Hong Kong: Today, the hopes and dreams of Brazilian dressage fans were destroyed when Nilo VO sadly failed his veterinary re-inspection. Yesterday, after being sent to the holding box with Rogério Clementino, the veterinarians decided he should be re-presented 24 hours later. On this occasion, Brazilian team coach Johan Zagers shouldered the responsibility for presenting Nilo to the veterinary committee, and after trotting him twice, and following an extremely lengthy discussion, it was finally announced that Nilo had failed.

This weekend, Sarah was able to attend the Dutch Campeonate PRE in Deurne, The Netherlands. Despite the limitations of a small digital camera in an indoor arena, she was able to get some photos and basic videos of the morphology sections on Saturday. These will be uploaded over the day, and can be found here.

The Portuguese Equestrian Federation has selected Miguel Ralão Duarte riding Oxalis de Meia Lua and brothers Carlos Pinto riding Novatel and Daniel Pinto riding Galopin De La Font to represent the country at the upcoming Olympics.

The Brazilian Dressage team has been announced, and consists entirely of Iberian horses - pure bred Lusitanos. The team is made up of Leandro Aparecido Da Silva on the Lusitano stallion Oceano do Top, Rogério Clementino on Nilo VO and 16 year old Luiza Tavares de Almeida on Samba.

In some wonderful news for PRE breeders, owners and enthusiasts in Australia and New Zealand, ANCCE is planning to run Morphology seminars in Australia this year. ACPRE Australia has indicated that the seminars are tentatively planned for October, but more information will be made available when the plans are fixed.

Spanish website topiberian has reported that the PRE stallion Fuego XII, ridden by Juan Manuel Mañoz, is the first Spanish horse to be selected for the Spanish dressage team for the 2008 Olympics. A Video of Fuego XII can be viewed here.

A grave containing the remains of two people, 16 horses and a two-wheeled chariot dating back to Roman times has been unearthed by archaeologists near Lithohori, in the Kavala region of north-east Greece.

We received an email notice from ACPRE this evening informing owners and breeders that the current directors of ACPRE-Australia, Cristina Wilkins, Victoria Oska and Shayne King, are resigning their positions from ACPRE and will be formally closing down the organisation.

They will continue to process existing paperwork, but will cease accepting new paperwork. The organisation will be shut down in an orderly manner (paperwork will be archived and available).

ANCCE has been informed of the decision to close the association, and ACPRE has apparently been advised that "ANCCE remains fully committed to providing a full range of stud book services to the breeders and owners in Australia".

We thank Cristina, Vicki and Shayne for their assistance and wish them well for the future.

Click here for the full notice.

As most will be aware, ANCCE has also been working with the PREAA for providing services to owners and breeders in Australia; we hope that this partnership will continue. We live in interesting times!

Our three youngest mares, Corazon Morganna, El Caballero Corazona and Mayica La Nobleza were inspected at Werribee and approved for breeding today. Corazona is expecting her first foal next year, and Morgana and La Nobleza will both be bred in the coming season.

This year's valoration tour by LG PRE ANCCE for basic breeding revision is still planned to go ahead, from approximately 19th of May in QLD, ending up by the 26th of May in WA. Details are still being confirmed. We have been informed that there is still a little time to register your interest in having a horse valoratied if you haven't alread done so. Please contact ACPRE or PREAA for more information.

The deadline of March 31, 2008, which had been established by thet LG PRE ANCCE for stud farms to be updated and petitions for Ownership Cards, as well as for inscriptions of new foals without any additional charge has been extended until December 31, 2008.

ACPRE Australia has announced that the 2008 AGM will be held on the 28th of June in Canberra, with the exact location to be notified closer to the date.

So far, so good as we move towards the end of the breeding season... El Caballero Amara and Mayica Carlota have just had 17-day positive pregnancy scans. Both mares are in foal to Poseido.

Our last foal of the season has arrived! A strong, healthy colt by Weltmeyer. It is wonderful to have all foals and dams hale and hearty.

We have just discovered that of our non-spam emails have been filtered out and (eventually) deleted by an over-zealous spam filter. If you have tried to contact us via email and received no response, please accept our apologies.

El Caballero Amara gave birth to a pretty little filly at about 1:00 am this morning, very politely following Mayica Carlota's lead, and giving us two foals in two nights. Both foals are healthy and active. The mares all seem to be foaling early this season.

El Caballero Amara and her foal, ca. 12 hours old

"Hello, World" - Lottie's Colt at ca. 12 hours old

We can certainly attest to the efficiency of foaling alarms! Bellamie dropped a huge colt this morning at 1:20 am, about three minutes after the foaling alarm sounded. Dam and foal are both well, although we think it will take the colt some time to unfold his long legs.

AQ Morgan at 3 days old

This year, the PRE and PSL stud books have changed places on the FEI WBFSH's world ranking list - dressage by studbook. On this year's list, the PRE is in 13th place, and the PSL (Lusitano) is in 9th place. Click here to get the full results from the WBFSH website.