TO BIT OR NOT TO BIT

Horses are such amazing animals that it always baffles me as to why some horse enthusiast choose to hurt them. Most of the time, the unnecessary pain infliction is from people who are just not thinking, or taught these barbaric and outdated methods.

Antique Bridle with Bit

This brings up the topic of horse bits. It still amazes me that there is still a school of thought that a bigger bit should be used for training, sometimes on horses that are barely 2 years old. These bits, which fit squarely into the horse’s mouth, can do the opposite of their initial intent. First, a bitted bridle hurts and frightens a horse. For those that believe this technique is fine, place a piece of metal in your mouths and have someone jerk, pull and yank at it. I think you will get the picture. When the bit hurts, the horse will defend itself by biting at it thus, taking the control away from the rider. Then we wonder why the horse is not responding favorably. It is not the horses fault. It is the rider and that is the mark of poor horsemanship.


In a nutshell, BITS DO NOT CONTROL HORSES! They only hamper Performance. By removing the bit, the horse can be happier and perform better.

A Bitless Bridle

One of Robert Cooks Invented Bridle Rein

In my opinion, every equestrian should consider going bit less. To do so does not eradicate control. The Bit less Bridle hugs the whole of the horses head, offering a gentle, but effective pressure without the pain.
There is a Bit less Bridle on the market that is painless, effective and has a quite a following. Dr. Robert Cook invented it and co-wrote a book about bits titled Metal in the Mouth. You can get more information at www.bitlessbridle.com













The Preppy Times

LEARN YOUR NAVIGATION

This article was forwarded to me and I thought I'd share it with all the sailors out there.  It came out of the Washington Post.

Posted By O. Cavanaugh

INTERVIEW WITH PENNY WHITING

As you may already know, I'm passionate about sailing. So I tend from time to time to check out the regatta scene in various areas, check out sailing websites and even view sailing DVDs. Which leads me to the latter. I got a DVD about a year ago called 'Sailing with Penny Whiting'. I hadn't really viewed it until recently. Man was I impressed. This woman has got her s_ _ t together. Sailing can be a rewarding but honestly, there are tasks that have to be mastered. It can dishearten a beginner. Yet Penny has such a way of teaching, that you come away feeling as though anyone can and should sail. That's precisely Penny's mission.  I was so inspired that I had to contact the first women to race in the Congressional Cup, Long Beach California in 1971 to get her take on sailing for beginners. Running her school in New Zealand, she was so gracious enough to grant me an interview. 


The Preppy Times:  Right, so tell me Penny how did you get started Sailing?

Penny Whiting:  My family sailed and I was on a boat the day I was born.

TPT:  Tell me why should anyone sail?

PW:  Sailing is just one of life's great pleasures.

TPT:  Do I understand right that you've designed yachts?  How did you get started with that?

PW:  My brother Paul designed and built our boats.  I was just the sailor.

TPT:  Right then, what's the greatest challenge you've faced sailing?

PW:  Finding land when you do not want to get to shore.

TPT:  When did you start the Penny Whiting School?

PW:  I was seventeen in 1967 I guess.  43 years of teaching interesting people the joys of sailing
with safety and confidence.

TPT:  What does your courses include?

PW:  I run a complete learn to sail course for beginners, as it is all practical we really get some great  sailing in Auckland.

TPT:  What would you tell a person who's thinking of pursuing sailing?

PW:  Have a go and see if you like it.  With no theory and all practical is always fun.

TPT:  What advice would you give a neophyte with doesn't own a yacht but is interested in sailing?

PW:  Hey if you have learned to sail you are good crew for anyone as you have learned to be told
and understand the terminology and boat handling.

TPT:  What's the regatta scene like in New Zealand?

PW:  Most clubs race at least twice a week so you can sail every night after work.

TPT:  How is racing different than sailing?

PW:  Hey hold off on the racing unless it is the only sailing you can get and they get really picky and stressed racing their best mates.

TPT:  My wife always complains that for something that is supposed to be relaxing, there is too much work to do with regards to running a yacht. What do you say to something like that?

PW:  Sailing is about timing not strength or stress, anybody can sail if they get the timing correct.
Women are natural sailors as they multi task.

TPT:  Your yacht 'Endless Summer' is a magnificent specimen, really beautiful.  Would you tell a
little about her?
 
PW:  Endless Summer sums her up, a real gem to anybody to sail and I sail her often for pleasure
by my self.
 
TPT:  What's been your favorite yacht to sail?
 
PW:  Endless Summer!
 
TPT:  What's the best boat in your opinion for a beginner?
 
PW:  Any boat is just great, the bigger the better and easier to sail.
 
TPT:  How long would you say does it take to master the basics of yachting?
 
PW:  I feel I can give a person a really good understanding in 15 hours practical.
 
TPT:  Throughout your years as a yachtswoman, where did you find the sweetest waters for sailing?
 
PW:  Auckland Harbour.
 
TPT:  Do you have children?  If so, are they following in your footsteps?
 
PW:  I have a daughter living in Hong Kong that is a good sailor.  And my son has done 4      Americas Cups and sailed in the Olympics as a sailor.

