Sudden Scoop

The 2011 AQHA Convention is March 4-7 in Dallas.

Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Grapevine, Texas
$215 Single/Double (includes resort fee)
To receive these rates, reservations must be made prior to February 2, 2011
(866) 732-7897 toll-free
(817) 778-1000

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

Friday, March 4

8 a.m. - NoonDirectors’ Summit (AQHA’s Board of Directors only)

2 - 4:30 p.m.Impact Session(Open to all AQHA members)
Panel to include representatives from the equine industry and AQHA Staff

• Emerging Markets
• Genetic Testing
• Breeding Analysis Numbers Update

This impact session is open to all interested AQHA members.

7 - 9 p.m. President’s Reception

Saturday, March 5

9 - 11 a.m. Membership General Meeting

11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.Board of Directors’ Luncheon(Attendance Required - Directors Only)

2 - 5 p.m. Committee Meetings

6:30 p.m.Awards Banquet

Sunday, March 6

8 a.m. - NoonCommittee Meetings

1:30 - 5 p.m.Committee Meetings

6 p.m.Hall of Fame Induction Banquet

Monday, March 7

8:30 - 11 a.m.Membership Business Meeting

11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. Board of Directors Luncheon(Attendance Required - Directors Only)

3 - 6 p.m.New Appointed AQHA Directors Meeting

Watch for more detailed convention information at www.aqha.com or in America's Horse Weekly, AQHA's weekly e-newsletter.

McGrath Quarter Horses is excited to announce that it will be moving most of its broodmares home to a new farm in Cottage Grove, Minnesota next year. McGrath Quarter Horses is offering some of our hand-selected broodmares and prospects as we will not have room in the barn or acreage for all of them. These mares are by top stallions, and, more importantly, have strong maternal lines and are proven producers or destined to be producers of show horses.

We are offering these mares and one two-year-old pleasure prospect by Good Huh for sale in the on-line auction that starts Friday at www.usahorseauctions.com

Please visit www.mcgrathqh.com to look at our offerings on our home page or go to the auction page. For more information, please contact Kevin McGrath by e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone at 651-485-7558.

The American Quarter Horse Journal - If you can’t make it to Lexington, Kentucky, for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, the next best thing is watching it from the comfort of your living room.

Tune in to NBC Sports for six and a half hours of reining event coverage from WEG. AQHA is an official sponsor of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games and the official breed sponsor of reining.

Coverage Schedule

• Sunday, September 26, live coverage from noon to 1:30 p.m. EDT, featuring team reining competition
• Sunday, October 3, from 1 to 4 p.m. EDT, featuring individual reining competition
• Sunday, October 10, from 4 to 6 p.m. EDT, reining featured as part of the overall WEG recap

This TV coverage marks the largest commitment a network has ever made to equestrian sports in U.S. television history.

AQHA member and Colorado reiner Aaron Ralston will be the on-air commentator, interpreting the reining events to TV viewers who may not be familiar with what they’re watching. He’ll explain the scoring, the maneuvers and will give tips on what viewers should be looking for.

“I hope to represent the sport of reining, and I hope to give a good understanding of what goes into the sport of reining,” Ralston said.

Ralston breeds a small number of horses each year with his wife, Meg, and also produces some western-discipline competitions.

More Coverage

The American Quarter Horse Journal will be on the scene at WEG giving you daily updates on the excitement.

Learn more about the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, including the schedule of events, AQHA test rides, informative demonstrations and more.

New competition changes the way stars are made in the equine world.

In a generation where “American Idol,” “America’s Got Talent” and other reality shows have discovered amazing talent, Project Cowboy is changing the way the equine world finds its stars. Project Cowboy will crown the next great American horseman.

Fort Worth, Texas, will be rocking October 8-10 when 170 contestants compete for the Project Cowboy title and a $10,000 paycheck. The last cowboy standing will have to endure three days of grueling competition that will test horsemanship ability, readiness to be in front of a camera, general horse knowledge while under fire and livestock handling skills.

