20 years ago maybe you should have been doing something instead of lamenting with gossip, almost apologetically. I would hope of the same situation occurred tomorrow, instead of “filing it appropriately” you might put the welfare of the horse and sport above personality.
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I simply don’t understand why these people are involved with horses at all.
You would think that if they were this driven to succeed, they could be successful in some other competitive sphere which didn’t involve the inevitable grind, hard work and disappointment of a professional life with horses. Its not like there’s a whole lot of glamor or fame involved.
The only truly abusive trainer I’ve ever known up close and personally finally admitted that he just hated the whole horse thing, and went back to his homeland and became a very successful boat salesman. Every living thing was very relieved.
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Honestly, I think a lot of people feel stuck in it.
Nowadays, you need a degree for the most entry-level jobs. So many of these trainers never went to college for one reason or another, and leaving the industry would mean starting completely over in school, which is daunting, or taking a massive pay cut to do something else.
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I think a lot of people are in denial. I know several well know riders and trainers and they all have used electric spurs. It’s a lot more common than people think, Andy is by far not the only one, he just was dumb enough to use it in a show…
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What really gets me is why is Devon Ryan with his past representing the United States? He got fired from one owner he rode for because he was dishonest with horse sales and the money and then Andy Kocher took over the ride on the owners horses. And then the whole blistering his horses legs and lying about it.
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Family, for him. It is probably all he knows.
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This industry has a collectively short memory.
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I’d love to know what they feel they are getting from using electric spurs. What issue did they solve? What did it teach the horse?
I would never use electric spurs on my horses because 1) I enjoy living and 2) it seems like using pain in training isn’t the best option if you want a willing, happy partner. But, at the same time, I have an electric fence for my horses, and my dogs have an invisible fence with electric collars. So maybe I’m a hypocrite.
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I haven’t thought your complex electrical issues through, however on the face of it, there seems to be a difference. You are trying to keep animals contained for their safety, (though shock collars for dogs I am not sure about) but electrified spurs are used to further the riders chances of winning a competition by frightening the horse.
Quite a difference in motives it seems.
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Electric fences also give the animals the opportunity to avoid getting shocked by respecting the fencelines.
Electric spurs used as punishment for unwanted behaviour, or to get the horse to go more forward, do not offer the same opportunity to avoid being shocked since the shock is triggered by the human, not by the horse.
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McClain ward was caught with plastic shards in his horses front boots at Aachen
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I loathe that McClain Ward continues to compete and win.
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Is there a write up on this, or disciplinary proceedings in the form of a card or warning?
I did go digging, a bit, but it looks like FEI warnings/sanctions are removed off the list after 2 years… unless I was on the wrong excel spreadsheet.
It was a long time ago. Probably 20 years or more by now.
I was not there, so I was not an eyewitness. The account I heard was that they did not actually find anything in the horse’s boots. They found stuff on the ground near the horse’s boots. Which is why now when they do the boot checks at big classes, they do them on a rubber mat that is swept clean in between each horse.
Make of that what you will.
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Thank you, good to know.
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There is still the tribunal decision posted
ETA this was a different decision on thermal imaging of Sapphire’s legs at the World Cup. The plastic in boots was from 1999 and they don’t have Tribunal decisions posted online that far back. It’s also not clear if he was sanctioned by the FEI, I think he may have just been disqualified from Aachen
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Follow up on the episode with Sapphire at the World Cup, when the FEI eliminated them from the biggest competition of the year while they were in the lead and then basically said, “Oops, our bad.”
And then this happened:
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/fei-releases-new-guidelines-hypersensitivity-protocol/
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I believe the horse McClain was riding with the boot incident was Benetton.
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I feel similarly about Devin Ryan.
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Goldika.
