i have read elsewhere that the groom was with the horse the entire time, the IV drip was finished, it was late in the day, the vet had already gone off to “celebrate” at a party and it took him awhile to get back to the horse. not siding with either party, just mentioning what i read else where.
Oh that’s more exciting that what I had imagined! I figured the vet strolled in & met an angry AN, who voiced his displeasure & displaced the vet, after the vet told him to GTF over himself of course. A vet after a couple cocktails & an angry AN - to be a fly on the wall. And would absolutely explain the relative silence & lack of concern for public disclosure of vet displacement. But you wouldn’t want to publicly speculate about a vet who was likely under the legal limit.
I did a bit of googling on this a few months ago and here are some things I’m not seeing in this thread.
1)The vet was a UK citizen who works for a very prominent, large and successful UK practice. The first reports had him boiling hot, but it looks too me the PR crisis experts shut him up pretty quickly. The “spacial relocation” was not a NZ incident among NZers in NZ. You go arresting or having lawsuits and you get an international incident that makes international sporting news. Not good for NZ, not good for a large vet practice that does quite of bit of international work, not good for sport.
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The vet wasn’t the only one on team NZ to quit. The Chef (? someone in team management position I’m not going down the worm hole again to verify the position) quit immediately there after. AND in reports totally unrelated to the incident it turns out the long time team farrier quit working for the team at the same time. Maybe that’s all just a co-incident, but personally I doubt it. I think there is a good chance that the folks left standing at TeamNZ said it’s him or us and there aren’t that many of us left. Life is too short to work for an organizations that allows it’s employees to be verbally and physically abused by some ass. Talk about potential lawsuits.
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The way to get quality care in the future for your horse is NOT to physically abuse a vet whose past performance (which cannot be changed at this point) you are unhappy with. So anyone who says AN lost control because he cared about his horse has it exactly wrong. Wanting the best for your horse means you don’t antagonize those employed to look after its care even if it means holding your temper.
Lastly on a personal note: I do not and will not give to the USET. Many, many years ago I was a volunteer at an event that took place shortly after a big international team competition. A Team member treated me like crap. I have not been that poorly treated by a competitor before or in the decades since. I’m sorry, if you are representing the USA in international competition you have a responsibility to be and behave as a sportsman. So it begs the question, if I withhold my funds, who in NZ is withholding their’s for the reason that AN is such an ass to apparently everybody?
Sport in New Zealand is funded by the government and the lottery. The passing-the-hat, junk-mail method of funding is more a US thing.
Rather than withholding funds from NZ eventing, funding for the sport has increased over the last couple of years, in part due to AN’s stint as World #1. (You can look this up, it was reported at the time, with AN singled out as a star.) I believe there was also an extra grant for NZ HP eventers to purchase quality horses.
Eventing in NZ is in the enviable position of being a targeted sport. Like in Canada, NZ has a scheme to fund sports in which medals are considered a real possibility. Unlike in Canada, eventing is seen as one of those sports, and is funded quite generously. Funding means money for all forms of support and competition – not to mention horse purchases – and there’s also carding for qualified athletes.
Other have pointed out that the vet was off ‘celebrating’. Whatever the case, and whatever the degree of affection AN has for his horses (even if it’s none), there was a serious disagreement over the treatment of the horse. Everyone seems to agree on this. AN admits he acted badly. Not sure where the vet stands on this, but it’s not disputed that he wasn’t near the horse.
NZ HP Eventing might have lots of internal dysfunction that is unrelated to AN. In all this news, there’s quite a bit of evidence of that. I suspect there’s various factions and attempts to fortify one’s own factions, and this puts people in uncomfortable positions that have nothing to do with the job they signed on for.
The real bind for ESNZ is that funding is pegged to results. Results in Rio will matter. If ESNZ leaves AN behind and then fails to medal, this could mean a preventable and substantial drop in funding. On the day-to-day level, funding matters most to the staff and admin that populate sport orgs – their jobs are on the line if the money’s no longer there. Although it’s not something that the sporting public is usually privy to, this is a very powerful motivator in sport.