The winner will receive $10,000 cash, a Martin trophy saddle and a Gist trophy buckle. The winner’s horse training career will be launched with an invitation to appear at the 2011 Road to the Horse Legends World Championship and 2011 Extreme Mustang Makeover Events, as well as other major equine events and expos as a clinician. Equine venues looking for hot, fresh, innovative clinic presenters will not want to miss this opportunity to get a sneak peek at the future of the industry and book talent before it’s too late.

Reminder: The pre-entry deadline for the Fall World Championship Paint Horse Show (classes, stalls, RV spaces, etc) is September 10.

Forms can be faxed to the Performance Dept at (817) 222-8489 or postmarked by 9/10 to receive pre-entry pricing.

Premium Book, entry forms, schedule and full details are available at http://www.aphaworldshow.com/fall/

2010 World Show Judges

At the Adequan Select World Championship Show August 29 - September 4 in Amarillo, 51 exhibitors competed for the coveted Farnam Select All-Around Amateur title. This the most prestigious award in the Adequan Select World Show competition.

AQHA congratulates 2010 Farnam Select All-Around Amateur Susan Wilson of Ramona, California, showing her American Quarter Horse Knowtorious. The pair earned 73 points, competing in six classes. Of the six classes, Wilson won a world championship in horsemanship and hunt seat equitation, was reserve champion in showmanship and western riding, placed eighth in trail and was a finalist in performance halter geldings.

Wilson’s prize package included $10,000, a bronze by Lisa Perry, $1,000 in Farnam product, a WeatherBeeta embroidered horse blanket and a rose bouquet.

This year’s reserve Farnam All-Around Amateur is Dr. Scott Myers of Sharon Center, Ohio, with his American Quarter Horse Stroke For Stroke. They earned 40 points in seven classes. For this award, Dr. Myers was presented with $2,500, a silver bowl and $500 in Farnam product.

This year’s third-place winner is Lori Bucholz of Waterloo, Nebraska, riding her American Quarter Horse Larks Happy Days. She accumulated 39 points in seven classes.

Shelley Shepherd of Riverside, California, with her American Quarter Horse Dees Old Gold, placed fourth, with 39 points from four classes.

Finishing fifth in the Farnam All-Around Amateur competition is Christine Hocutt-Senteney of Burbank, California, and her American Quarter Horse Bellieve Hes Blazing. They showed in four classes and earned 27 points.

The Farnam All-Around Amateur winners are determined by a point-scoring process based on placings for each class. Two sets of points are awarded to contenders who place in the top 10 in each class.

Horses placing in the top 10 receive one point for each horse placing below them plus one point, not to exceed 10 points, for first place. The second set of points is awarded based on the number of entries in the class according to the point distribution system used to calculate AQHA points.

Select exhibitors are eligible for this award if they show one horse in a minimum of three classes in two categories.

The Farnam Select All Around Amateur awards are made possible by the generosity of AQHA Corporate Partner Farnam.

The Adequan Select World Championship Show took place August 29 - Sepetmber 4 in Amarillo and crowned 41 world champions in halter, western and English disciplines. The Adequan Select World Show is the world’s largest single-breed world championship horse show open exclusively to amateur exhibitors age 50 and older.

3 year old Non Pro HUS
Diamonds R Hot -Winner

3 year old Open Hunter Under Saddle
Look N Hot – Winner
Diamonds R Hot – 3^rd

Green Hunter Saddle
Look N Hot – Winner

Green Hunter Under Saddle
Look N Hot – Winner

3 year old Ltd Open Hunter Under Saddle
Look N Hot – Winner
Diamonds R Hot – 3^rd

Novice Am Hunter Under Saddle
Southern N Sweet – winner

Non Pro Showmanship Stakes
Southern N Sweet – Winner

Youth Hunter Under Saddle
Thatts Hot – Winner

2 year old LTD Non Pro HUS
Hot N Dreamy – Winner

3 yr old Non Pro HUS
Diamonds R Hot- 3^rd

3 yr old open Novice Horse HUS
Dance Somemore – winner under all 4 judges
Look N Hot – 4^th

3 year old LTD Open HUS
Look N Hot – Resv Champion

Novice Youth HUS
Hot Cotoure – Resv Champion

2 year BCF Non Pro HUS
Some Hot Moves – Champion

2 yr old BCF LTD Non Pro HUS
Some Hot Moves – Champion

Click here for more information about Hot N Blazing.

