Barbara Newtown's Equine Blog
Barbara Newtown thought she wanted to ski and sail and write about music for the rest of her life, but at Yale Graduate School she met horse-crazy George. Within nine months (with four months off for a fractured hip) she was eventing Pre Training. (She hasn’t stopped shaking in terror yet.) Barbara and George raise Oldenburg warmbloods for dressage and jumping at Newtown Farm in northwestern Louisiana.
Update by Barbara Newtown. If you don’t live close enough to a disaster area to participate in rescuing or care-giving, the most useful thing you can do is donate. But -- is your money being spent wisely? The organization Charity Navigator ( www.charitynavigator.org ) rates charities on their effective and principled use of donations. Here are excellent Florida charities helping with animal rescue and animal…
By Barbara Newtown. Justify, the 2018 Triple Crown champion, has shattered a 136-year-old curse: In 1882, Apollo, unraced as a two-year-old, won the Kentucky Derby. Until Justify came along, 61 other Thoroughbreds had tried to ace the Derby without competing during their two-year-old year. Add to Justify’s Derby accomplishment the horse’s capture of the Triple Crown, and you have the ultimate icing on a pretty…
By Barbara Newtown. Saddle bronc competitor Brady Blackburn, skull crushed by a hoof and repaired with a metal plate, checks himself out of the hospital against medical advice. He walks home to the trailer he shares with his widower father and his sister, Lilly, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. His father’s lust for drink and video poker adds to Brady’s misery: …
By Barbara Newtown. Farmers and ranchers have been building stiles and squeezing through gaps for as long as they’ve been putting up fences. Gates – especially gates that are big enough to let equipment through – sag and drag. And, if a gate gets used often enough, someday someone will forget to fasten the latch or chain. The stile is an attractive solution. A…