[QUOTE=brindille;8212109]
Ever seeing him walk away from his horse in frustration after it had just fallen and was struggling to get up - without so much as a pat, and without knowing if it was okay - I’ve had absolutely zero respect for the guy. I’ll never erase the memory of watching the poor fence judge coaxing the horse to its feet while AN walked away, slamming down his crop. I don’t care if he cheats on his wife, but that level of self-serving heartlessness has forever scarred me![/QUOTE]
i believe that was clayton fredericks that did that
[QUOTE=Bastile;8213425]
i have read elsewhere that the groom was with the horse the entire time, the IV drip was finished, it was late in the day, the vet had already gone off to “celebrate” at a party and it took him awhile to get back to the horse. not siding with either party, just mentioning what i read else where.[/QUOTE]
If this is/were true, then I can understand his upset. To throw someone, it still doesn’t make it okay. But he should’ve started hounding on everyone, not just the vet, anyone to get the vet there. But physical action, no it’s not ok. EVER.
I think NZ will be just fine without AN at an international competition…
[QUOTE=JER;8213499]
Sport in New Zealand is funded by the government and the lottery. The passing-the-hat, junk-mail method of funding is more a US thing. [/QUOTE]
There are people and relationships that every team, from every sport, in every country must nurture to have success regardless of where their funding comes from. I have little doubt that AN at some time or another has pissed some of those people off and had to have someone come along behind him to clean up his messes.
For example: How many farriers in NZ (pop 4.4M) do you think there are that can handle shoeing at an international sport level? How many top farriers will work for a prima donna? The people and business models that cater to the top of any market are generally also the most successful that don’t need your business.
If vet tossing was introduced to gauge rider fitness, there would have to be vets of different weights since competitors come in all sizes and the weight ratio of vet to competitor would have to be equal (to be fair).
Thus, many vets would be required. The team vet couldn’t be used, they might be needed and not of the proper weight to suit all team members. So, it would take a pool of volunteer vets.
I think a farrier toss might be a better idea. Most farriers are pretty tough…and more likely to volunteer.
"3) The way to get quality care in the future for your horse is NOT to physically abuse a vet whose past performance (which cannot be changed at this point) you are unhappy with. So anyone who says AN lost control because he cared about his horse has it exactly wrong. Wanting the best for your horse means you don’t antagonize those employed to look after its care even if it means holding your temper. "
I do not get this --as a general matter–keeping your mouth shut when you do not like a service provided never improves the service. it usually keeps going down hill. And if the vet was partying when still on duty shame on him/ her too.
[QUOTE=subk;8213757]
For example: How many farriers in NZ (pop 4.4M) do you think there are that can handle shoeing at an international sport level? How many top farriers will work for a prima donna? The people and business models that cater to the top of any market are generally also the most successful that don’t need your business.[/QUOTE]
All but one of NZ’s HP squad live in the UK. Clarke Johnstone is the only one that lives in NZ. Chances are the farrier that joins the team in competition is not NZ-based.
NZ has a very robust competitive equestrian culture, although truly international competitions are hard to come by when you are thousands of miles from anywhere and your country has extremely strict (for good reason) policies on quarantine and importation of horses.
The problem with being a ‘team’ farrier or vet or coach is that your regular clients – the clients with whom you’ve built your successful business that caters to the top of the market – will find themselves missing you. This is a very easy way to lose business. Clients call a vet who’s there, a farrier who can maintain a regular schedule, a coach that isn’t alway off doing more important things.
In other sports, I know national team coaches who’ll take the appointment only for a limited time, because they have to maintain their regular club/team/business. But this is ok because everyone knows there’s a bit of a revolving door. It’s good business to have your name out there as national team coach, but then you need to be able to sustain that business.
(The USET, who pays six-figures to a part-time national team coach, is something of an anomaly. It’s a lifetime position which all evidence indicates is not dependent on positive results or any form of success. You can fail to finish a team for years on end and still keep the job.)
And, IME, if a prima donna pays the bills and generates business, you keep them as a client. I should mention here that I’ve put about twenty years’ of hard labor into the movie/TV industry. I know from my prima donnas. 
When you accept funding from an organization there is a relationship there that behooves you to be a team player.
