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Membership News: Stories & Updates from ASAV Members
Last page update: 06/06/2010

2008 Membership Stories    2009 Membership Stories

June 2010	Marty & Chris Powers: ... looking back to a successful 2009 Marty Powers on Te Jat and Chris Powers on Debonair at the 2009 Endless Valley in Spring Green Pictures ©2009 GenieSS, Inc.   www.geniess.com
April. 2010	Karen Bish - Hawkview Ranch: ANNOUNCING..... SW Daniel’s first Jump Start filly!!! CONGRATULATIONS TO: Brenda and Kurt Sellner Bred: 2009 SW Daniel ShA x GR Majors Smokie ( a blue roan overo APHA) Born: April 29 2010 at 4:30 a.m. Barn Name: Spider - She has nice long legs.Registered name to follow. She will be registered with the ASAV as a Sportlo. And her owners hope she will have a career as a limited distance endurance horse.
Mar. 2010	Quoting Ellen Rapp out of Qatar concerning the last endurance race (75 miles): ""SA EDASHICK!! 3rd and BC. Her final loop was the fastest out of all the 120 horses. She left in 9th and finished in 3rd. She was pickn them off one by one. They would try and stay with me but would die off! Eda was flying!!! What an amazing filly! She was draggin us to the vet barn for blood work after the race with a chain over her nose!!! Congrats to the Breeders you do amazing work!"
Feb. 2010	Monique Vincent received the ASAV 2009 Shagya High Mileage Award during the 2010 AERC Annual Meeting
Feb. 2010	From Kilian & Drena Dill: Boy getting his tour around the farm and into the arena. LeeAnn does take him up to the railroad tracks and around. He is getting more and more independent of being away from mom and the girls up on top. 13.5 months old. I do feed him lost of extra food---eats more than any horse around here. Drena did mention that Z is in a growth spurt again---keep feeding him!
Feb. 2010	From Daunna Sellers: (quoting Ellen Rapp) Once again Sun Arab Shagyas rock the middle east! 6 days traveling across the country.....2 weeks in the desert to train.....9 hour and 16min ride time on his 100! Great Job SA BELSHAZZAR...it was my pleasure to accompany you on this great adventure!!! A Salute to you my friend..see ya in the states soon!!! ... see more pictures here ...
Feb. 2010	ASAV Horses going to Qatar: (update 3rd week of Feb. 2010) The first ever 100 for Zar (Belshazzar), the Shagya (Oman grandson)! Waiting for Ellen's story for our newsletter. The winner does a 100 in 6:20 (flat and hard sand packed roads). PRESIDENT'S CUP- USA, A SUCCESS ONCE MORE by Heather Reynolds Well, the USA did another great trip to the President's Cup 160 km race. Sir Smith was the first overseas completion in a ride time of 8:50 (36 place! so fast here), and SA Belshazzar did great as well completing his first 160 km ride in a time of 9:16. It was a great performance from both horses! The leaders set yet another world record. I do not know the exact time but it was something like 6:20!!! At the start Ellen and Zar went ahead of Smitty and disappeared into the heavy fog. Smitty had a slow start to settle him into a calm mind set for the day. Jeremy had to actually run a bit on foot to accomplish this. During the first loop we were last for a long while and the police escort and the ambulance trailer were following us. It felt a bit like buzzards circling. The slow pace worked though. After the first loop the pair was moving well and kept it up nicely. Smitty was accompanied by myself and our driver, Fahad (sp?) (Fahad translates to "Tiger".) and there was a groom who I don't know the name of, sorry. The driver and the groom were great. The groom would jump from the truck and run and hand Jeremy a bottle and then have a second bottle that he would run behind Smitty, while he was cantering, and he would pour water on his butt. Very fast runner, and very fit! This guy was one of Sheika Madiya's grooms. Fahad was a friend of Jan Worthington's friend, Jimal. As the loops ticked by Smitty happily galloped along. He loves that sort of thing. If you know Smitty you would know this. He was truly incredible to watch. Smitty had the third best recoveries out of any horse that finished! His average for the day was 2:28. That was with galloping and having usually just me as his crew, as the other guys were parking the car while I would meet and cool Smitty. Very amazing recoveries on Smitty today. Smitty did an average of something close to 19 kph. His last loop was his fastest. We were extremely happy with him. At one point today there was a string of camels being hearded across tha desert by people on foot. There were soooo many of them, probably 80 or so. It