Sixty-nine-year-old former jump jockey Richard Pitman just donated one of his kidneys to a stranger.

How’s that for heart?

As good as any ‘chaser.  Mr. Pitman decided to give away a kidney after watching a friend suffer from kidney failure and then blossom after receiving a donated kidney.  “The point is you have two and you only need one,” he said.

Today, Mr. Pitman is a BBC TV commentator on the sport in which he once successfully competed.  And he knows of what he speaks.  He won both the King George VI Chase and the Whitbread Gold Cup.  He rode Crisp in the Grand National of 1973, one of the great sporting contests of all time.

How’s this for heart?

Continuing the discussion of rules regarding the welfare of the horse, it’s time to look at the FEI “blood rule.”

While this is, indeed, yesterday’s news, the subject will be revisited this spring, when the Veterinary Committee presents its proposal for a general rule that is valid and applicable for all FEI disciplines.   The rule will be discussed at the FEI Sports Forum this April, for adoption by the General Assembly in 2012 and implementation next year.

The elimination of Adelinde Cornelissen of the Netherlands at the World Equestrian Games, brought the issue to the fore last year.  Her horse Parzival, who was found to have bitten his lip, was eliminated after bloody foam appeared in his mouth.

Currently, in FEI dressage competition, any visible blood on the horse falls under the purview of this simple guideline for elimination: “The performance is against the welfare of the horse.”

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Until the other day, I’d never heard of a haplogroup.  But the concept is essential to our understanding of where horses came from.

Simply (or not-so-simply, depending on your scientific bent), a haplogroup is defined by a set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome and can be traced along a maternal line, right back to the original “mother.”

Mitochondrial DNA - bella, no?

The first complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of the horse was reported in 1994.   Now, a research team headed by Alessandro Achilli, from the department of cellular and environmental biology at the University of Perugia in Italy, has made a breakthrough discovery. Analyzing equine mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited solely from the mother), the team has discovered how many horse haplogroups exist as well as identified the Ancestral Mare Mitogenome.  You can read the full article here.

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Did you catch the premiere of the new HBO series “Luck“?

I did, and I’m amused to breathe in the vapor of Miami Vice in director Michael Mann’s newest series, along with the feast of gritty-and-oblique dialog that is David Milch’s hallmark (Deadwood).  My only problem is atmosphere overtaking unintelligible dialog.

Rant break:   I know I’m getting older, but I am so tired of films and TV shows in which actors mutter.  No doubt we have the best sound engineering we’ve ever had, but what is it with the whispering?  Is it because I have an ordinary television rather than a media system?  Is it because I can’t hear so well out of my left ear (and my Yankee-Irish horse whispering boyfriend can’t hear so well out of either ear)?  Are we the only two people with this problem?

Nick Nolte is one of my favorite actors and I’m hooked on his character in Luck.  Seedy with a heart.  I wonder if he sleeps in his shed row. (Interestingly, it’s said that Nick Nolte was considered for the role of Sonny Crockett in Miami Vice.  I’m so glad Mann didn’t try to even up the score by casting Don Johnson in Luck.)

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I love this song by Templeton Thompson.  Did you know that her horse Jane is a Breyer model?  You can learn more about her on her website, where the banner says “dream big…work hard…have faith.”  A great motto to live by, for girls and boys who love horses.

Thanks to everyone, here and abroad, who participated along with me in the protest against these bills that threatened our freedom of speech on the Internet.

Want to see the stats on the protest?  Here they are.

This “night message” was sent 121 years ago on this day, following the massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.  Sioux Chief Big Foot was killed in the slaughter that marked the last great conflict in the Native American wars.

This eyewitness account appears in the book Black Elk Speaks (1932):

“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . . the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.” 

But what of the ponies?

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Horse and Rider by Leonardo da Vinci, work on paper with silverpoint

This portrait of man and horse is one of the first works to reveal Leonardo da Vinci’s interest in the horse.  It was a preparatory study for his Adoration of the Magi, housed in the Uffizi Museum in Florence, Italy.  The work was created in silverpoint, a technique in which the artist uses a silver-pointed instrument on paper that has been prepared with a coating of powdered bone or zinc white, realizing a fine and indelible line of metal fragments.

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Following up on yesterday’s post about reading, I thought it would be helpful to me and possibly useful for you to find out what books I’ve been busy recommending and referring to in my blog.

So I started a list.  You can find it in the header, to the right of “About” and “Best of the Blog.”

It’s comprehensive as far as the blog goes, and will be updated in concert with new posts.  It’s not intended to be a “recommended reading list” and it doesn’t include many of my favorites, but I’m surprised at how many of my favorites it does contain — and how long it is already!

If you’re curious, you can find out where the books were originally referred to simply by clicking on them, which will take you to the post where they first appeared.

I’d love to hear your comments and I feel safe in saying that so will my fellow readers.  I know I’m not alone in wanting to hear what others think, what has inspired, what has illuminated and what has befuddled.