Don't care about the weather, so long as the high temp is somewhere between 50 and 70. :p

The American women's gymnastic team was simply phenomenal, every one of them. I really loved Laurie Hernandez's floor routine.

So disappointed for Lauren Kieffer and Clark Montgomery yesterday, especially Lauren, because I love her horse, and she's been 2nd at Rolex the past two years. Also very impressed that the German team managed all double clears after their (relatively) disastrous cross country yesterday. Phillip Dutton went from 15th to 3rd after a seriously impressive save on cross country yesterday. And I can't wait to watch dressage tomorrow, as many of my favorites will be there -- Verdades, Nip Tuck, Legolas 92, and of course, Valegro. The US also has a seriously impressive show jumping team this year; I'm rooting for them to get gold. :) (Aside from the equestrian events, i think women's gymnastics tonight will be fun to watch.$

Clinton Nomination Goes Down In History Pic of supporters with signs with her logo.

??? An aide was WITH the autistic man. What more do you expect than a 1:1 aide when the autistic man was not dangerous? And the aide got shot, while trying to explain his patient's situation to the police. ETA: Posted at the same time as Ravin. :)

And Tamir's 14yo sister handcuffed and put in the back of the squad car when she ran over to her brother after he was shot. :( That article is so sad.

I hear a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment & most of the people I hear it from also seem to think Arab = Muslim.

He had been tased (so impossible to keep completely still) and was restrained on the ground. How much room for judgement is there?

Philandro Castile: pulled over 52 times. The number of times he was pulled over is crazy to me. Granted, I am young, but I've never been pulled over, and I drive quite a lot. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stopped-52-times-by-police-was-it-racial-profiling/2016/07/09/81fe882a-4595-11e6-a76d-3550dba926ac_story.html

Here's the section of the thread those quotes came from. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/534719-ferguson/?p=6042878

You think this particular situation was expected because of ambushes? Police shooting a man with his hands in the air who's being respectful and communicative? This is not the type of situation that happens just because an officer was on edge. It's an example of someone seriously unfit for duty & I hope he spends time in jail.

They had no issue with my homeschool diploma.

I applied to BU, and was accepted, though decided not to attend. They gave me a decent merit scholarship, but ultimately it was not enough. Anyway, I did visit the school, and I loved it. As others mentioned, it's in the middle of the city. Personally, I liked that -- there seemed to be a lot going on & plenty of interesting things to do. When I visited, they emphasized interdisciplinary connections quite a lot, and talked about a senior project engineering students were required to do, which involved engineers from different disciplines working together to create a product to solve a problem of their choice. There're a lot of opportunities for study abroad and tons of international students, and of course, it's in Boston, which is a vibrant city with all sorts of museums, cultural events, etc. :)

She's adorable! I think either sabino or a minimally marked tobiano is possible. Personally, I'd lean toward sabino. She may also lose the spots as she grows, and just be a flashy palomino.

Also definitely need pictures. :)

Perhaps she's sabino? What color is the mare and what markings does she have? Sabinos generally have the stockings & blaze & sometimes the belly spots or more white on the body. http://www.animalgenetics.us/Equine/Coat_Color/Sabino1.asp

I've seen the opposite. The very highest level operations can afford to find a horse a different job if it's just not working out. It's more the middle and lower tier operations that might fall prey to that. Even so, in my involvement in the sport horse world, I've known 0 people that send horses to auction or euthanize them for being non performers. Unless you count selling a horse as culling it, I'm just not seeing that top eventing or show jumping riders regularly kill horses for not performing. :iagree: Honestly? I'm ok with people choosing to participate in sports where there's a risk of death. Just about any extreme sport has a risk of death; I think that's ok if people choose it willingly, and I don't think wanting to push yourself to your limits is really necessarily a bad thing. It's their choice (hey, it's my choice). Does that mean we shouldn't try to make a sport as safe as possible? Of course not. And with eventing, there's also animals involved, and it's our responsibility to make sure they are as safe as possible. This is where I start to have issues with some of the top events (hello, Badminton had SO many falls this year). I thought Rolex was better done this year, actually. The majority of people I know make good choices and safe choices about the level they compete. And so, I'm ok with competing, choosing the level that's safe for me and my horse & choosing to be around people who do the same. Though I really just go to shows because it's fun to ride new places and I don't particularly care how I do. (To the extent that I was doing a dressage test this weekend & my horse started rearing because he didn't want to go past some flowers, & I found the whole thing amusing and just carried on once he was done. :lol: )

