Pippa Funnell going for Gold

My return feels like a dream but I can’t sleep now, says Pippa Funnell in her interview with the London Evening Standard:

Great eventers, unlike great generals, do not fade away. They look for new horses to bring back the glory, and Pippa Funnell is convinced she has found the horse that can lead her to Olympic gold.

It is eight years since Funnell achieved what no one else in eventing has and claimed the Rolex Grand Slam, winning at Kentucky, Badminton and Burghley in the same year.

But, in the last five years, she appeared to have lost the appetite for top-class competition, missing the Beijing Olympics and turning to writing horsey books for children.

Now here we are, at her stables near Dorking, discussing the 43-year-old’s planned return to Badminton next month for the first time in four years. As she strokes her horse, Redesigned, she whispers: “Come on Red, we are going to the Olympics.”

The gesture makes her admit she hungers again for the “drug” of top-class competition and that nothing is as intoxicating as the Olympic Games.

“I did scratch my head after the Grand Slam thinking, no matter what I do, I am never going to have a year like 2003,” she says. “But, even that never felt like reaching the summit of Everest because I’ve never won an Olympic gold. Winning that gold in London drives me, absolutely. The Olympic experience is so incredibly special you pinch yourself and ask: is this real?”

Funnell was pinching herself last summer when she was chosen to compete with Redesigned for Britain at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky.

Horse-boarding: the new extreme sport

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First came skateboarding, then mountain boarding & now comes horseboarding – the newest extreme sport becoming a craze in Britain.

The sport, where participants are towed behind a horse at around 55kph on an off-road skateboard, was invented by 31-year-old pro stuntman Daniel Fowler-Prime.
The sport can to fruition five years ago after Fowler-Prime strung a rope between his off-road mountain board and a horse.
Now he has developed the daredevil stunt into a fully fledged sport and he is looking forward to hosting the UK’s first ever horse boarding championships in a few months time.

In the competition adrenaline junkies stand on a modified skateboard, known as a mountain board while holding onto a rope and trying to maintain their balance as the horse is spurred into a gallop by its rider.

Stunt rider Daniel Fowler-Prime, who has worked on films such as Kingdom Of Heaven and The Da Vinci Code, invented it after messing about on a farm with friends.

‘There’s a raw surge of natural power that you wouldn’t get from any other sport. The acceleration is explosive and a lot of skill is involved. You have to be prepared to take a few knocks because falling off has been compared to getting out of a car at 30mph.’

He added: ‘Horses generally take to it very easily.’

Mr Fowler-Prime is a founder of the Extreme Horse Riding Association and opened the National Horse Boarding Training Centre at Seisdon, near Wolverhampton.

He has organised the first championships, involving races on a 100m-course, later this year.

What do you think about this latest craze? – tell us your thoughts in the comments box below.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/859066-horse-boarding-the-new-extreme-sport

Star of National Velvet Dies aged 79

The star of National Velvet Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, sadly died today at the age of seventy-nine.

The Oscar-winning star died this morning at a medical centre in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure, according to her spokeswoman Sally Morrison.

Dame Elizabeth, who had been in ill health for a number of years, was taken to the hospital with heart failure six weeks ago.

Born in Hampstead, north London, Taylor relocated to the US in 1939 and made her screen debut as a nine-year-old. She found fame as the child star of Lassie Come Home and National Velvet before graduating to adult roles with the 1950 comedy Father of the Bride.

In National Velvet, 1944, twelve-year-old Taylor plays the part of a young girl, helped by a jaded jockey as she prepares a wild but gifted horse named Pie, for England’s Grand National Sweepstakes. The film is regarded as a classic – especially if you love horses, which of course we all do.

Away from the cameras, Elizabeths own life was punctuated by health problems, yet until today, there was something resilient about Elizabeth Taylor – a fighting spirit belied by her famous good looks. “I’ve been through it all, baby,” she once boasted.

Shooves: Shoes that are Hooves!

Shoes made in the style of real horses’ feet and legs, complete with genuine horse hair, are to go on sale at the Cheltenham Festival.The knee and ankle-length zip-up hoof shoes were commissioned by betting company Betfair to celebrate 100 years of the festival, which starts on Tuesday.

The horseshoes are being sold for £1,300 a pair, with all proceeds going to charity.

Model Louise Dainton, 25, who posed on a turf catwalk wearing the human horseshoes, said:

“I’m not sure they are for everyone but I definitely want a pair of hooves.”

London 2012 Tickets now on sale

Tickets for the London 2012 Olympics have gone on sale, 500 days ahead of the event.

Some 6.6 million tickets are available from the London 2012 website over a six-week period and organisers say all applications will be treated equally.

Prices range from £20 to £2,012 and oversubscribed events will be decided by a ballot. On Monday a giant clock counting down the days until the start of the Games was unveiled in Trafalgar Square.

Lord Coe, the chairman of London 2012, said:

“If you look at the way we have put the price points together I think we’ve done that in a really smart way. I think those prices are affordable. Yes, the big ticket events are always going to be the big ticket events, but there are plenty of opportunities to see the big stars at the lower price points.”

Lord Coe said he was confident the Games would be a sellout.

Ballot system

Organisers said they were confident they had done everything they could to avoid the website crashing as people log on for the first time to buy tickets.

The main factor is the establishment of a 42-day sales process which means each application between now and 26 April will be treated in exactly the same way.

People can apply using a paper form obtainable from branches of Lloyds TSB in England, Bank of Scotland in Scotland or libraries in Northern Ireland between 15 March and 25 April 2011.

Sean and Jacqueline Burke, from Southwell, Nottinghamshire, reported some problems using the website.

Mr Burke told BBC News:

“We have managed to book tennis and athletics and one of the cycling events but we have had one or two problems with the website crashing. Logistically it’s quite tricky at the moment.”

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12741934