Incompetence?
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Itās so off the wall!
I mean, maybe you donāt want to withdraw sponsorship, but a response like āwe take animal welfare seriously, but also believe in due process. We will evaluate our partnership once the full facts are known and any investigation by the FEI is completeā is not that hard.
Instead they opted for the āDO YOU WANT HORSES TO STARVE, YOU MONSTER!!!ā which is one hell of a choice.
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Completely agree. This person is known for this!! Iām glad they showed their true colors.
Beyond unprofessional.
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I looked at the websites and SM today of businesses Andrew had listed in his Burghley post. Hereās a link - comments are enabled if anyone has updates.
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I saw this comment on the USA Eventing post, and thought it was a general good idea:
Time for USEA to implement disciplinary action that is recorded on riderās USEA number and is easily accessible for public record.
Much like licensed healthcare workers, we should be able to see if a rider (especially those at the top of the spot representing international events) has had misconduct. There should be a line drawn in the sand for how much misconduct is allowed until they are banned from the organization. This is a sport/hobby at the end of the day. No one HAS to be here.
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That is a good idea. Not perfect, but it give people something at least.
Itās late Monday in the US now, has there been no statement at all from AM or his camp?
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None that I have seen.
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Clever with leather replied to me that they donāt sponsor him, he bought from them. I sent the post where he was thanking them and noted they may wish to consider distancing. Nice enough response and I can only take them at their word, but given situation, Iād post something about never having sponsored/anti-abuse, etcā¦
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Iām still trying to figure out which upper level riders are defending Andrew McConnon?
A couple people have said here that is happening, where is posted and by who? @Benchmark? @AmmyHour926?
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It has been ions since I have posted on this form. So long, I had to sign back up for an account. Cypto sent me a rather similar response. I seriously doubt it is an adult or business owner who is responding to the messages. The response in broad strokes needs to wait it out for the young man to defend or respond to the accusations.
I asked them what could be the response? Iām sorry, I wonāt do it again? Or yes, it is me in the video. Because either do not deserve grace. It is wild to me they need more then the video for this young man.
Which I donāt understand how someone in their mid 30s is considered a young man. He is an adult, who made a lot of money in his career and afforded opportunities that most would have just dreamed of. I donāt understand why the grant did not go to someone who is at the start of their career vs someone that is 15 plus years into theirs.
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Iāve been thinking about this whole thing a lot in the last 24 hours or so since I saw these videos. The response from USA Eventing was subpar and very damaging in my opinion. They basically admitted theyāve known for months and done nothing
Weāve all brought up Charlotte, Parra, Helgestrand, Little, others. Except for Charlotte, it seems to me that the wider public is still somewhat ignorant of the rest of the people weāve all known for years doing this kind of stuff. Hell, One of the biggest blue tongue culprits out there won gold in Paris.
I now bring up the example of an entire Olympic sport whose purvey was changed forever by a few videos of two bad apples and āone moment in timeā that the public noticed and raised an uproar. Iām speaking of course of modern pentathlon. The German rider and trainer, perhaps somewhat unfairly, single-handedly brought down the removal of equestrian from modern pentathlon.
I say somewhat unfairly because I watched the videos of some of the rest of the rides in Tokyo and they were equally bad. I donāt know about the rest of you, but I watched Paris pentathlon and thought to myself āWell I guess that wasnāt too badā, thankfully.
After the Charlotte thing, and the wide media attention, it got in the mainstream, we are all kidding ourselves if this kind of stuff is not going to be able to be explained away anymore. Nor should it be.
If the governing bodies and the athletes wonāt do better on their own, then they deserve everything about to come their way.
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Thatās what I thought.
I have no comment yet on all the rest, but did anyone else notice how many weird very gentle pats Andrew gave his horse at the end of sj yesterday?
This was years in the making - Iād say that the punching incident is the straw that broke the camelās back. Their federation was ignoring the issue for eons and it finally came to a head at those Olympics.
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I do not doubt that you are correct. I never followed pentathlon until Tokyo when all of that drama ensued. I only watched this time because I knew it was the last time that equestrian would be in for the Olympics and I was curious if improvements had been made, or at least that it would not be an embarrassing shit show on the world stage
I would respectfully submit that other equestrian events are at a similar crosshairs at this point in time
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This is not true. Iāll clarify.
The pathetic, corrupt, failing UIPM had been planning this since 2016 or 2017. There was a contract drawn up; weāve seen it, this has all been documented in the interim.
The Tokyo situation was used as an excuse to justify the leadershipās illegal actions that subverted the sportās constitution.
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I watched it too and Iām sure @jer would have also. I thought the riding was really good this year.
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The abuse and blind eye really does run rampant in AM neck of the woods. I have scribed, stewarded for years at mostly dressage shows in NC but also scribed some eventing dressage in SoPi. I stopped because it was so disheartening to see the abusive riding and the blind eyes being turned by the judges and TDs and I no longer wanted to give my time to support the sport. One show, a couple of years ago, I was stewarding and a rider whipped her horse so much during the test that he had lash marks. The horse stepped out of the arena during the test so they were disqualified. I held her when she left the arena because of the lash marks and called the TD who was Sue Smithson, also from Southern Pines, home of AM. Sue laughed with the rider and said she would have whipped him too. She said she would ask the judge what to do but since theyād been disqualified already, there wasnāt really much left. I reported to the show management, should have reported it higher up and should have taken pictures. The USEF needs to do more.
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@JER iām happy to become more educated, as Iām sure others here are as well.
From my perspective, and I am in the horse world!, Those social media videos of the Germans, led to a huge uproar.
I see a lot of parallels here, and I mean no disrespect, but pentathlon is a much smaller world player than dressage, show, jumping, eventing.
If you have the time, Iād be very interested on your thoughts on the pentathalon situation and how it compares to some of the ābig three āsports and the endless videos and allegations that keep coming to light over the past months and years
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āBecause we love horses.ā Sure, Jan. 
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