My kingdom, my kingdom for a horse - as long as it's a Friesian

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We recently attended an endurance ride at Collie, Western Australia, mainly to take photos of the competitors. When it comes to endurance riding, the most popular breed is the Arab and most of those who want to do well choose Arabs. If you ride as a ‘heavyweight’ you might need a horse with a bit more substance so an Arab cross might be chosen. There are very strict rules now governing these rides. There are checkpoints throughout the rides where vets check the temperature, respiration and pulse of each horse. They also listen to the gut sounds with their stethoscopes and check that the mucous membranes of the mouth are pink and healthy. Ideally, the horse will have a low heart-rate at rest as this means the horse will be more likely to past the various vet checks during a ride. When checked, the horse is trotted away from the vet and back to make sure it isn’t lame and he/she (the vet, not the horse) will run their hands over the animal checking for heat or any signs of flinching from a sore spot. But getting back to the breeds, one rider was riding a very eye-catching Friesian. This is a breed native to the Netherlands and is always black. I don’t think this one, Alfie, is a purebred but he is certainly a Friesian. They have a high head carriage and high action. They also have more ‘feathers’ at their heels than most other light breeds. You can see from the photo that he will cover a lot of ground in a short time. Because of their eye-catching appeal, Friesians are often used in films, either in carriages or carrying knights and their ladies.