was kind of funny because the camels were just as scared of the horses as the horses were of them. So silly. Since the scenery was so sparse and the horses were so spread out the driver had an ongoing thing he would say and that was "How are you today?" He would say it new at random times with a very heavy accent and as the day grew long it got funnier and funnier. There was another time that the Black Eyed Peas, a band that I like, came on the radio. Fahad actually turned it up and I thought, "hey cool". But no, then he quickly changed the station to something local and that was it. Oh well, he was good help so I guess I didn't really care. It was warm during the heat of the day but never sweltering. If the wind was at your back it was the worst of it but for the most part there was at least a gentle breeze. The OC only gave us 7 cases of water for each horse. When we asked for more, before the ride, they said it would be enough and that there was a lot more at the venue. We knew better. By the second half of the ride we were begging people who had been pulled for their left over water. We were also refilling empty bottles and recapping them. It was what we had and it worked fine. Following Smitty on his last loop I video recorded some of him galloping along. I was smiling because I had done this earlier in the week and it had looked the same as when he had been fresh. He recovered within 2 min at the finish but we let him drink before vetting him so it was recorded as 4 or so min. After the ride Zar and Smitty ate for a short while and then went to the treatment clinic for fluids. The horses will be shipping home in 2 days and that is not nearly enough time to recover so we thought we should help them in any way possible. They had a few bags and then we tucked them in for the night. Jeremy had Baskin Robbins. Two scoops. I had the adult size, I can handle a non-child sized ice cream for godsakes. Well I am super tired now. We just had dinner at the...You guessed it, the buffet. Oh, last night they had "pineapple upside dawon cake" Yes I said Dawon. Tomorrow we are going to Dubai to ride with Sheika Madiya. Hopefully we aren't so tired that we can't enjoy it. I also hope that the cryptic directions that we got get us there!	Heather Reynolds
Feb. 2010	From Denis Atam: Lake Chelan Shagya Arabians (SHAGYA US) I was riding our stallion SHAGYA US today for the first time. He is a big boy and with lots of movement. We still have snow on the ground as you can see therefore I had to take it slow (slow was still fast, but it was ok). See more pictures here ...
Feb. 2010	ASAV Horses going to Qatar: (update 1st week of Feb. 2010) From Daunna Sellers: (quoting Ellen Rapp - rider in the middle) (Zar) What an amazing horse. Today I took him out for our first ride...just walk for 2 hours. He is very relaxed and loose! As you know the statistics on this ride are not very good. however we are just here to finish a good race. Nothing fancy...so as long as the stress of the trip didn't impact him too much we should do fine. Lots of horses got shipping fever from the trip and the other US horse lost lots of weight..so I'm VERY happy with how Zar looks! He enjoys basking out in his paddock and relaxing in the cool private barn with just us two horses...fans and all! We gave him fluids yesterday just to be safe and rehydrate after the long trip! So far so good...hope he does well. He seems to be very at home, only time will tell! I will keep you updated! He is AMAZING!!! GO ZAR AND SUN ARAB SHAGYAS!!!!! ROCK'NG THE MIDDLE EAST!!!
Jan. 2010	By Samantha Shuler: I am 15 yrs. Old. I live in London, Ohio, just west of Columbus. Last April, my aunt told me that I could take Spyder (SA Twin Spires) from their house in Kentucky to my house in Ohio and start working with him... ... read the whole story and see more pictures here...
Jan. 2010	ASAV Horses going to Qatar: (update 3rd week of Jan. 2010) From Daunna Sellers: I am very excited about these new developments for my SA Belshazzar. Ellen Rapp's comment today (01/13/2010) on face book. "I got picked to ride in the Presidents Cup in Abu Dhabi!!! And SA Belshazzar is the horse that is coming over!!!! Can life get much better??? GO SUN ARAB SHAGYAS!!!!! Just another great horse to represent!...
Jan. 2010	From Carolyn Tucker: Shagya Impressions in January at a beach in California ... Here are a couple of fun photos of Aerial (Bajar Granddaughter) and I having fun at the beach with wonderful warm weather and no one else there but us and my student riding an Oman son, Shadar, aka “LitalMon”… ... click here for more pictures ...