I’m going to try to coherently say the thing that’s been spinning around in my head since all of this started, because it’s a point of view I haven’t quite seen represented: statements like this freak me out. (Matt, not you ake) What do you mean you have personally witnessed this over the last few years? Did you do anything about it?? In this case, the answer appears to be unfortunately not, because he is “not ready to be the whistleblower”. Especially given the significant position of power and security he has when compared to so many others in the industry (grooms, etc) that’s a problem.
I do have my eyes open. I am paying attention. I based with a 5* rider for 10 years. I worked for him for some of that time, lived on site for periods of time, and was an owner of young horses before life took me to a different area of the country. As staff, I was oftentimes the first one in and the last one out. I would administer meds (as in, for allergies or antibiotics, not freaking IV magnesium), tack horses before he rode them, set jumps while he rode, and untacked after. Was everything roses? No, days are long and exhausting and not every day is a pizza party, but the shit that’s listed here just did not happen in that facility no matter how grumpy anyone got and it makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills when people put out statements saying “abuse is around almost every corner of every farm” and “most, if not all of our idols practice or have practiced some form of it”.
I’m not naive and I am certain the reports that are coming in are true, but telling everyone that this happens around every corner of every farm is destructive and let’s people off the hook and is just plain false. No, Matt, if in this moment we “condemn one” we should not “likely condemn all” because I don’t know what barns you have been in but they are just simply not all like this and telling people that they are is gross and unhelpful.
When I don’t feel like I’m personally going crazy, it makes me really, really sideeye the people that are saying it. Maybe I was at the unicorn barn, but it was a unicorn barn that brought home medals and sent horses around the world to compete, so it damn well can be done. It gives me the ick when someone publishes a big long list of things they have done wrong and then says:
You don’t have to lose control of your emotions to become someone who can “do real good in the lives of horses and students”. You can just be that person from the beginning.
I’m not trying to come down so specifically hard on him as I am, because I do think admitting your mistakes is critical, and I respect people who do it with honesty, but these posts are becoming more and more common and lauding them and holding them up as examples of our best sits very poorly with me.
On the other hand, I then think this post somehow swings too far to the other extreme. You get comments like:
I don’t remember that Kentucky round, so maybe he did overuse it, I’m not commenting on that. But the use of a whip (never, ever to beat a horse, but as a timing aid) is not inherently abusive, and I don’t think it does us any favors to start claiming that either. Mia Farley and Phelps over the Cottesmore Leap at Burghley last weekend is a great example. That fence is a bad fence for a horse to hesitate at. To avoid that mistake, three strides out she put her reins in her left hand and dropped her right hand with her stick down near her right leg. When she reached her takeoff point, she tapped him with it. She didn’t hit him, she didn’t beat him. It was contact that I doubt registered at any level greater than your average high five. But it said to the horse “3, 2, 1, go!” and they stepped over the fence with confidence and continued on. That’s not abuse, and I have no problem with it being legal - in fact, I would have a problem if it wasn’t.
Of course a whip can be used negatively - I’ve ridden horses that have been treated poorly before they came to me, and you couldn’t carry a whip with them at all they were so afraid. But on the other hand, my horses couldn’t care less what I do with my whip, except when I don’t use it to remove the biting bugs fast enough, and I don’t have a problem with people knowing I carry one. A whip is not inherently a tool of abuse, and I think portraying it as such is also very detrimental.
…that was long and rambling but @ake987 you asked how we interpreted it and what we take away from it and, well, that’s what I’ve got right now. Less coherent than usual, probably, and for that I apologize. There hasn’t been much about this situation from any direction that has made me feel good over the past few days.
One other note:
Oh my god.
It’s not a mistake if that’s how you operate. End of story.
