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MT has purchased the British Intermediate Winner ODT Land Vision. The talented 7yr old won at Gatcombe with Oliver Townend in August, and is set to join Galdalf in Todd's stable.

 

 

Vaughn has a fabulous owner in Lady Tavistock of Cambridge, who has purchased Heelans young 3* horse Cuzzy Bro for Vaughn to ride.

The aim is for him to have his first Advanced run at Shelly and Chris Ross's new advanced track up here in Auckland, Woodhill Sands, and then try to qualify for 4*.

Heels down, eyes up, kick on.  Surely thats all he needs to do?

One afternoon in November last year, a young lady by the name of Tara Groenestein was driving off to meet with friends who were organising  a local Sth Auckland Show Hunter show.  She never made it.  A drunken piece of crap by the name of Lesley Caudwell (Papakura) was absolutely drunk out of her mind, with a bottle of wine between her legs, and driving at speed and erratically all over the road. She plowed through an intersection straight into Tara, and killed her.  She stated to police when they got to the scene that she was driving but had no idea where she was going or what she was doing.

This piece of crap, today was sentenced to 12 months home detention for killing Tara.  Home detention. Given that she is an unemployed drunken bum how is this a sentence?!    Its not like she can't go to work, she doesn't have a job other than being a professional drunk. The judge started off with a 4yr jail sentence, and gave her discounts better than you'd find at KMart.  The discounts were given for the following reasons:

1. She's Agrophobic.  Well if thats the case then she will really suit being confined to a small jail cell!  Agrophobic is fear of open spaces, not closed in jail cells you freak!
2. She's Bipolar. So what? Don't all the TV advertisments going on at the moment tell us all that bipolar people are ordinary people?
3. She's caring for her sick mother. Um..hello? Her mother was diagnosed with cancer only 2 weeks ago, and has never been seen in court - clearly very caring.
4. She showed remorse. Bullsh1t.  The first sign of any remorse was in a letter read out to the court yesterday.  Interestingly enough the family and friends were NOT ALLOWED to read their victim impact statements to the court!  Lesley can speak, but the victims can not.
5. Early guilty plea. No way. It took 5 months for her to finally plead guilty! 
6. "IF Tara had had siblings it would have been worse" HELLO JUDGE!  Tara has a younger sister!
7. And Judge Wiltens, at least study your case before you have it before you. Not only did you state Tara had no siblings but clearly she does, but you called her by the wrong name, not once, but twice.  Honestly, maybe its time to think about retirement.

No this isn't really horse related, but Tara was known to a lot of people in the Auckland horsey scene and the NZ justice system needs to start looking to America for advice.  At least in the USA, life means life, and Im sure a drunk driver over there wouldn't get a 12 month  holiday at home!

 

Last Friday Merran Haine' fabulous horse Tregonning passed away. The Spoken in Jest gelding ammassed so many wins and placings in his life that he surely must be one of the most well known horses on the jumping circuit.  Condolances to the Hain family.

http://nzequestrian.org.nz/Article.aspx?Mode=1&ID=2259

Missing female (unspeyed) staffordshire bull terrier. Bridle with white chest, wearing a bright pink studded collar with New Plymouth dog tags.

Went missing last Thursday pm during the wet weather. Much loved family pet desperately missed.

Please any sightings of her, good or bad, please contact Leanne on lea.timwaite@gmail.com 

Shelly and Chris Ross have never been ones to shy away from hard work, and they have now added to their to do list...build a new advanced track before their spring trial in...well...a couple of months!

Of course anyone who knows Chris will know he will have it beautifully designed and built on time!

So riders, come and support Woodhill Sands in their new HT!  Word has it a certain former 4* rider is going to make their out-of-retirement advanced debut there too...

 

We have one or two spaces left in the top ride (novice-intermediate level) at Taupo for this weekend (26-27 August).

Cost is $80 per day, plus ground fees.

Contact Michelle@kiwisporthorses.com for more info.