The government is to address “best practice” on tethering following a debate at parliament yesterday (20 February).

MPs raised concerns about the risk of neglect and welfare issues in tethered horses at the adjournment debate in the House of Commons.

MP Luke Hall, who opened the debate, said as tethered horses can be moved quickly it is “virtually impossible” to monitor their welfare.

“This debate follows the Break the Chain campaign run by the excellent HorseWorld trust, a leading equine rescue charity in the southwest, just next door to my constituency,” he said. “The Break the Chain campaign aims to amend the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to include restrictions on the tethering of horses.

“We are seeing horses being tethered all across the country, potentially leaving them open to neglect, cruelty and abuse, and potentially posing a danger to the people around them, too.​

“Tethering is not deemed enough of a breach of the Animal Welfare Act to allow horse charities to intervene. A tethered horse also does not have the freedom to interact with its own species, as the Act says it should. Leaving horses isolated has been shown to increase stress levels and stress-related hormones, which can cause them to display stereotypical behaviours that cause physical and psychological harm.”

Mr Hall added that long-term tethering is in “direct conflict” with legislation.

“In many instances authorities have not felt that the Animal Welfare Act is strong enough grounds to rescue [tethered] horses, despite the obvious suffering. It is therefore my belief, and the belief of the charity that initiated this campaign, that the Act needs to be amended to state explicitly what constitutes inappropriate tethering,” said Mr Hall.

Parliamentary under-secretary for Defra David Rutley responded to say the aim of the government’s work in this area is to “hightlight that tethering should be for the short term”.

“I should clarify that tethering is not a banned activity, as there are circumstances in which tethering may avoid a greater risk of harm arising—for example, if a horse strayed into a place of danger,” said Mr Rutley.

“The 2006 Act is backed up by a number of statutory codes of practice, including the code for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids. The code provides owners and keepers with information on how to meet their animals’ welfare needs and includes a specific section on how to tether horses and other animals covered by the code.

“Although tethering is not prevented or illegal under the code, the code does include detailed specific advice on tethering and how it should be done properly. It details which animals are not suitable for tethering and provides advice on a suitable and appropriate site—for example, a site should not allow the horse access to a public highway or public footpaths.

“The appropriate tethering of horses is an important issue that the government is taking action to address. We have put a number of protections in the 2006 Act, the code for the welfare of horses and the 2015 Act. The strong arguments made today and the concerns that have been raised mean that I shall call for a meeting with key stakeholders in the months ahead to see what more can be done in sharing and documenting best practice on horse tethering and ensuring that messages on best practice are more actively disseminated to horse owners.”

Tethering to be debated in parliament as charity highlights risks of ‘severe’ suffering

The charity received more than 5,000 complaints last year about tethered horses

Bright future for injured filly found tangled in twine

The youngster has returned to World Horse Welfare’s Penny Farm Rescue and Rehoming Centre to continue her education

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HorseWorld fundraising and communications manager Stephen Poole told H&H the debate marks a “major milestone” in the charity’s campaign to end the practice of tethering a horse for long periods of time.

“It’s significant progress and the best possible outcome from this adjournment,” he said.

RSPCA equine welfare expert Mark Kennedy said: “We are pleased to hear the government plans to hold a round table with key stakeholders to discuss the issue further and consider options, and we look forward to contributing to this.”

The birth of a rare zebra at a British zoo has been described as a “miracle” by staff and academics.

The healthy filly is the only surviving Hartmann’s mountain zebra female foal to be born in the UK since 2002.

She is also the sole healthy foal of either gender to be survive since her brother Jabali was born in 2015.

The filly, named Wakanda after a fictional country in the Marvel comics, was born overnight at Blackpool Zoo on 5 September.

Her arrival is crucial to the European Endangered Species Breeding Programme as there are only 9,000 individuals left in the wild and 235 in captivity. Of these, 11 are housed in four zoos across the UK.

Her dam Helene and sire Fernado are the most established breeding pair in the country.

Assistant head keeper Johnpaul Houston discovered the newborn foal when he arrived for work on 6 September.

“We knew Helene was pregnant but with stillbirth rates high in this species we never quite know if the pregnancy will result in a healthy foal,” he said.

“So imagine my joy when I first saw this gorgeous little one contently feeding from Mum on a rainy September morning.

“Of course, once we established that the youngster was healthy the wait was on to see if we had a girl or boy and it wasn’t long before we could confirm the news we had all been waiting for — a baby girl!”

He added Helene is an experienced mother and is doing an “incredible job” of looking after the filly.

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“[Wakanda] is a massive cause for celebration as she is the only surviving female foal born in the UK since 2002,” said Mr Houston.

“After a fantastic summer here at Blackpool Zoo this momentous birth means we have all ended the season on a huge high.”

