cold mountain

Backed by one of the richest men in Australia, Queensland's Cold Mountain Stud has plans to lift the profile of the entire racing and breeding landscape in what promises to be a record injection of new blood.

The first sign of the stud's commitment came in Auckland yesterday with the release from quarantine of eight well-credentialled American pacers.

Four of the group are now bedding down in the Waiuku stable of Michelle Wallis, among them the 1:50.8 performer Fox Valley Appeal, while the others, including 1:48.8 pacer Spirit Of A Shark, are bound for the leading Canterbury stable of David and Catherine Butt.

The team, some of which will be prepared for the Melbourne Interdominions in February-March, cost $US600,000, but is just the tip of a swiftly growing juggernaut.

In the last few months Cold Mountain Stud has raided 60 horses, mostly from the east coast of the United States. One of its recent buys, Temptation, paced a record 1:49.1 mile at Colonial Downs last month, his ninth win for the season.

So far it has splurged $US1.5 million to stock the two properties it is developing in south-eastern Queensland.

Stables and fences are being built at the 80ha Lowood and 566ha Moore farms, worth $4 million, to house stallions and broodmares, which financial director Derek Payne hopes will "turn on a few lights" in the industry. Previously involved only at the hobby level, the directors of Cold Mountain Stud were now building a sizeable breeding and racing stable.

"We're looking at buying more horses," Payne said.

"It's a personal interest of the directors who want to bring a bit more life and excitement into harness racing and raise the standard of the industry for the benefit of everyone."

Payne said Cold Mountain Stud was a sideline for the directors of Mineralogy Pty Ltd., a small, but asset rich, privately owned company "with a great deal of mineral resources behind it."

Check out Mineralogy Pty Ltd and you'll discover he's not kidding.

The company is headed by Queenslander Clive Palmer, Australia's latest inductee to the exclusive billionaires' list.

In the annual BRW Rich 200, he is listed as being worth $A1 billion, a figure Palmer disputes should be more like $3 billion and rising.

Palmer, 52, a one-time property developer turned mining entrepreneur, is riding the crest of a boom in the price of iron ore, driven by China's modernisation.

Mineralogy holds the mining rights to more than 1000 sq km of land in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and in the last year has signed multi-billion dollar deals with Chinese steelmakers to mine just 10 sq km.

The company, explains Payne, operates in a different way from other big players.

It employs little more than a dozen people and does not get involved in any mining operations. Mineralogy does the primary exploration and makes the deposits available for others to "do the pick and shovel work."

Mineralogy has earned more than $A400 million upfront in the last year and will get nearly $A200 million a year in royalties from two mines which are flagged to produce magnetite for another 30 years.

It is estimated Mineralogy's entire area contains 50 billion tonnes of ore.

Palmer, who recently bought two Boeing MD-80 jets and a DC-9, was aware that racing was a business that took time, Payne said.

But Mineralogy's directors were an optimistic and confident crowd who have already booked corporate boxes for the semifinals and final of the Interdoms when they would hopefully be watching their own horses compete.

The eight pacers had been sent to New Zealand because their own properties were not yet set up for training and to sidestep any hassles with EI.

"We appreciate time is short. It's taken three months to get the horses here, with vaccinations against EI and quarantine in both countries. It will be difficult to get them to a high level of fitness in time but we're hoping."

Payne said Wallis and Butt were approached out of the blue to train the horses, both impressing the directors with their previous good records.

"We weren't specifically looking for beach trainers. But we're not likely to find that advantage here."

Payne said while Spirit Of A Shark and Fox Valley Appeal came with the fastest records, it was hard to know which horses would acclimatise best and adapt to a new style of training.

Payne said a decision had yet to be made which Kiwi trainer would be entrusted with their newly acquired eight win trotter, Racy Remarque (1:58.4) who flies into Auckland next week.
Snow caps were visible on high mountain crests along the Blue Ridge Parkway on Friday morning. The bare tree limbs were encased by a thin layer of ice brought on by freezing temperatures overnight. A light dusting of snow powdered the trees and patches on the ground in the higher elevations.

Visitors drove along the parkway to see the year's new snow and admire the mountain range's awe-inspiring view.

At the Buck Spring Gap Overlook, people ditched their vehicles to explore trails where specks of snow blew from the trees like glitter along the windy mountainside.

Larry Albano, 60, was taking a vacation from the tropical climate of Florida. He was keeping a keen eye on the frosty foliage along a trail at the overlook that has an elevation of 4900. His wife, two children and grandchildren gazed over Buck Spring Gap that seemed to extend forever over hunter green hills and mountains tops brushed with a hint of wintery precipitation.

"This is breathtaking, words cannot describe the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway," Albano, a retired principal, said.

He was visiting family in the area and they were all going horseback riding but decided against it because of the cold temperature. Instead they decided to take a scenic drive through the parkway.

"Now we are going to take the Blue Ridge Parkway home and eat leftover turkey," he said.

Dry trend ahead

Looking over the Blue Ridge Parkway, Mount Pisgah's treetop canopy was dusted with ice and snow almost concealing the deep color of the dark green pines that cover the mountain.

