Downeast Medal Finals

August 2024

September 12-15, 2024

Visit our website for more information about Downeast. We welcome all feedback and suggestions: please email Ginger at ginger@downeastmedalfinals.com

Message from the President

Happy August! The show season is well underway and we have a lot of riders out there earning points and already qualified. Congratulations to all of you!! For all qualified riders, if your name is in red on the points page we need your contact information in order to be able to mail you your qualification letter and medal. Please send your address to katie@downeastmedalfinals.com.

The information for all of the available scholarships is posted on the website. The deadline is August 7th for the applications to be in. Once the selection is made the individuals will be notified. All notes to the donors need to be received no later than August 20th or the scholarship will be awarded to the next applicant. We already have some applications in, so be sure to get yours written. If you know someone who may be struggling to attend finals please let them know about these opportunities! We truly want everyone to be able to come and enjoy the show.

The prizelist is posted on the homepage of the website. We are excited to be able to offer yet another Derby, this one for the 2’ Mini Medal riders. All of the specs can be found in the prizelist, as well as the stall form, camper/tent form, and entry blank. Entries close August 20th, meaning that the postmark can be no later than 8/20, however we really do appreciate those who are able to get theirs to us early. For the past several years we have awarded some wonderful prizes to the rider/trainer/barn of the first entries received!

All of your favorite classes are back: The Team Challenge (random draw will decide which riders will actively participate but Ginger is always looking for extra help), the Pro/Am, the Horsemanship Challenge (the scores are from a written test, your over fences score, then the top 6 from each age group do a Practicum with the Vet, Blacksmith and Steward), as well as all of the Derbies. Friday afternoon be sure to enjoy the complimentary exhibitors party during the Team Challenge!

Even if you don’t qualify you can still show, just not in the Medal Finals on Sunday. So, come to the show anyway and enjoy a fun weekend of competitive showing!

Thank you so much to the support from all of our sponsors and advertisers as well as all of the shows that offer our classes throughout the year. We would not be able to do what we do without their generous support! Please, please support these businesses and tell them that you ride at DMF!

Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

We are excited to see all of you in September!

Ginger and the DMF crew

2023 DMF Judge's Choice Best Horse

Firobantos (aka "Franklin") won the Judge's Choice Best Horse at the 2023 Downeast Medal Finals!

Firobantos was also 3rd in the 2'6" Hunter Derby and 4th in the Junior Medal Final, ridden by his owner Anneliese Banghart. Congratulations!

If you are a Downeast Medal Finals rider, we would like to feature you! Send your bio and picture to ginger@downeastmedalfinals.com

How Your Horse's Vision Differs From Yours

By Janet L. Jones, PhD

See that sliver of light on the sand, shining through a gap in the roof of the indoor arena? Every time she goes past, Hawkeye arches her neck and skirts the boundary as if it’s a rattlesnake. The sliver changes in size and shape with the sun’s movement, and the mare seems to see each tiny difference as a brand-new snake. When a concurrent sound erupts—say, the sound of a grain of sand sliding—she leaps sideways.

These are normal behaviors that reflect the way a horse’s visual systems are hardwired into his brain. We can teach horses to overcome them, but we can’t make them go away. Nor can we make a horse see the way we do. How we respond to his fear depends partly on our own vision, which determines our expectations of what horses see.

Since the 1960s, cognitive psychologists have shown that we construct sight using information from our eyes combined with knowledge in our brains. Things can go wrong at either end—the eye or the brain. A person whose eyes become blind still sees images and dreams. One whose eyes are intact but whose visual cortex is damaged often sees lights and shadows but can’t make sense of them. In rare cases, people who are completely brain-blind can grasp a coffee cup set in front of them or navigate around objects, responding to the physical world even though they cannot consciously see it. This ability, called “blindsight,” isn’t limited to humans; cortically blind animals can do it, too.

Occasionally, a smidgen of visual cortex is impaired so specifically that its owner—having otherwise normal sight—suddenly cannot see color, shape or perhaps movement. Imagine trying to cross a busy street with eyes that function normally but a brain that can’t perceive motion. Cars travelling 60 miles an hour become a series of still images stopped along the road. At the next glance, they’re still stopped, but in different locations.

Neuroscientist Gerald Edelman said it best: “Every perception is a creation.” The trouble is that horses create their perceptions in ways that are very different from ours. Visual information travels from the eye to the brain in both species, of course. But the human brain sends back six times as much neural information in the opposite direction, transmitting messages to the sensory relay station that captures incoming views. This wiring is infrastructure for perceptual interpretation: the effect of knowledge being melded with the eye’s pictures of the outside world. So, who’s more objective in seeing reality, you or your horse? Hate to break the news, but it’s probably your horse. His brain is less prone to illusions and assumptions than yours is.

Read the rest of the article at Equus.