[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;8213991]
When you accept funding from an organization there is a relationship there that behooves you to be a team player.[/QUOTE]
Really? How so?
It might work that way. It might not. Your funding will have contingencies, and what behooves you is to fulfill those expectations.
Funding is most often pegged to results. There are many reasons for this, one of which is that subjective criteria for awarding funding often lead to much time spent in courtrooms. Another reason is because funding institutions are looking to support winners.
If you have great results, but are not deemed a ‘team player’, what does that mean? That you shouldn’t be selected because you don’t play the political game of kissing up to the right people? That’s subjective, isn’t it? If you’re disruptive to other athletes, there are established ways of dealing with that. Not at all uncommon in the sport world.
I have elite athlete friends who are the nicest people and the best team players you’ll ever meet. Everybody loves them. And guess what? When they didn’t get the results that were specified for them, they lost their funding. So really, it doesn’t matter at all if you’re a team player.
Apparently it matters to the NZ PTB. 
Just my IMO based on having 3 older brothers who, up into their teen years tussled with one another. They had a few altercations with others in their early twenties, but very rare and it ended as they developed other skills to diffuse situations.
A long way to say it is normal for young males, of most species to fight in order to gain rank. Most human males change the fighting form to more acceptable formats such as education, knowledge, money, etc.
Those who continue to be physical are generally marked down and isolated by their peers. Not to mention everyone knows about that individual’s tendency to punch or “spacial relocation”.
In all of this discussion no one has mentioned that AN has a history of being so physical with others. So I have to wonder what caused someone, with a history of a temper but no physical action, to suddenly grab an official and toss him. This action is cause for a FEI investigation and possible yellow card. But nothing was done.
Seems to me there is far more to this story than we will ever know. The people involved are currently of of the “team” and are keeping their respective mouths closed on the matter.
It’s possible that AN grabbed the vet’s lapels, stuck his face in the vet’s face, and argued/cursed/yelled while the vet voluntarily moved backwards 12 feet down the aisle until AN released him. I can see this picture in my head but can’t describe it.
I will say that per my 2010 WEG experience, UL riders are VERY, VERY keyed up after XC, and I witnessed a similar, but not physical, explosion towards officials from a US rider the night after XC.
Heck - remember when Princess Anne blasted off at reporters, and at the time I didn’t blame her.
Wisely put, fooler.
As a connoisseur and chronicler of FEI yellow cards, I recall a few eye-popping infractions involving harassment of officials, vets and, in one :eek: incident, another competitor’s horse by an overzealous mum. (That last one was in NZ.) There was also an incident in which a long-standing NZ eventer-turned-coach disrupted a technical meeting. The FEI got involved in all of these situations.
But not the AN-vet situation at WEG. It’s an FEI barn, which are not supposed to be left completely unattended in an official sense.
[QUOTE=omare;8213940]
"3) The way to get quality care in the future for your horse is NOT to physically abuse a vet whose past performance (which cannot be changed at this point) you are unhappy with. So anyone who says AN lost control because he cared about his horse has it exactly wrong. Wanting the best for your horse means you don’t antagonize those employed to look after its care even if it means holding your temper. "
I do not get this --as a general matter–keeping your mouth shut when you do not like a service provided never improves the service. it usually keeps going down hill. And if the vet was partying when still on duty shame on him/ her too.[/QUOTE]
Ummm…There is a whole range of options in managing people for their best performance that fall somewhere between physical violence and silence.
Seems to me you just proved my point. Trying to run a HP team in a foreign country 10,000 miles from home and being reliant on non-nationals might engender the need to be able to build relationships beyond what money can by you. And the farrier that quit was a NZ national that decided the job no long held enough appeal for him to live so far away from home.
I do think you are absolutely right though, that Team managment probably has it’s own dysfunction above and beyond the AN Problem. Government funding and it’s fickleness is probably a big part of it.
Unless you were there on that day, who knows what exactly happened. And there will always be different perceptions.
I have heard AN can be difficult, but I would imagine you would need some sort of steely determination to get to be winning and placing at that level consistently.
ESNZ isn’t without its share of discrepancies.
