19 August 2010

The Carrot Announces Horse of the Year Award

We found it strange last year when the new FEI Awards were inaugurated, and there was no category honoring an equine participant in the sport. You know, one of those big, expensive, four-legged, carrot-and-bute-inhaling critters that never asked for any recognition. Or to participate in any sport, for that matter. The Carrot reported this oddity in the November General Assembly coverage, back when hardly anyone was reading this silly blog:
The new FEI Awards were intended to "pay tribute to the heroes of the sport," according to an FEI news release. "Heroes" being a group which apparently includes riders of horses, grooms of horses, and development initiatives, but not the actual horses themselves, or we might expect to see some sort of FEI honour for the sport's rather indispensable equine partners. The puzzled audience was left to ponder the same question on the mind of many an FEI veterinary delegate or judge, after a damn fine filly in need of better foundation garments has presented her steed (along with other assets) at the trot-up: "Was there a horse?"
Horses apparently aren't at the heart of horse sport, but they sure are at the root of it. So we decided since the FEI does not have a Horse of the Year award, we'll have one. We've selected a superb panel of Equestrian Big Wigs to do the judging, along with legendary actor Robert Duvall.

Send your nomination with a (preferably funny) rationale for your choice to horseslovecarrotsandbute at googlemail.com.

And if you are a feed/email subscriber, be sure to visit our home page and vote in our latest poll: Is it weird that the FEI does not have a Horse of the Year award, or is it just us?