Hartmann’s mountain zebras are native to Namibia and are most commonly found in the Kunene region in the northwest of the country, which experiences harsh environmental conditions.

Studies indicate that numbers could decline by more than 10% in the next 25 years due to increased hunting and loss of habitat to agriculture.

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday

Caroline Moore, former four-star eventer and British Eventing national under-18 coach and junior team coach, explains how you can use this exercise to develop your horse’s hoof/brain co-ordination

The aims of the exercise are to improve:

• Hoof/brain co-ordination
• Accuracy
• The hind-leg through the transition
• Rider posture
• Preparation

This is an exercise I regularly use when warming up for jumping or I teach it to a young horse to help the elevation in its work and to also improve the hoof/brain co-ordination.

To show you this exercise, I’m using dressage boards to trot over, distanced one metre apart from each other, but you can also use raised poles. Around 10-12m away, I have an area where I’m going to ask the rider to ride a transition, so there is a lot of preparation to work on. We can use the energy created from riding over the dressage boards to help the hind leg with the walk and halt transition. We then move on to some boards out of the exercise again — this is all about the transition forward into trot and gaining balance and rhythm as early as possible to successfully negotiate the second half of the exercise.

You can see with the first horse in the video, who is four-years-old, how this exercise encourages her to use her eye, and you can see that she is raising her toes just enough. This helps improve the core stomach muscles and raising the shoulder, so it’s a great exercise for a young horse — it’s like taking them to the gym.

Then in the downwards transition, you want to get four-five good steps of walk with the horse staying relaxed — it’s important to prepare this transition as early as you possibly can. Then move forward back into the trot and this is where you really have to work at regaining the energy to ride through the second set of boards.

This is a fairly difficult exercise but a really useful one. This exercise also shows how important it is to look where you’re going and stay in symmetry with the horse so that you stay in perfect balance, allowing the horse to soften.

Next we will make a downwards transition to halt, so you will need to do a bit of preparation using some half halts and thinking forward into the transition. Think of riding forward from behind so that you finish the halt off square.

Then you will ask the horse to move forward into the trot and it’s really important to get activity here. This is quite tricky to do because if they’ve halted, they often just relax a little bit, so it’s very important to ride forward here. The poles or the boards afterwards help with this because it focuses the horse on going forward.

Points to be aware of:

• Maintaining rhythm
• Energy levels
• Fatigue
• Praise and reward

More expert training advice from Caroline:

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As a Cheltenham Gold Cup and dual Champion Chase-winning jockey, Nico de Boinville has been fortunate enough to ride — and win — aboard some of the most eye-catching racehorses, including the Nicky Henderson-trained duo Sprinter Scare and Altior.

But on Sunday (26 August), he swapped a jockey hat for a bowler to be on the judging panel at the Retraining of Racehorses (RoR) Goffs UK National Championships.

A self-proclaimed “amateur judge learning the ropes”, Nico judged the supreme champion alongside his wife, Serena, a Connemara pony breeder, and experienced judge and showing breeder Jonathan Geake.

The trio adjudged 15-year-old former hunter chaser What Of It, ridden by Hannah Horton, as the winner of the coveted supreme champion of the show, to reserve champion Jack The Giant, who was shown in-hand by Clare Poole. Their show ring rivals included the 2016 Gold Cup victor Don Cossack, ridden by Louise Lyons.

“As soon as the horses entered the arena, you could see straight away how much presence What Of It had,” said Nico, whose showing background saw him ride at Horse of the Year Show and the Royal International as a youngster.

“He stood out from the start. We hadn’t seen them stripped beforehand, but his way of going was impressive — he looked exceptional.

“Judging is very subjective, ultimately you are comparing horses to each other and deciding which one you like best,” said Nico.

“There were some lovely horses on the night, but What Of It caught the eye from the start and fortunately all of us on the judging panel agreed!”

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For any racehorse, going under the lights in an arena is a totally different environment to what they are used to when in training, but how important is temperament in the show ring?

“Manners are still important, after all it is called the ‘retraining’ of racehorses,” said Nico. “As a judge, you like to see them trained appropriately — particularly when being ridden under saddle. The in-hand veteran Jack The Giant, who was our reserve champion, was certainly showing his enthusiasm of old, but minor things like this can be forgiven I think.

“As a jockey, I ride a lot of different horses and I would not say I have a particular stamp of horse that I favour,” added Nico. “Although, I do like horses with a classy and intelligent head, who have a nice way of going — a horse that is nice to look at!”

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday.

“If someone had told me last year that in 2018 I’d be winning a four-star grand prix, become double European [young rider] champion, jump at Aachen and then in a jump-off at the Globals, I wouldn’t have believed it!”

