The horse story which stood out for me this week was the discovery by equine researchers in Canada of a rare family of intersex horses, where horses are genetically male but appear to be female. This is due to a rare genetic abnormality called pseudo-hermaphroditism.

The mare Koko had started to show some aggressive behaviour which was thought to be due to high testoterone levels resulting from an ovarian tumour. However tests showed the horse had internal testes and was genetically male (XY). Further tests showed the same condition in the mare’s sister and cousin.

It is currently unclear whether an intersex racehorse would run against fillies or colts. I expect that such a decision will be required at some point in the future and I think it should be based on the genetic sex of the horse.

A superfoal is due to born in early 2011 as it has been reported that the mare Zarkava is in foal to Sea the Stars. Zarkava has recently given birth to her first foal following an unbeaten career including the 2008 Arc. Sea the Stars was a record-breaking colt winning both the Derby and the Arc in 2009. It is his first season at stud with a stud fee of approx 70K GBP.

It will be interesting to see if this offspring can live up to their fantastic pedigree in 2014.

Unfortunately I missed this year’s TV coverage and it looks like I missed out on seeing some racing history. Zenyatta was the first filly to win the Breeders Cup Classic race and this was her 14th win from 14 starts - another record - and is now expected to retire.

It looks like there was a possibility of her racing the the other superstar filly Rachel Alexander during the year but I guess we’ll never know who was the better of the two. Not that I think it matters. It’s just great for racing and the horse world in general when there are such superstars to watch.

One of my horses used to shake his head very badly in the summer months. He used to snap his head upwards and often strike towards his nose with his front leg. Fortunately this was greatly reduced by fitting a nosenet to the bridle and riding mainly in the early morning during the summer when there were few flies to bother him.

I saw a recent internet article describing surgery that had been performed on horses which had not responded to other treatment. This problem is thought to be due to pain in the sensory nerves in the face.  Surgery was carried out to insert small coils alongside the nerve. There was an 84% success rate in the 24 horses treated. Some of the horses required multiple surgeries and there was a side-effect of nose-rubbing in nearly 50% of the cases.

There has been a lot of media coverage in recent weeks covering the sad news of the deaths of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Billy Mays, so you may have missed the sad news from the equestrian world of the deaths of Vincent O’Brien and Douglas Bunn during June. Both were very important figures in horse racing and showjumping respectively and were household names when I was growing up.

Vincent O’Brien was an Irish racehorse trainer whose career spanned 50 years and was voted both the greatest Flat trainer and greatest National Hunt trainer of the last century. He trained some great racehorses including Sir Ivor, Nijinsky and Sadlers Wells.

Douglas Bunn created the showjunping phenomenon of Hickstead in the south of England which opened in 1960. It continued a unique mix of natural and showjunping fences in the main arena and the Hickstead Derby remains one of the top showjumping events of the calendar. The 50th anniversary of the event will be next year.