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.
Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight, a website dedicated to statistical analysis, made his mark doing political election forecasting. His website has since branched out into areas like Major League Baseball prognostications, fire ant propagation, and trends in internet slang. Of course, Silver and his number nerds are now discussing the Olympics. Walt Hickey did a casual survey of opinions around FiveThirtyEight social media channels,…
My husband and I moved ourselves and our horses to Wisconsin from the California desert. We thought we had plenty of time to get ready for winter: it was only August, after all. Dairy farmers warned us: “You’d better put your fences in soon, before the ground freezes.” Experienced horse owners gave us useful tidbits: “Try not to put a hole in your water tank…
Written by Barbara Newtown Original Publish Date December 2013 When people who knew me way-back-when reconnect, they ask: “How did you end up in Louisiana…with twenty-one horses?” I married a horse-crazy man. George Newtown was seven years old when horses took over his dreams. His family was living at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, where his dad, a Marine warrant officer, was stationed. They attended…
George Patton, the general who led the U. S. Army through the “Battle of the Bulge” in World War II, was a master of the saber and a fine rider. He represented the United States at the 1912 Olympics in the pentathlon competition, which tested the abilities needed by the ideal soldier: swimming, running, shooting, fencing (saber), and riding (show jumping). Patton finished fifth…