So said 19-year-old Harry Charles after a momentous three days competing in the London leg of the Longines Global Champions Tour (GCT). Not only did the talented young showjumper secure several good placings at this five-star show, he made it through to the jump-off for the prestigious grand prix, where he was competing against the likes of Ludger Beerbaum, Peder Fredricson, Michael Whitaker and victor Scott Brash. With just one fence down against the clock, Harry and ABC Quantum Cruise finished a very creditable sixth. Here, he relives this unforgettable experience with H&H.

“I only had about a week and a half’s notice that I was going to London, so that didn’t give us much preparation time,” said Harry. “But luckily my horses were up and running as we’d come off the back of shows at Aachen and Hickstead.

“I didn’t come to the show with high expectations — I’ve never even been to a GCT show, although I do watch the streaming from the shows every Saturday night, studying these big, careful courses,” said Harry. “I thought I might do OK as my horses had been jumping well, but certainly not as good as I ended up.

“The format of the grand prix really suited Quantum Cruise because the more he jumps, the better he gets,” said Harry. “He’s been close at the last two five-star grands prix he’s jumped at, both at Aachen and Hickstead and there I said to my groom, Dan, ‘I think he’s going to jump clear next week [in London]’. I was very happy to be proved right!

“The way he jumped in the grand prix was like nothing I’ve ever felt before,” said Harry. “To qualify for the grand prix was my goal so to jump clear in it was unbelievable. I pretended it was like any other class but in the back of my mind I was going in to a jump-off against Ludger Beerbaum and Scott Brash!

“We all watched Scott’s round as he was first to go in the jump-off and everyone’s jaw just dropped,” said Harry. “I just made a mistake with an extra stride where he faulted [at the penultimate fence], but he exceeded all expectations.

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“He’ll do one more show then he’s going out in the field,” said Harry of the nine-year-old, whom he only started riding at the end of last year, taking over from father Peter. “We know what we’ve got for next year and that’s a proper grand prix horse and possibly one for the ‘super league’ Nations Cups.

“It’s been the year of my life,” summed up Harry.

Don’t miss the full report from the Longines Global Champions Tour of London, including exclusive comment from John Whitaker, in this week’s issue of Horse & Hound, out Thursday 9 August.

Bespoke hats were stolen from tradestands while the shop owners were sleeping just metres away.

The thefts took place overnight on 21 to 22 June at Dressage at Hickstead’s premier league and dressage masters championships (19-23 June).

Flying Changes Bespoke Jackets & Tailcoats and Tidy Tack Rooms were both targeted.

“It’s very frustrating and disappointing,” said Sarah Cheetham, owner of Flying Changes.

“[The thieves] were very foolish, they’ve taken 20 unique, bespoke hats that are exclusive to us, made up with our own fabrics to match our jackets and tailcoats.”

She added this means they are instantly recognisable if they appear for sale or are worn in competition.

While the dressage competition runs at the same time as the Hickstead Derby meeting, it is at a separate part of the showground and is not under the same organisation or security management as Hickstead Ltd, the All England Jumping Course.

Sarah was sleeping in the lorry behind the trade tent when the crooks cut open the marquee and took the hats.

Among the stolen Charles Owen helmets is the Charlotte Dujardin display hat, which has her Flying Changes tailcoat fabric running through the middle and features red and white piping.

A grey hat with rows of pink crystals on each side of the piping is also among the 20 stolen helmets.

She added the team at Dressage at Hickstead have been “very supportive” and the crime has highlighted a weakness in the security, which they are reviewing.

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Cassie Capsey, owner of Tidy Tackrooms, was also asleep in a tent when thieves cut along the zipper tapes of the marquee to steal 10 Scharf UK helmets from her stand.

“They didn’t touch anything else on the stand,” she told H&H. “They took the protective packaging off the hats and left the boxes.”

She added the hats will not be covered by warranty and all have unique serial numbers on them.

Both marquees were locked at the time of the thefts and the store owners are hoping to raise awareness to make the goods “too hot to handle”.

Dane Rawlins, Dressage at Hickstead organiser, told H&H security will be reviewed.

“We will do our best to do whatever we can,” he said.

He added the team will be looking at improving the CCTV and making changes to the number of patrols on site.

In this week’s Horse & Hound magazine, out on Thursday 28 June 2018, don’t miss our full report from the Hickstead Derby meeting, including all the showjumping and showing action, plus don’t miss our six-page report from Royal Ascot.

We also have a feature on the much discussed whip rules across the disciplines and in this week’s ‘Vet clinic’ we find out how to spot the signs of sand colic.

A young handler made her in-hand class debut a winning one as she scooped the supreme accolade at the North West Championship show with her Welsh section A pony.

