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Thursday, 11 March 2010
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Last issue was brilliant! So much to savour.
"I thoroughly enjoy reading your magazine"
I don't know if I can do this... Here I sit tears streaming down my face, wiping
with both hands the tears from the face. My heart screaming NO I can't do this
one more time. I am editing photographs, trying to bring the truth in the
pretty pictures of shiny glossy coats, braided manes, polished boots, and focus
all of our eyes on of the nastiness, the craziness, the true ugliness of what is
going on. I hope against hope that I can finish this. But I honestly don't know
if I can. I have a week to finish. And I can't stop crying. You would think I
would be inured by now, and in some ways I am. I have seen so many pictures,
have edited so many articles on how destructive overbending and rollkur are to
the horse that my heart no longer automatically reacts with horror as it did 4
years ago. At the same time I am worried too many, may
like me, want to run away at what they see - hit exit, close, never to look
again, not to read the words of truly incredible horsemen on this subject. But
you know not to look, not to gaze into the faces of these horses is to protect
yourself, it does not protect them. If you honour these horses, it is your duty
to look, to be shocked, to get angry, to cry, and then do something with that
anger, with that rage. You WILL do more if you look. It will be harder for you,
but it is only fair to the horses to at least look and let them know that
whether in sympathy or concern we will not ever look away. I wrote the words above weeks ago. In the meantime we have asked
and have continued to received an outpouring of defining, in-depth and heart
rending material to share with you this month. The "blue tongue" video has galvanized equestrians all over the
world all standing up and saying "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!". Side by side in the pages of the magazine, I wonder if you will be
struck by the dichotomy of these pages as I was. Side by side, the horror of
rollkur on one side and the joy of learning and discovering more about ourselves
and our horses. You will weep as Riding with Torchlight reminds us of the craziness
of this all, but at the same time you will be inspired and challenged with our
incredible contributors. - Hempfling brings us insight into the riders of rollkur and why this
continues onward, - another shares how "Ernst Bachinger, Head of the Spanish Riding
School, gave me the one piece of advice that changed my riding more than anybody
else", - find out the research that shows us that Hyperflexion is an outrage
of Olympic proportions -while another contributor shares how "Nuno said to
me "stand still. What did you take your reins for? Don't take the reins. Don't
let the horse move forward. Don't take the reins." And I looked at him and
though, we're onto something here. - we are thrilled to share an excerpt with the
ever controversial Jean Claude Racinet from his newest book Falling For
Fallacies, - we hope you find it empowering as you read the
article on Gustav Steinbrecht and the open seat where you can find answers to a
number of defining questions from: Why is it that I can't get my leg around my
horse? When is it that my lower leg will easily find
placement on the horse? Why is it that one time I sit on my horse I have
a chair seat and the next I have the perfect rider's position, what
changed? From Gustav Steinbrecht on the incomparable open seat, to the dragon`s breath, my emotions have been all over the place.
Thrilled with an incrediblè supportive equestrian community and despair that
rollkur is stronger than ever. We also wanted to bring together in one place a
list of many of the articles that we have done on the subject of rollkur. Hoping
that bringing them all together, they can be more powerful as a resource to help
halt this disgrace to the horse. We were surprised to find out that we ended up
with over 50 links to 50 different articles on rollkur, many of them free to
read to our registered members starting in 2005. Articles that I had forgotten
about, I didn`t even remember that we had written an article on blue tongues in
January of 2008. This isn`t new. It has been going on for years. They have
always known and haven`t done anything. Looking at this body of work, we don`t
feel pride, we feel despair. How many times, how many articles, how many voices
- is it going to take to say ``Enough is Enough! We found ourselves hampered this month. There
was an astounding amount of information flowing back and forth, first the link
to the blue tongue video, then the petition, the new facebook set up by Heather
Moffett, the new site Dressage Disgrace and we realized we had no way to let you
know and share what was going on, as we only use our email mailing list to
announce the latest edition of Horses For LIFE. We also wanted to provide a place for our
current contributors to share information with our readers that we often get
asked about such as their clinic schedules. Not sure if this was the right path to take and
we are still trying to figure out how this works, so please be patient with us,
or tell us how to do it! - but we have opened up a facebook page where we can
apprise you of announcements between our monthly announcement of the latest
issue of Horses For LIFE. We hope this will be a place where we can post news,
information , updates between our announcements of the latest issue. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Horses-For-LIFE-Publications/51217564556 We invite you to post your pictures good and
bad, your video and we are temporarily allowing the discussion board to
function. The discussion board is for you. We simply do not have the time to
monitor nor participate in any discussions no matter how wonderful it would be
to talk to all of you. But we would never get the next issue of Horses For LIFE
out! If everyone is polite we will keep it open. If you need to contact us re
business, please use normal channels and email us directly. Remember we
probably won`t see your comments on facebook. This is for you. Did you know that when we send out our
announcement, that within hours, minutes our site's traffic goes through the
roof? There are literally thousands, tens of thousands trying to access our site
simultaneously. Unfortunately causing problems for our hosting companies and
servers. Sometimes this causes problems and can crash the site. We ask for your
patience, just wait ten minutes and try again, often this is the easiest
solution. But we are aware of the problem. We have a year long project in place
to move, improve and update both the hardware and software on the site. We
apologize for any inconvenience in the meanwhile. Many of you have written letting us know how much more you are enjoying our latest flip version making our magazine so much more clear and more beautiful than before. We have had a few reports, of a few people having some problems with printing. We are seeing what we can do about that problem, in the meanwhile we would like to remind everyone about HP's free program that you can print anything off of any website. You pick and choose what you want to print off a page. Less wasted paper and ink! http://www.hp.com/global/us/en/consumer/digital_photography/free/software/smart-web-printing.html Remember to check out our past issues and look for the asterisk (*) in the title to find which articles are currently free to all. Some of our most important articles are often free, as often these are the articles that our editorial staff feels must be heard! We have over one hundred free articles currently available online. Check it out in our free preview format of this month's edition of Horses For LIFE in our new pageflip format on our homepage at http://horsesforlife.com or where we still offer our regular web version, to see our free articles this month and from past months. Free articles are marked by an asterisk in the titles. Subscribers go to http://horsesforlife.com login and go to this month's issue to see the full issue!
http://horsesforlife.com/Volume47EnoughIsEnough
Of course we continue to offer our magazine in our regular web format for those who prefer this format or for those on a slower internet connection. It is through discussion and debate, often passionate, that we are all challenged and through that process that all of us continue to grow and excel as horsemen. You have no idea how incredibly proud I have been this past month to know that there are wonderful equestrians who are there, no matter what it takes, to be there on behalf of the horse. Thank you for all that you do on behalf of the horses. Thank you to all of you. To see our latest issue goto http://horsesforlife.com
Editor Remember to update your email address. Contact us at anytime at equestriansquest@horsesforlife.com or call us at 1-306-383-2588. Did you
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