TPT:  If you weren't running the Penny Whiting School, what else would you be doing?


PW:  I just love messing around in boats.
 
TPT:  What else would you like to share with the novice sailor?
 
PW:  Just do it if you want to, you have one life and it is short.  Do what you want to do.
 
TPT:  O.K.  last question, wood or fiberglass?
 
PW:  Fiberglass for easy maintenance and re-sale, more sailing, less work if you keep it polished.
 
TPT:  Thank you Penny, it's been a pleasure.
 
PW:  Phew great questions, well done.
 
 
 
Penny Whiting can be reached at www.pennywhiting.com  but book early as her school is located in Auckland, New Zealand.  That would make a wonderful vacation, wink, wink.
 
 
 
 



- Posted using BlogPress

SHIN PULLS OFF ONE STROKE WIN

I love to watch golf and today on the Golf Channel, I was especially excited about the final round of LPGA Golf. I was rooting for golf phenom Morgan Pressel, but let's face it, Jiyai Shin really pulled it off. South Korea's Shin claimed a one stroke victory at the Evian Masters, edging out the third round leader Morgan Pressel with a birdie on the closing hole.



The World No.4 returned a sizzling final round of 67 to finish at 14 under for the tournament. The 22-year-old is the first South Korean winner of the Evian Masters and will take home a first prize of $487,500.

Shin held the No. 1 world ranking for seven weeks after Lorena Ochoa’s retirement earlier this season and might still be there if not for an emergency appendectomy just a month and a half ago.

Shin showed why she is known as the final round queen as she birdied the fourth, fifth and eighth holes on the front nine for an outward total of 33.

She tied for the lead with Pressel after another birdie at the 13th before closing the deal by sinking an eight foot putt that was never in doubt at the par-five 18th for an inward total of 34.

Pressel had a slightly shorter, downhill putt, which slipped agonisingly past the hole and the American finished in a share of second with South Korean Na Yeon Choi and the 15-year-old American Alexis Thompson on 13 under, with Norway’s Suzann Pettersen in fifth on 12 under-par.

Pettersen was out in 31 after five birdies on the front nine at the first, fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth holes and came home in 35 after picking up her sixth shot at the par-four 16th.

She missed birdie chances on holes 17 and 18, where her 20 foot downhill putt slipped out of the hole and she collapsed to her knees, saying afterwards: “It was close. It looked like it was going in and it just sneaked out. I got a great start. I hit a lot of good putts on the back nine. I had one birdie and all I tried to do was hit aggressive putts and not leave them short. All I can do is give it a try.”







- Posted By O. Cavanaugh

ANDREW CAMPBELL REGATTA PHENOM

Andrew Campbell is taking the international regatta circuit by storm.


With winds reaching twenty-two knots in Nassau at the Western Hemisphere championships for Star Class sailboats, Andrew Campbell and his crew, Brad Nichol, were threading the needle through big waves and unsteady competitors when another boat came barging toward them. Its sweeping boom knocked Campbell in the head, turning his blue hat dark with blood before it was washed away by a hungry wave. As Campbell regained his balance, he noticed the same boat, manned by Canada's Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn, heading straight for them again. This time, though, Clarke was missing, and Campbell and Nichol, rounding up quickly, barely avoided plowing over the sailor bobbing in the water. After finishing eighth and ninth that day and a trip to the hospital to patch up his head, Campbell jokes, "We'd love to call it 'no blood, no foul,' but I guess we know who's buying the first round."
Welcome to the world of competitive sailboat racing, a world that Campbell, twenty-six, has inhabited for most of his life. Campbell comes from a family of devoted sailors—his parents met at a regatta and his father raced in three America's Cup matches—so it's no surprise the waves are in his blood. He spent a decade solo racing thirteen-foot Laser boats, which took him all the way to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Afterward, looking for a new challenge, he switched to the ultracompetitive Star Class of bigger keelboats with two-man crews.
So far, so good: Campbell finished eleventh at the 2010 Star World Championship, in Brazil, inJanuary; he now ranks in the world's top twenty; and he earned a Best Performance by a Newcomer award from the U.S. Olympic Sailing Committee this year. Although he's traveled far and wide for his sport, Campbell says, with the matter-of-factness of a true devotee, "There's lots of sailing still to do." He spoke to RL about his sailing career, his Olympic goals for 2012, and his (mis)adventures on the international circuit.

Campbell's successful Laser-class solo sailing career culminated in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
You come from a sailing tradition. What was your experience like when you were growing up?
I was in the junior program at the San Diego Yacht Club since I was five or six years old. [By the time I got to high school,] there were only four kids on the school team, but we still managed to do OK. We were top ten at nationals for three straight years. During the high school season we were sailing twice a week at the yacht club, and then most of the other days I was sailing on my own. I started racing Lasers when I was sixteen. And I ended up doing fairly well at a young age, so I stuck with it through the Olympic Games in 2008.




What are the different kinds of boats that you've sailed? How are they different?


