SuperShorts: Just say neigh

There's drama in the world of top-class equestrianism. The "blue-tongue scandal" rocking the British Horse Society has led to demands an urgent inquiry into the warm-up techniques used on the world's top horses. Footage on YouTube shows Swedish rider Patrik Kittel at October's World Cup dressage qualifiers at Odense in Denmark warming up his horse, Watermill Scandic, using a technique called rollkur - the practice of drawing the horse's neck round in a deep curve so its nose almost touches its chest. Stuck in hyperflexion, the horse's tongue appears to loll out and go blue. Kittel has since received death threats and maintains the horse's tongue merely got stuck in the bit. "Scandic sometimes plays with his tongue. During the filmed period of my training, he caught his tongue over or between the bits. I stopped when I noticed and put it back in the right place."

Mr Minto! Get thee to Karaka!

The black portal

As a new decade begins, SuperShorts pauses to salute the naffest marketing campaign in world sport from the Noughties: Take a bow adidas and the New Zealand Rugby Union!

"This is not a jersey. This a portal through which men pass. This is not material. This is fabric that binds us together. This is not a souvenir. This is a reminder of all who have worn it before us. This is not black. This is the absence of fear. This is not a uniform. This is a country unified. This is not a jersey only 22 men wear. This is a jersey fitted for four million people."

That's odd, because it sure does look a bit like a jersey.

All a loan

The sharks are circling for Pompey. The south coast strugglers are bottom of the table and the Premier League's bosses have put a transfer ban on them until they clear their debts. We must applaud the new financial prudence. To recap: Portsmouth presently have $130 million worth of debt hanging over their heads. Presumably the FA and the Premier League will also put transfer bans on Manchester United ($1.4 billion worth of debt) and Liverpool ($650 million worth of debt) ...

Game over

Gulp. Grim reading for sports journos. The geniuses in charge of managing the Washington Times have axed the sports section. One journalist got into grief for posting a message on their Twitter account: "Times sports section is kaput. Make sure to call and cancel subscriptions after Friday."

But fear not sports fans, the newspaper was launched in 1982 by the Reverend Sun Myung-moon's Unification Church - AKA the Moonies. Sports section culls for the regular press (ie, us) are (as yet) unheard of.

Imperfect timing

It must have seemed such a good idea at the time. Tiger Woods agreed to get buff for Annie Leibowitz's camera way back in 2006 when his philandering was a private matter between him, his wife, his 16 mistresses and anyone who happened to walk past that church carpark. Vanity Fair have stung golf's great shagger by putting his shirtless, gun-pumping pose on the cover when his marital stock is at its lowest.

A row deal

Congratulations to Duncan Grant who is, we're told, a rower. But how on Earth did David Tua not make the list of Halberg finalists?