Coree Reuter

I love mares. Some people hate them, but I love them. I suppose I enjoy the challenge of managing their attitude and sometimes unpredictable mood swings. Keeps it interesting! But, the point of this blog isn’t to talk about my love affair with mares, rather, I want to discuss the Great Mare, also known as Epona.

I’m sure many of you are scratching your heads and wondering who the heck I’m talking about, but don’t panic if you can’t remember a mare named Epona; she isn’t really a horse.

Courtney Dye is scheduled to fly in an air ambulance to The Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in W. Orange, N.J., today, March 25, according to Lendon Gray’s blog.

“Courtney is still technically in a coma, although she sometimes responds to commands to move and even smile. She is being put in a special chair to allow her to sit up for periods of time,” wrote Gray on Wednesday, March 24. “This is the beginning of a long road of rehab although no one can tell us how long or how difficult that road will be.”

Miss Brittney knows when it’s her time to shine. From the moment she steps onto the show grounds, the 21-year-old Thoroughbred-Quarter Horse mare puts on a performance, which is just part of the equation that helps her excel in the side-saddle ring.

“It takes a special horse [to do well in side-saddle],” said Jeanne Blackwell, owner of “Brittney” and Mad Cap Farms in The Plains, Va. “They have to be beautiful, kind, well-broken and a performer. [Brittney] is a real poser and knows when she’s in the appointments line up. She focuses on something and is just beautiful.”

Mother Nature wasn’t joking around when she decided to unleash a thunderstorm over HITS Ocala’s Post Time Farm on Sunday, March 21. Despite the organizer’s best efforts to move the class to an earlier time to beat the weather, the $100,000 DeLuca Toyota Tundra Grand Prix was contested in the middle of a steady downpour. It didn’t faze MTM Timon and Tracy Fenney, however. The pair posted the fastest four-fault round in the four horse jump-off to take home blue.

Meg O’Mara and War Eagle entered the grand prix ring today, Friday, March 19, at HITS Ocala (Fla.) for the R.W. Mutch Equitation Championship with hardly any history. Their performance, however, gave the impression they were longtime partners, and they cruised to the blue ribbon in their first day of showing together.

“I just played it by ear,” O’Mara, 16, said with a laugh. “My friends helped me walk the course, so I knew the strides. I just had to stay calm and breath. He was ready to win.”

Let’s play a game.

I’m thinking of a thing. It’s white and big and horse related, and you can find it by putting the following code into Google: 51.57753, -1.56668. Make sure you click on Satellite when you get there.

See it yet? Zoom in.

Anything yet? No? Keep zooming!

Turn your head to the right, and... Hey! That looks like…

A horse! The Uffington White Horse, to be precise, one of the most famous chalk figures on the hills of England. We’ll call him Uffy.

Do you ever wonder why we call things what we do? When I was a kid, I used to wonder what the world would be like if blue was actually yellow, up was supposed to be down, and yes really meant no. I also was curious why bad words were really all that bad, much to the chagrin of my parents, who were saints when it came to my endless curiosity.

But when it came to horses, I never questioned the name they were assigned. Horse just made sense. It was elegant and simple, but powerful all at once. Horse. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

After cross-country on Saturday, Mara Dean knew that she would have to jump clean on Sunday, March 8, in order to win the Red Hills International CIC***-W, Tallahassee, Fla. However, she was able to take a bit of a deep breath when Phillip Dutton and Truluck added 5 time penalties to their otherwise clean jumping round. Nicki Henley took one rail down and added 4 time faults, but he and Dean’s score of 59.8 was enough to take home blue.

While Hugh Lochore’s cross-country course caught some horse-and-rider combinations by surprise, Nicki Henley and Mara Dean put in a flawless jumping trip today, Saturday, March 5, to maintain their lead in the Red Hills International CIC***-W.

Familiar faces filled all the top spots in the Red Hills International CIC***-W in Tallahassee, Fla., today, Friday, March 5. Mara Dean and Nicki Henley put in their usual elegant test (42.0) to claim the top spot over Phillip Dutton on Truluck (45.6) and Bonnie Mosser on Merloch (47.4).