In college you end up sailing in double-handed boats, with yourself and a crew. I was sailing with my Georgetown team during their season, and in the summer I would be in Europe, racing Lasers and training over there. The Laser took me places that I never would have imagined, but I felt like I was ready for a change and ready to try and get into a class that better suited my strengths—my tactical awareness and my capacity for making a boat go faster. A lot of the guys that race in the America's Cup will race Star boats in the Olympics. [Because] you can sail the class for a fair bit longer, there are guys in their forties who are racing Star boats at a very high level. Those guys bring a lot of experience that is hard to get around.


How would you describe the mental strategy involved in racing?


Before every race we have to decide which sails we're going to use, because certain shapes optimize different amounts of wind. We decide which direction we would prefer to go after the start, which end of the starting line we should use, which forecast we should trust, which way the current is going. There are hundreds of variables to optimize the boat's performance, but ultimately it comes down to a steady hand on the helm, good trimming, and anticipation of what's going to happen next. And at the same time, you know, we're racing with sometimes seventy or eighty other boats, so it's a moving chessboard on a moving surface.

What is your favorite place to sail?


Racing in Sydney Harbor is incredible. There's just so much traffic. There are huge ferryboats that are running really fast—and they're not going to get out of your way, so you have to get out of theirs. The traffic makes it really fun.


It seems like you get to do a lot of traveling.


Yeah, but it's a blessing and a curse. There is a ton of traveling, and we get to be in some amazing places. I was in Rio in January, and I'm on my third trip to Miami since the beginning of the year. It's a fun time, and I get to see a lot of cool spots, but I don't get to spend as much time at home as I want.


Where is your home base?


I'm living in Washington, D.C., where my fiancée, Jackie, and I have an apartment. I'm not quite sure how long we're going to be there, but I can get out and get to events I need to get to very easily. There's not a ton of good training there necessarily, but most of the valuable training that we do is overseas anyway.

How did you train for the Beijing Olympics?


Time on the water is by far the best training I can do. Cross-training really consists of lifting to stay up to weight for the Star Class rules. Before the Olympics I was running and cycling a lot to lose about twenty pounds, since we were anticipating light winds in China.


What was your Olympic experience like?


China was an incredibly hard place to sail. I practiced in China for basically two months collectively over the course of a couple years. I felt like I was prepared. But the way sailing is scored, the difference between being on the podium and being twenty-fifth is slim. In the last race I was disqualified for committing a foul that I contested, but I lost in the protest hearing. If I'd won the disqualification, maybe I could have gotten into the top ten and done another race; but because I lost it, I was twenty-fifth.


What was the highlight for you?


Absolutely the opening ceremony. Being in the stadium with a hundred thousand people and watching the Olympic flame being lit was the most humbling thing. Because at that point you realize that that's the reason you came, and you're there among all the other people getting ready to compete.
Winning one of my races was a huge moment, too. My family and my friends who were over there were just through the roof. I kind of felt vindicated because I wasn't having a great series. And the cool thing was that it happened on a day when a whole bunch of Americans in the other classes won races as well. So it was a big push from Team USA, and it really bonded a lot of us in a way we'll never forget.


Looking ahead, who is the team to beat at Weymouth in the London 2012 Olympics?


The British team has been strong during the last two games. In 2004 and 2008 they were by far the strongest team, so all the more reason that they're going to be very good at home. That's going to be a very tough team to beat. The Australians are also a very strong team in general.


What would you be doing if you weren't a professional sailor?


I've luckily never really had to consider it. I do some writing for magazines and my Web site, so that would lead somewhere, ideally. My degree set me up to take the foreign-service exam and start down the diplomatic path—but the only diplomacy I have to worry about now is at crowded starting lines in international fleets or organizing international training partners.


Do you ever go sailing just for fun?


Yeah, absolutely! But even the pleasure sailing that I do is racing oriented. Jackie and I will go racing against other people in Washington or the Eastern Shore of Maryland or something like that and just have a total blast.


On that note, how do your competitors on the international sailing circuit kick back? Do you have any wild stories from any of the big regattas or races?


We do manage to have a good time off the water—we are a bit of a traveling circus! The Olympic and Grand Prix circuits are fairly established, so we really are a small community of athletes who compete and see each other often. We've stormed Australian pubs at six in the morning trying to get an NFL game on TV, and once convinced Polish cabbies that we spoke Polish when we most certainly did not. We befriended Italian restaurateurs in China to the point where our photos are on the walls. We even had to make a 'pants passback' to some friends who couldn't make it into an Irish bar because they were wearing shorts. We've overwhelmed towns and been overwhelmed by others, but always together as friends and competitors.


What's your favorite aspect of sailing?


Every time I get out on the water, I really try to take a minute to remind myself how lucky I am. Even on crappy weather days or in cold conditions or in relatively high-stress scenarios, I know that as soon as I get out on the water, I'm doing what I do best, and one of the things I love most. I always look forward to the next opportunity to get on the water.




Follow Andrew's sailing adventures on his blog, www.campbellsailing.com, and at these summer regattas

Written by Bailey McAllister works for Assouline Publishing and lives in New York. She has previously written for New England Home magazine.

Article courtesy of Ralph Lauren Magazine.




Posted By O. Cavanaugh