Prevent unwanted horses by gelding your stallion or by providing the event at which other horse owners can get their stallions gelded. The Unwanted Horse Coalition's Operation Gelding will provide funds and materials to assist organizations, associations and events that sponsor clinics to which horse owners can bring their stallions to be castrated. The castration of a stallion will help prevent overbreeding and produce a gentler horse that is more rideable, more trainable and more saleable, allowing them to be used in several careers. Programs such as Operation Gelding can help reduce the number of horses being bred and aid in the adoption or sale of more horses.

This initiative is made possible by a special gift from the American Association of Equine Practitioners Foundation and UHC; both organizations have donated seed money to get the program started. Operation Gelding is patterned after several initiatives undertaken by equine associations, organizations and events around the country.

UHC will provide information and forms necessary to conduct a clinic, along with seed money to defray the costs. Funds of $50 per horse gelded, with a $1,000 maximum will be awarded to individual groups once a year. Assistance will be awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis, subject to available resources. Organizations can apply by filling out the Operation Gelding Funding Form provided by UHC. Funding will be awarded once the clinic is complete and a veterinary statement is provided.

Any organization, association or event can participate in Operation Gelding. There are many ways that your organization can help with unwanted horses. Please review UHC's handbook, "Best Practices: How Your Organization Can Help Unwanted Horses,"which outlines other activities that organizations, associations and events can undertake to create programs that help horses in need. "Best Practices"cites many examples of how organizations and groups can get involved, including gelding clinics.

The GoHorseShow.com classifieds are FREE to all of our readers and is a very effective way to market and sell high quality horses.

The most recent addition to the classifieds section is the dam of World Champion No Doubt Im Lazy. No Doubt Im Magic is a beautiful 1998 brown mare who is open for you to breed to in 2011.

You can click here to see this listing as well as all the other horses in the GoHorseShow.com classifieds. We encourage everyone to utilize this free tool.

Blind Routine and Rotational Deworming Falls Short 

DULUTH, Ga. — August 2010 —Bluntly challenging more than four decades of conventional wisdom, Merial today announced a new equine educational campaign urging horse owners to stop arbitrarily utilizing year-round or rotational deworming programs.

Instead, horse owners and veterinarians should collaborate to apply the dwindling supply of effective deworming products more strategically – and more effectively.

“Multiple studies from across the country have shown entire classes of dewormers are no longer working against small strongyles,” said Frank Hurtig, DVM, MBA, director for Merial’s Large Animal Veterinary Services. “Most horse owners think they have been doing the right thing to fight resistance by using a daily product or rotating dewormers. But indications are strong that these practices may contribute to resistance.

“After four decades of little or no progress, it’s time for the industry to rethink daily deworming and dewormer rotation,” says Dr. Hurtig.

Horse owners should stop routinely deworming based on the calendar, tradition, peer recommendations or dewormer sale price, advises Merial’s new “Greetings, Human” educational campaign. They should instead seek out a knowledgeable equine veterinarian to help them develop long-term, effective deworming protocols based on monitoring and management.

"Our educational campaign humorously recognizes that if worms could talk, they’d in fact be telling us to keep on doing exactly what we’ve been doing for decades,” says Dr. Hurtig. “In the long run, unfortunately, it’s actually better for the worms if horse owners continue to deworm the way most have been. The last thing a resistant small strongyle would want is for us to become more strategic in deworming.”

Strategic guidance from knowledgeable veterinarians is the critical missing link preventing too many farms from effectively managing their parasite populations,⁶ he says. “There are about 50 species of small strongyles that can infectgrazing horses.⁸ Eliminating all worms from all horses and pastures on a farm is a futile goal. A much more worthy target is to maintain a low level of parasites on a farm with a large proportion of those parasites being highly susceptible to the dewormer(s) being used – an approach also known as refugia. It is important to remember most of the parasites are on the pasture and about 20 percent of the horses on a farm put out about 80 percent of the worm eggs to contaminate those pastures. Working with your veterinarian to identify these “high shedders” and then tailoring your deworming to target these horses with more effective products, while reducing treatments of the remaining horses, is the best approach to obtaining optimum worm control on your farm.”