Six-year-old Honey Ohara led out her grey gelding Gilfac Zac to perfection to be called top of the 25-stong young handler class before landing the supreme accolade.

“She was the smallest in there by a long way,” said Honey’s mum Chloe, who produces their small team of ponies from their home in Rochdale.

While she is a super keen young horsewoman, Honey’s early years have certainly not been without difficulty. At age two she was diagnosed with hypoglycaemia and has been in and out of hospital ever since.

“This means she can’t tolerate a lot of food and often has to go on a drip,” explained Chloe. “I’ve nearly lost her twice.

“Last June, she was rushed to hospital and had to have a bolt put through her skull as she has chiari 1 malformation [where the lower part of the brain pushes down into the spinal canal].”

“She is on daily medication but despite all this she is so dedicated to her ponies and she has so much enthusiasm. She does her ponies every single day unless she’s in hospital.

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“When she was in hospital last summer she kept telling the nurses to hurry up and get her out as she had a Horse of the Year Show qualifier to ride in. Three days after she was out, she rode in that very class. She is just incredible.”

At North West Champs, Honey also picked up two fourth places riding her lead rein hunter pony, before netting the top in-hand title with Zac in the evening performance.

“She declared a few weeks ago that she wanted to have a go at in-hand so she’s been practising non-stop,”  added Chloe. “The judge told her that she has never seen anyone run a pony out so straight. Honey now wants to compete at the Royal Welsh next.”

An event rider has died as a result of an accident while cross-country schooling in the US.

Mother of one Nicolle Villers-Amatt fell as she was jumping a log fence at Morven Park International Equestrian Center in Leesburg, Virginia, yesterday (8 October).

The 40-year-old was treated immediately by medics and taken to hospital but her life could not be saved.

Ms Villers-Amatt had been eventing since the 1990s, competing up to advanced level (fence height 3’11”). She also rode the diminutive Theodore O’Connor, later ridden at the top level by US rider Karen O’Connor, at CCI* level early in his career.

Her husband Neil Amatt said in a statement: “It is with great sadness that me and my daughter lost my wife and mother yesterday due to a catastrophic riding accident.

“Nicolle died doing what she loved. It was quick and painless, and she was not alone – I thank Katie MacSwain for being with her. She was the best mother and wife any man could ask for.

“Details of Nicolle’s memorial service we will be announced at a later date. Please keep her mother and our daughter in your prayers.”

Mrs Villers-Amatt lived with her husband and two-year-old daughter Zara in Hamilton, Virginia. She ran Five Point Performance Horses, which produced young hunters and eventers.

Morven Park executive director Sheryl Williams said: “The staff and trustees of Morven Park are devastated to hear of the accident.

“We join everyone in the equestrian community in sending our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the rider involved.”

The horse Mrs Villers-Amatt was riding sustained superficial injuries.

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday.

Twenty-four-year-old Bella Innes-Ker managed to hold her dressage lead in the CCI3* at the SsangYong Blenheim Palace Horse Trials after the cross-country today (15 September). Riding Carolyn, she jumped round clear inside the time to stay on a score of 24.4.

“I’m so excited and slightly speechless,” smiled Bella. “It’s the first time we’ve gone inside the optimum time at a CCI3*. She dug so deep for me.”

Bella Innes Ker on Carolyn

The top two remain unchanged, with Pippa Funnell and MGH Grafton Street holding second on 26.7.

“He felt great,” said Pippa. “If you go out there and you’re not thinking about getting the time, it doesn’t put you in the right frame of mind. You need to ride forward to make these courses ride well at three-days.”

Oliver Townend and Ulises complete the top three. They also jumped clear inside the time to finish the second phase on 28.

“He’s very fast and has endless gallop, like [half-brother] Armada [on whom Oliver was second at Badminton],” said Oliver. “He made it feel very easy; he could have gone round twice.”

William Fox-Pitt, who first competed at Blenheim in 1990, is very excited about his CCI3* ride here this year, Oratorio II. They sit in fourth on 28.7.

“This felt so easy for him today,” said William of the nine-year-old. “I think very highly of him and he doesn’t know the meaning of the word tired!”

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Australian rider Amanda Ross, who was first reserve for her country’s World Equestrian Games team, is fifth with Koko Popping Candy, while Kitty King and Vendredi Biats are sixth. The top 12 horses all jumped clear inside the time across country.

Kitty’s second ride, Ceylor L A N, who had been sitting in third after the dressage, didn’t seem to lock onto a corner after a table at fence four. After jumping the alternative, Kitty decided to retire.

The final horse inspection will take place tomorrow morning at 8.15am.

Keep up-to-date with all the latest reports from Blenheim via horseandhound.co.uk and don’t miss the full report in next week’s issue of Horse & Hound magazine, out on 20 September