FarAway Sport Horses

08/26/2026

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A new U.S. bill would stop helicopters from chasing wild horses.

A bipartisan bill in Congress would phase out the use of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to capture wild horses and b***os on federal land.

During these operations, low-flying helicopters drive herds across rough terrain and into temporary pens. Animal-welfare advocates say the chases can cause extreme fear, exhaustion, injuries, family-band separation, and sometimes death.

The Wild Horse and B***o Protection Act would require the Bureau of Land Management to reduce its reliance on aircraft before ending their use in roundups within two years of the bill becoming law.

Until then, aircraft used in roundups would have to carry cameras, and the footage would be made public with the agency’s reports.

But the bill would not end population management or all roundups.

The BLM says wild horse and b***o populations can grow by as much as 20 percent a year in the absence of natural controls. When herds become too large, the agency argues that limited water and forage can threaten both the animals and the surrounding rangeland.

Supporters of the legislation want the government to rely more heavily on alternatives such as fertility control and bait-and-water trapping, which draws animals into enclosures without chasing them from the air.

The bill would also require the Government Accountability Office to examine humane alternatives, their potential to create jobs, and the effects of aircraft on wild horses and b***os.

H.R. 4356 was introduced in July 2025 and referred to the House Natural Resources Committee. It has not passed Congress, meaning helicopter roundups remain legal.

Learn more:
"Wild Horse and B***o Protection Act (H.R. 4356)." Animal Welfare Institute

08/26/2026

🐴 On 27 July 2013, a mare named Anne gave birth in Front Royal, Virginia — to a foal unlike any that had come before her.

She was the first Przewalski's horse ever born by artificial insemination. The birth took place at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and it mattered far beyond one filly on the ground.

Every Przewalski's horse alive today descends from a tiny handful of founders. The species went extinct in the wild, and everything that exists now was rebuilt from captive animals, which means genetics is the whole ballgame. The single most valuable thing a breeding programme can do is get the right genes into the next generation, and moving live stallions between continents is expensive, stressful and sometimes impossible.

Artificial insemination changes that arithmetic completely.

The filly's grandsire was a stallion named Frog, at the time the most genetically valuable Przewalski's stallion in North America. His line reaching a new foal without him ever leaving home is exactly the point.

One birth, and a whole new option opened up for the species.

Does it change how you think about what conservation actually looks like?

08/25/2026

😰😡

08/24/2026

What an amazing round! Perfect.

08/24/2026

Kathryn “Kathy” Kusner: The Equestrian Pioneer Who Refused to Accept No 🐎🏅

Kathryn Hallowell “Kathy” Kusner is one of the most remarkable pioneers in American equestrian history. Born on March 21, 1940, in Gainesville, Florida, Kusner built an extraordinary career in show jumping while challenging barriers that once prevented women from competing equally in horse racing. 🐴✨

From Stable Work to the World Stage 🌟

Kusner did not simply arrive at the top of equestrian sport. As a young rider, she worked around horses whenever she could, including grooming, braiding and riding horses for dealers. Her determination eventually brought her to the United States Equestrian Team, where she became one of the pioneering women representing America internationally. 🇺🇸

Her competitive record became impressive. Kusner represented the United States at three Olympic Games: Tokyo 1964, Mexico City 1968 and Munich 1972. At Munich, riding Fleet Apple, she helped the American show-jumping team capture the silver medal. 🥈 She also earned team gold at the 1963 Pan American Games and team silver at the 1967 Games.

Breaking Racing’s Gender Barrier 🏇

Kusner’s influence extended far beyond show jumping. In the 1960s, she sought a jockey’s license in Maryland but was denied because she was a woman. Rather than accepting the decision, she challenged it in court.

She won. ⚖️💪

In 1968, Kusner became the first woman licensed as a jockey in the United States, opening another door in a sport traditionally dominated by men. She later competed as a jockey internationally and became the first woman to ride in the demanding Maryland Hunt Cup.

More Than an Athlete ❤️

Kusner’s interests were remarkably broad. She became a pilot, scuba diver and accomplished distance runner, completing dozens of marathons and several ultramarathons. She even performed riding sequences for Disney’s The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit. 🎬🏃‍♀️✈️

Her impact also reached young people through Horses in the Hood, a program she founded to introduce children from underserved Los Angeles communities to horses, horsemanship, responsibility and discipline. 🐎❤️

Kusner was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 1990 and later received numerous honours recognizing both her sporting achievements and humanitarian contributions. 🏆

Kathy Kusner’s story is ultimately about more than medals. It is about persistence. She competed at the highest level, confronted discrimination and helped change what women could achieve in equestrian sport. Her career remains a powerful reminder that sometimes making history begins with refusing to accept that a closed door must stay closed. 🐴🌟💪

08/24/2026

Horses have been around for a VERY long time.

🐴 A single leg bone frozen in Yukon permafrost holds the oldest genome ever sequenced from any living thing.

It was found at Thistle Creek in the Yukon. A horse bone, locked in frozen ground for so long that nobody seriously expected usable DNA to survive inside it. But permafrost is a remarkable preservative, and the researchers pulled a complete genome out of it.

The age came back at roughly 700,000 years.

The work was led by Ludovic Orlando and Eske Willerslev and published in Nature in June 2013, and it did more than set a record. It pushed the origin of the horse family back to around four million years ago, far deeper in time than anyone had previously established.

So the next time you are standing at a fence watching a horse graze, remember you are looking at a lineage that was already ancient before our own species existed. Whole ice ages arrived and melted away while that leg bone lay waiting in the ground for someone to come and read it.

Does knowing how old the horse family is change the way you see them?

08/22/2026