Fred Lancaster of Louisa, Va., and his family came up to the Parkway hoping to see snow.

"We just came up to be in it," Lancaster said.

They better enjoy now. Snow isn't much of a factor in future forecasts because the area is heading into a dry trend, said Bryan McAvoy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

"At higher elevations there may be little wintery precipitation but it will be of no consequence," McAvoy said.
Cold Mountain (film)
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This article is about the film. For the novel, see Cold Mountain (novel). For the mountain in North Carolina, see Cold Mountain (North Carolina).
Cold Mountain

film poster
Directed by Anthony Minghella
Produced by Albert Berger
William Horberg
Sydney Pollack
Ron Yerxa
Written by Charles Frazier (book)
Anthony Minghella
Starring Jude Law
Nicole Kidman
Renée Zellweger
Eileen Atkins
Brendan Gleeson
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Natalie Portman
Giovanni Ribisi
Donald Sutherland
Ray Winstone
Charlie Hunnam
Jack White
Music by Gabriel Yared
Cinematography John Seale
Editing by Walter Murch
Distributed by Miramax Films
Release date(s) United States
December 25, 2003
United Kingdom
January 2, 2004
France
February 18, 2004
Hong Kong
February 19, 2004
Japan
April 24, 2004
Running time 152 min.
Language English
Budget $83,000,000
Gross revenue $173,013,509
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
Cold Mountain is a 2003 film based on the novel by Charles Frazier. The screenplay was written by Anthony Minghella, who also directed the film. The movie stars Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ray Winstone and Natalie Portman. Rock musician Jack White, and actors Cillian Murphy and Jena Malone also had roles in the film. Although set in Haywood County, North Carolina, it was filmed mostly in the Transylvania region of Romania.

Contents
1 Plot
2 Academy awards and nominations
3 Legacy
4 Soundtrack
5 See also
6 External links
7 References



[edit] Plot
The movie opens depicting the events leading up to the American Civil War. Jude Law plays a Confederate soldier named W. P. Inman, who meets Ada (Kidman), and is at the fledgling stages of a relationship with her when he marches off to war. Inman experiences many battles and losses of friends, and as he is recovering in a hospital from a battle wound, decides to set off on foot for his home on Cold Mountain, in North Carolina, and to the woman he loves. On his journey he meets a corrupt preacher (Hoffman), an old and wizened woman, and a young widow (Portman). Through these people, he is able to continue his journey back to Ada and finds something out about himself.

Ada is a city woman who only recently moved to the rural farm, named Black Cove. Shortly after she arrives, her minister father dies, leaving her alone on the farm and with little prospect for help, as the young, able-bodied men are off at war. She is completely inept at working the farm, having been raised to become a southern lady ("I know how to make a floral arrangement, but I have no idea how to grow flowers...") and is struggling to survive at the farm. She manages to survive thanks to the kindness of her neighbors, one of whom eventually sends Ruby (Zellweger) to her, a young retarded woman who has lived a hard-scrabble life and is very adept at the tasks needed to run the farm. Slow, but well-meaning Ruby lives at the farm with Ada and together, they take the farm from a state of disaster to working order. Despite Ruby's mental handicap, they form a close friendship and become each other's confidants. They also are friends with the Swangers, who live down the road from Black Cove. It is at the Swangers' well that Ada "sees" Inman coming back to her in the snow along with a flock of crows. During the war, Ada and Ruby, and other members of their community, have several tense encounters with men who are members of the confederate home guard. Although the purpose of the home guard was to protect the south and it's citizen population from the North, they have become violent vigilantes who hunt and often kill deserters from the Confederate army and terrorize citizens they believe are housing/helping the deserters. It is with these hunters that Inman will eventually have an inevitable show-down.

Inman eventually finds his way to Ada and Cold Mountain. They decide to marry themselves, saying that an official marriage would be silly now and a waste of time. They consummate their marriage and start their new lives together. However, while fighting off the "hunters" mentioned before, Inman is killed. Ada goes to him, and finds him just as she saw in a well years earlier. He soon dies. The film ends several years later with Ada, Ruby and their families celebrating Easter. At the table there is a Grace Inman, who was conceived on her parents' wedding night.

The film begins with a vivid recreation of the Battle of the Crater.

Cold Mountain is a real mountain in Haywood County, North Carolina located in the Pisgah National Forest. However, the village of Cold Mountain as referred to in the movie did not exist.[1]

W. P. Inman (his first name was William Pinkney, although this is not mentioned in the film) was a real person from Cold Mountain who served in the Confederate Army, from which he deserted twice, and is reputedly buried in a local cemetery. His descendants still live in the area.[2] The real Inman served as a private in Company F of the 25th North Carolina Infantry.[3] He was the great-great-uncle of the novel's author, Charles Frazier, and his regiment did participate in the fighting in the Siege of Petersburg, including the Battle of the Crater. Frazier, a native of western North Carolina, very loosely based the award-winning novel on his ancestor's story.