Pope Leo gifted with “Proton” a purebred Arabian horse

CatholicWorldReport.com - Full Article

By Almudena Martínez-Bordiú for CNA
October 15, 2025

ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 15, 2025 / 14:35 pm

Before the general audience on Oct. 15, Pope Leo XIV was gifted with a 12-year-old purebred Arabian horse named Proton.

The white horse is a gift from Michalski Stables in Kołobrzeg-Budzistowo, and will reside in Castel Gandolfo, home to the Vatican’s equestrian center. Several purebred Spanish horses are also kept at the facility located within the papal complex.

The horse belongs to one of the oldest and most esteemed equine breeds in the world, known for its elegance and endurance.

According to the Vatican, the Pole Andrzej Michalski, president of the Michalski horse farm, offered the beautiful specimen to the Holy Father, recalling that during his time as a missionary in Peru, Pope Leo XIV frequently rode horses...

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https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/10/15/pope-leo-gifted-with-proton-a-purebred-arabian-horse/

Three Weeks And 600 Miles: Robert Redford’s True Adventure On The Outlaw Trail

CowboyStateDaily.com - Full Article

Robert Redford’s love of the West, Wyoming and their notorious outlaws was well-known. It led him in 1976 to retrace 600 miles of The Outlaw Trail on horseback, by car and by boat over three weeks for National Geographic magazine.

Jackie Dorothy
September 28, 2025

National Geographic asked actor Robert Redford in 1976 to follow in the footsteps of the Wild West's greatest outlaws in a three-week adventure on horseback, by car, and by boat.

It apparently didn't take much convincing because Redford was already in love with the almost too-wild-to-be-true history of the West and Wyoming.

“We tend to view the Western outlaw, rightly or not, as a romantic figure,” Redford later wrote for the magazine. “I know I'm guilty of it, and for years I have been fascinated by that part of the West that offered sanctuary and escape routes to hundreds of colorful, lawless men.”

The Lure Of The Wild West

Before his 1976 trek along a 600-mile stretch of The Outlaw Trail, Redford was already familiar with the wide-open spaces of Wyoming...

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https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/09/28/three-weeks-and-600-miles-robert-redfords-true-adventure-on-the-outlaw-trail/

Solving The Riddle Of Thumps: Electrolytes, Alfalfa Both Play Starring Roles

Benoit Photo

PaulickReport.com - Full Article

Electrolyte imbalances and diet may both play a role in the condition that affected Skippylongstocking in this year's Charles Town Classic.

Bobbie Jo Lieberman
Oct 6, 2025

When Skippylongstocking headed postward for the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic in late August, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. had plenty of reasons to believe his 6-year-old bay star would capture his third consecutive running of the $1 million, 1 1/8-mile event. Conditions were ideal for the earner of over $3.6 million, affectionately known around the barn as “Skippy.”

West Virginia’s cooler evening weather was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of Joseph’s home base in southern Florida. Skippy, reports Joseph, is an easy horse to be around, but he knows when it’s time to run.

“He walks like he’s in charge—he gets pumped up in the paddock,” said Joseph. “He can be a handful for his groom.”

With Jose Ortiz aboard, Skippy broke well from post position four and went straight for the lead on the rail, carving out fast but comfortable fractions on the half-mile track. He looked strong until right around the half-mile pole, when he inexplicably began to lose momentum and rapidly backed up through the field until he was last on the final turn, only to be eased under the wire.

What happened? Did Skippy go to the lead too quickly? His fans on social media were concerned for his welfare, suggesting perhaps the veteran campaigner had simply grown weary of racing.

Cooling out back at the barn, the reason for his poor performance became clear—Skippy had suffered from a metabolic condition known as synchronous diaphragmatic flutter, better known as the thumps. Thumps occur when the horse’s usually distinct respiration and heart rate are in synch, causing a sound akin to human hiccups...

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https://paulickreport.com/horse-care-category/solving-the-riddle-of-thumps-electrolytes-alfalfa-both-play-starring-roles-

Endurance: Where are the ribbons?

WeAreOnTheLoose Blog - Full Article

by Jamethiel Morse
September 29 2025

Let’s turn our pens towards the annual signs of autumn: The ponies start getting their soft winter fuzzies on, the sun ditches us before 8pm, you have to return to keeping an extra layer in the truck, and…the AERC page starts to get rambunctious again. All ride season long, most folks are busy clearing trails, driving to rides, following Tevis fever, agonizing over keeping their horses sound and conditioned, so our corner of social media gets a bit of a breather aside from gorgeous ride photos. However, like clockwork, being farm bound for the winter gets endurance rider’s fingers itchy to share their opinions, and if we can’t do it around a ride camp fire with a drink in our hands, we’ll take to the AERC Facebook page instead. I say all this a bit in jest, but quite a bit of good discussion can occur there. Endurance riding brings out the strongest of personalities, you have to be to take care of a 1000 pound animal with their own views of the world over miles and hours of trail.

The latest thread to snag my eye was on the future of endurance and how to grow the sport, in a time it is rapidly contracting. Sharing that post to my own page racked up 68 comments, perhaps the most I’ve ever gotten, and the original thread is 450+. In order to put this post together, I used a bit of code I found on Reddit to copy all the comments to a Word document (cause FB sucks for reading comments this way), then edited it down from 200 odd pages to 60 odd (some comments were duplicated multiple times due to the weird rando code I used), tossed this doc into ChatGPT (legit the first time I’ve used it), and it spit out these top 10 categories of concern:...

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https://weareontheloose.com/2025/09/29/endurance-where-are-the-ribbons/