I’m just now catching up bc I missed basically the entire thing this weekend… but I feel like at the upper levels you should never get to the point where you’re eliminated for refusals on xc. Your horse at that level is not just refusing for no reason and after two, where your horse is clearly significantly backed off, it’s time to pull up and come back another day… just my opinion 
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Unfortunately, the decision to pull up a rider is so subjective. I was at the Maryland 5* and had a very different impression of the horse you mentioned. I think he should have been pulled up a good bit before getting to the jump where he just said “no.” It’s just an example of how this call is very subjective.
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Where can I find that?
I am pretty sure Doug DOES “work with a trainer”. In fact several.
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In the audio recording of the live stream.
thanks
Whew, those comments on IG!! Comments like these make me hesitant to post anything, even a feel-good-clip of my herd playing, on any sort of social media. I have a few (retired) geriatrics who are no one’s version of perfectly sound and I can only imagine the snark I’d see.
I feel so bad for Leah but think the GJ made the best call they could make with what they had that day. I agree he was not sound but its always interesting to me to see who gets spun and who doesn’t. Just my two cents, the more extravagant movers tend to hide an equal lameness better.
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Nor would I, and it was noticeable during the jog that morning.
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BlockquoteWhew, those comments on IG!! Comments like these make me hesitant to post anything, even a feel-good-clip of my herd playing, on any sort of social media. I have a few (retired) geriatrics who are no one’s version of perfectly sound and I can only imagine the snark I’d see.
I feel so bad for Leah but think the GJ made the best call they could make with what they had that day. I agree he was not sound but its always interesting to me to see who gets spun and who doesn’t. Just my two cents, the more extravagant movers tend to hide an equal lameness better.
We watched the jog live from our hotel (due to rain) and we thought AP would be spun/not accepted before it even happened. He just looked sore/stiff in his whole hind end. Unfortunate but the GJ made the right decision.
Also semi unrelated and not to fully derail this thread, but does anyone have hotel recommendations for next year? We want to upgrade from the one we’ve stayed at the last few times. Must haves are a full continental breakfast, easy to find, free parking, clean/safe, close to KHP, not crazy expensive. Thanks!
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You’d probably be fine posting videos of geriatric horses to IG, as long as they look healthy-ish. There’s a difference between a cute video of a retired pasture puff who is only expected to eat and poop, and a video “proving” a horse was physically able to jump a 4+ foot challenging course. Also, I imagine you wouldn’t be trying to imply that some of the most knowledgeable equine vets in the country don’t know how to identify a lame horse.
Whether LLG likes it or not, she is a public figure and her posts get seen by a lot of people, some of whom may disagree with her. It’s all part of the world we live in now.
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Oh definitely. I don’t think my 27 y/o QH could be coaxed over even a single 5* fence for all the best carrots in the world. 
It is refreshing to see how much our standard for soundness have improved, especially our ability for lameness detection, but I do wonder on some of the big forums like these if it is not a pack following with one person seeing it and the rest parroting the vitriol. Sometimes I click these comment strings and the person’s profile is of a teenager with a whole album of them doing teenagey cutesy stuff with their hose. As always, it’s impossible to know the credentials of the person behind the keyboard… For all you know, I could be a dog. 
I think those comments leave a lot to be desired in the tactful realm.
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If you are a repeat 5* rider who just got spun from Rolex, then posted an IG video showing a clearly lame horse, all while righteously claiming it is sound and fine to show jump… I kinda think you opened yourself up to the snark.
We’d have the vet out pretty darn quick for anything in our barn that looked like that behind.
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Totally agree here. Do I think the horse was sound? Nope and I agreed with the GJ at the jog, as a layman of course. Do I think she was smart to post that? Absolutely not. Did I also click on some of the Instagram profiles and find one of the.people yelling at her lunging a horse on a combination of mud and asphalt ? Sure did.
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Lexington Hotel…I am curious also…I stayed at the Clarion hotel four years ago when someone on COTH Forum recommended it. It was nice and it was clean. I am hoping to go again next year and wondered if it was still a good spot.
LMAO typical. I always love to click the profiles of ppl who make rude comments on Coth or H&H articles on FB…sure enough they always have some sketchy looking neglected horses in their photos or just awful riding.
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We’ve stayed at the fairfield inn over by cracker barrel for shows. Seemed newer, clean, not sure of the breakfast since it was during covid. I’m sure it books quickly though for Kentucky
Just to be clear – don’t conflate my reply with defending Leah or saying AP is sound. I think she is wrong, although the devil in me notes she said he was “a touch sore”, so she even pointed out he wasn’t 100% in the video. It was in poor judgment to post that video questioning the GJ and some of the top vets in the world attending.
I don’t think the comments are polite, though. Just because she is a high profile rider doesn’t mean she deserves internet cruelty.
Some degree of soreness is to be expected after running a 5* XC. That is part of the reason the SJ is after XC.
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I could almost give her points for the “touch sore” comment but she said it was from a pulled shoe LF, when he was very clearly off LH.
I obviously don’t condone internet cruelty, but I don’t think it is at all wrong to call her out. I also didn’t think the IG comments were that awful but maybe I spent too much time on reddit 
Upside when people post things like that publicly, you learn what you need to know up front about both their tact and horsemanship.
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That is one upside to being so transparent online - for both sides.
Your perspective makes sense. I don’t even bother with Reddit anymore. Maybe I am getting soft
One of the comments in specific went beyond the pale and called her an idiot/insinuated had he died from running she’d spin it into a sob story (paraphrasing).
Hopefully all parties learn a lesson from this, and hopefully AP gets what he needs and comes back swinging. I’m with the GJs that they completely made the right call.
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I think people lose sight of what they are actually trying to accomplish when they “call a rider out.”
Presumably, we want riders to do right by their horse, but when you (not Wanderlust you, general you) speak to a person angrily or with condescension, they are likely to write you off as an unkind dumbass instead of listening to you are saying and taking it to heart.
Two comments from IG that stood out to me:
“Home boy is definitely lame so perhaps the reason the ground jury thought he couldn’t safely jump in this condition is because they’re of the kind that it’s completely unnecessary to push an already lame horse to do that just because his rider wants to 
” This reads as unnecessarily snarky, and came from an equestrian influencer. I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but that is not the way I would speak to anyone in person and not how I’d speak to anyone on the internet either. And I hate to see it coming from a social media role model.
This comment however: “Even if your beautiful boy is just foot sore and will recover quickly, he is visibly lame in this video. The ground jury would have been irresponsible to accept him. We need to put horse welfare above all other factors.” Reads as a very similar sentiment to the above written in a far kinder way.
By all means we should hold people to a higher standard. I just think we can do it while being decent to one another.
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