This approach can be a significant departure from what drug companies, scientists and veterinarians have counseled in the past – urging horse owners to use daily dewormers or rotate deworming compounds from different classes based on a set calendar schedule. With new data, better understanding of products and how they work, and increasing evidence of parasite resistance, many in the equine industry are changing their approach to equine deworming.

He proposes that horse owners adopt refugia as a new goal for parasite control on their farms. All the other reasons for which we use dewormers will become immaterial if this goal isnot achieved. This means we must become better stewards to preserve the effectiveness of current products. Prudent use of deworming compounds requires us to be more targeted, more strategic and more judicious. Our job now is to keep the effective dewormers as effective as possible for as long as possible. Daily deworming and continual rotation will not do that.

“Think about it this way: You would never randomly use an antibiotic to blindly treat an undiagnosed and inapparent infection,” Dr.Hurtig says. “This practice wastes time and money, and it increases the risk for developing resistant pathogens. The same attitude must now be brought to bear against increasingly resistant parasites in dewormer selection.”

Dr. Hurtig suggests horse owners ask their equine veterinarian about a targeted testing, treatment and management program for their operation, or go to www.zimecterin.comfor more information about parasite resistance (see the parasite resistance tab on the home page) and Merial’s new “Greetings, Human” educational campaign.

About ZIMECTERIN GOLD

ZIMECTERIN Gold combines ivermectin, a leading ingredient that controls a wide variety ofparasites, with praziquantel, an ingredient that specifically controls tapeworms. Together, they provide excellent equine parasite control. ZIMECTERIN Gold is approved to control more species and stages of equine parasites than any other brand, includingbenzimidazole-resistant small strongyles. It controls 47 species and stages of equine parasites in all.

Plus, ZIMECTERIN Gold was the first dewormer approved by the FDA to effectively controltapeworms* with a single dose. Tapeworms have been recognized as a significant threat to the health of horses.

About MERIAL

Merial is a world-leading, innovation-driven animal health company, providing a comprehensive range of products to enhance the health, well-being and performance of a wide range of animals. Merial employs approximately 5,700 people and operates in more than 150 countries worldwide. Its 2009 sales were $2.6 billion. Merial is the Animal Health subsidiary of sanofi-aventis.

August 25, 2010--PHBA has adopted a new horse registration system that will improve turnaround and processing times for members and Palomino owners.

This new system will provide PHBA members a faster and more convenient way to register horses, at a cost savings for the association. PHBA maintains records on more than 88,000 horses and owners, more than 250,000 horse show entries and more than five hundred horse shows. This system will provide unprecedented customer service for these members.

Access the new registration system through the PHBA website.

Palomino horses registered with the American Quarter Horse Association, American Paint Horse Association, American Holsteiner Horse Association, Pinto Horse Association of America, Appaloosa Horse Club, Jockey Club (Thoroughbreds), American Saddle Horses, Arabians, Half Arabs, Morgans, Tennessee Walking Horses, Mountain Pleasure Horses, Morabs, Quarabs, Missouri Fox Trotters and Rocky Mountain Horses are eligible for registration with PHBA provided the horse meets color and white rules.

PHBA’s Mission Statement:

To record and preserve the pedigree of the Palomino Horse while maintaining the integrity of the breeds.

To provide beneficial services for its members which enhance and encourage Palomino ownership and participation.

To generate growth of PHBA membership via the marketing, promotion, advertising and publicity of the Palomino Horse.

PHBA is an AQHA strategic marketing alliance partner.

On August 11, AQHA Past President suffered a stroke. Late last week, Don was released to the San Pedro hospital physical therapy unit. Don has shown improvement in his speech and has limited movement in his right arm and leg.

Send your cards/notes to Don and Ardys at 79 Narcissa Drive, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275-5952.