The North American Point-to-Point Association, founded in 2001 to promote and preserve steeplechase racing through amateurs and juniors, has been dissolved.

Started by amateur jockeys George Strawbridge and Mason Lampton, NAPPA operated as a 501(c)3, promoting point-to-point racing through foxhunts and educating juniors and amateurs with clinics and summer camps.

The National Steeplechase Association has formed a task force to evaluate safety issues in U.S. steeplechasing.

The Steeplechase Safety Task Force will include members with expertise in racing, veterinary science and race administration. The task force will look into events that occurred in the 2012 racing season, which included several equine fatalities, and hopes to complete its work before the beginning of the 2013 racing season in March.

After last year’s hiatus due to the Kentucky Horse Park’s work to prepare for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, the High Hope Steeplechase will return on May 22 with $70,000 in purse money.

This eccentric trainer scored his sixth win in the Czech Republic’s most famous race just before turning 57.

With nine days to go before his 57th birthday, riding on a rank outsider, jockey Josef Vana jumped the dreaded Taxis for the 22nd time.

Considered to be the toughest jump in Europe’s toughest steeplechase, the five-foot hedge with a huge ditch lurking behind it has killed 27 horses in the 119-year history of the Great Pardubice in the Czech Republic.