The pony Theodore O’Connor has won the US Equestrian Federation Horse of the Year Award for 2007 after a third at the Kentucky three day event and a win at the Pan American Games.

The only other pony I know of to compete so successfully at international level was Stroller in showjumping events in the late 60s. He won at the Olympics and the Hickstead Derby. I will do some research and write a separate post about him soon.

I am a great fan of ponies and would have happily continued to compete ponies as a senior, unfortunately I was quite tall so moved to horses. I believe that the average pony can jump better than the average horse based on my experience. Even my 12.2 pony would regularly jump 4 feet.

I was shocked by the reported cruelty case affecting more than 100 horses and donkeys in Buckinghamshire in the UK. The bodies of 32 horses were found in a field and 3 horses had to be put to sleep because of their poor condition. The remaining 84 animals were moved to a number of animal rescue organisations. Animal rescuers commented that they had rarely seen such advanced cruelty cases and the animals appeared to have been left to die. A 44 year old man has been arrested.

I think there are a number of unusual circumstances about this case. A member of the public reported to the RSPCA seeing a dead horse in the field but I understand that 32 horses were found dead in a field. I had assumed they have been stabled so out of sight of the general public. It usually takes months for horses condition to deteriorate so how did this not get reported sooner? The number of animals involved is also unusual. How did someone have so many animals in their care, only not to take care of them? I’ll be watching the news reports on the case to try to understand how this situation developed to such a large and advanced scale.