results at Blainville; since I didn’t make the trek to la belle province this year I went online to watch videos of Victoria and her American rivals who came (finally) across the world’s longest unguarded border in their own hunt for WEG qualifying scores. Both Lauren Sammis and Sue Blinks were wearing helmets in Read more »
I’m so Intrepid
July 4, 2010 | 1 CommentIn addition to being a muckraker, I am also intrepid, according to a slightly less intrepid blogger on The Carrot (only less so because we don’t know who you are, not because you shy away from controversy, oh no!). My Oxford dictionary reveals that intrepid means fearless or very brave. I’ll take it! I believe it’s the second time the Carroteers have called me intrepid, Read more »
What we can learn from FIFA
June 30, 2010 | 2 CommentsYellow cards. I saw a lot of them over the past few days of watching World Cup Soccer (football to any of you out there not from the barbarian lands of NA), and you know what? They looked like they worked pretty well. The odd player kind of shoved his chest at the ref in response, but since the ref can reach into his pocket Read more »
