On February 14, the top hunter riders will be hoping that they will be the lucky Valentine's Day winner.  On that evening, The American Hunter-Jumper Foundation will host its 13th annual AHJF Hunter Classic Spectacular at the 2009 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, FL.

The USET Foundation hosted a luncheon this week, for the participants of the 2009 George H. Morris Horsemastership Training Session, presented by Bates Saddles.  The luncheon honored and congratulated the eight riders, their parents, and the training session clinicians. The USET Foundation was a supporting sponsor of the training session.

Following voting by its directors (on nominations made by the membership), the American Saddlebred Horse Association's (ASHA) annual award winners have been announced for the 2008 year.

The 16-year-old rider who won bronze at the 2008 European Pony Championships has lost her medal and been suspended from competition for two months by the FEI after her pony tested positive for a prohibited substance.

  The Illinois Equine Industry Research & Promotion Board (EPB) is asking interested, qualified Illinois horsemen to submit applications for three seats on the Board to be filled, beginning this year.

  The Bureau of Land Management is requesting public nominations to fill three vacancies on the national Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board.

  The eventing stallion Windfall has won the American Trakehner Association's (ATA) Trakehner Forderverein Award for 2008.

  A confrontation over a horse turned deadly when an off-duty northern Kentucky sheriff's deputy shot a woman wielding a weapon and threatening him, authorities said Tuesday.
Boone County sheriff's Deputy Scotty Hill was loading the horse onto a trailer in rural Nicholas County when 55-year-old Brenda Pollitt confronted him late Monday, according to Kentucky State Police.

   Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced plans to earmark unused funds for state park projects to ready the Kentucky Horse Park for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games 2010.

 2009 the American Saddlebred Museum will feature highlights from its collection in a special exhibit, Moments of Merit: Select Pieces of Saddlebred History.

  The International Performance Horse Development Association (IPHDA) wants to know, "how broke is your horse?" The new organization, which just completed its first competition year, is dedicated to helping its members develop "willingly guided horses" from the comforts of home.

  State and federal agriculture officials have confirmed three cases of contagious equine metritis (CEM) at a farm in central Kentucky.

  Two frostbitten, emaciated horses were recovering inside a warm barn on Saturday thanks to volunteers who spent the week before Christmas digging the animals out of snow in the mountains of northeastern British Columbia.

(AP) - Authorities are working to identify a motive or a suspect in a deadly stable fire that killed up to eight horses.

The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration plans to step up drug tests on horses.

  Appaloosa, Honkin Hunter, earned his weight and then some in dollars in the 2-year-old Hunt Seat Futurity at the Just For Pleasure Show in Perry, Georgia.

  Horse racing has long been a sport for the rich, but lately even those who can spend more on a horse than most people spend on a house have been struggling with the bottom line.