On one hand, I don't know that anyone ever seriously thinks it will happen to them. You don't start out a cross country course thinking you're going to die on it, kwim? On the other hand, I think just about everyone knows it's a possibility in the abstract. That sort of attitude would bother me as well. I haven't seen it at my barn, and the latest accident has been felt pretty deeply, as a lot of people competed with Philippa or knew her. I do think some people take comfort in knowing she was doing what she loved; it's something of a coping mechanism. But I don't think anyone isn't grieved by her death. All the statements I've seen from people at the event - Boyd Martin, Philipp Dutton and the like -- were obviously heartbroken. From reports I read, the decision to continue the competition wasn't made lightly, either. & I know the events where Olivia and Caitlyn had accidents were cancelled.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say riders are unaware of the dangers. Fatal accidents generally occur at an international level, and you'd have to be pretty naive not to know the risks of competition by the time you reach that level. I agree that rotational falls are a serious issue. I agree that sometimes the limit is pushed too far on cross country courses. Also, though, cross country is dangerous by its nature, people are working to make it safer, and it is safer than it used to be. Obviously it's not yet enough, but I also don't think people are doing nothing. This is a thoughtful article on safety, and these two articles delineate reasonable solutions to make the sport safer (1, 2).

:iagree: Related to the recent eventing deaths, this is a pretty good take on things. No, horses don't really have a choice. They can make their opinions known, sure, but at the end of the day, they aren't the ones deciding to enter a race, or to take drugs, and so on. Ideally, their owners take the horse's preference into account and find the horse a job they enjoy, but realistically that doesn't always happen.

While also horrible, this is a different issue, I think. The riders can choose to compete or not; horses don't have the same choice.

Well...you can't sell it for more to a 4H kid than a kill buyer if the horse is lame or extremely hot or whatever.

I've got mixed emotions about horse racing. It can be done well, and the horses do generally like racing. Unfortunately, it's not often done well, as evidenced by Mercy's statistics. :( It's horribly sad what happens to many horses after they race. And many of those that meet awful fates could have had happy second careers. I work at a barn that retrains racehorses, and we get in tons of sound horses that go on to live happy lives eventing, doing dressage, trail riding, etc. We get in some not so sound ones too (one that had EPM, one found in a killpen with a broken hip, and so on), and they've all found good homes as well.

NPR & BBC for general news Wired for tech news 538 for election specific news A couple other sites for local news

All you need is a helmet and boots, and weekly lessons are definitely a good place to start. You can find good boots fairly cheaply on eBay -- Ariat is a good brand. Cheap is fine for helmets, so long as they meet ASTM/SEI certifications (basically all helmets should meet those certifications). Western is generally what you think of when you think of cowboys; English is what people jumping horses do. The most obvious difference is the tack, but there are other differences as well. If she's interested in jumping, I'd say go with an English barn, but otherwise it doesn't really matter. :) It sounds like, for you, the most important thing is going to be the instructor, so I'd make sure that you meet the instructor and see if they're someone your dd will like. I would also want to make sure the horses are treated well (stalls are relatively clean, ideally turnout each day, water buckets are clean and don't smell, horses don't look skinny) and as other people have mentioned, make sure she is responsible for grooming and tacking up her horse. Learning to take care of the horse is an important part of riding. This is definitely true. Start with a barn that's right for you, but be ready to move on if it's no longer a good fit. I personally wouldn't change too often, as continuity of instruction is a good thing, but if things really aren't working out, start looking somewhere else. Out of curiosity, why do you not like cross-tying? Yes, I usually see Parelli and the like used as an excuse to let a horse run all over people. I'm sure it can be done well, but it's not by people in my area.