Badminton 2017 Cross-country

[Madison]

@JP60

I think that was honest and heartfelt. It shows that not all is as it seems and I truly feel that she did feel hurt, letting her horse down like that. Life lessons are not always pleasant, but this seems to indicate she got the message. I look forward watching them again down the road.

This was my reaction as well. She made a terrible mistake, she can’t take it back, and she acknowledges she’s lucky both she and her horse are ok. I would imagine that it was pretty tough for her when she went back and saw the video, and saw how it looked. Not everyone would have been as up front in addressing it and owning it as she has been, and I was glad to see her put the vlog out and address it in the bad time, just as in the good times.

[devvie_continued]

@Divine Comedy

Yeah, that’s not what I’m saying.

I’m pretty polite to everyone I meet face to face, and I would happily take a minute to listen to this elderly woman, regardless of who she is. I would be courteous and listen. Any information or opinions offered I would file away and upon parting ways I would do some digging. If I found out she had reasons to know what she was discussing, i.e. eventing supporter as you say, then the information would remain in my mind and I would evaluate it as worthy of examination and possibly take action in my methods to implement it. This would be an example of my respect of her opinion via her resume essentially.

If I found nothing on her, I would discard the information. Perhaps I could be discarding a valuable bit of information, but if there is risk that it is a total newbie to horses giving me her opinion, I do not want to just believe what I am told blindly. This is an example of me treating her courteously, but not necessarily with respect for her opinion. Notice I still respect her as a human being. This is the difference I am trying to communicate between respecting people and respecting their expertise in a particular topic.

If I found nothing on her but began running into her again and again and she offered more and more conversations, revealing as we talked the reasons for her base of knowledge, all of the information and opinions would then again be regarded as valuable. This is an example of me initially not respecting her opinion but eventually, with time, coming to respect it due to continued exposure to her.

Asking UL riders to give weight to the COTH opinion, i.e. ‘Smurfs’ is about as effective as the second instance. Probably less so actually, because as a group we have both strong and weak levels of expertise, and those with strong opinions but lack of knowledge are generally the ones that ‘outsiders’ from COTH assign to us. If we engage those riders on an individual basis, we may come to fall into the third example, even if our experience resume is not particularly strong in their eyes.

This wasn’t directed at you in particular whatsoever, but I do think you missed the point!

[lep]

She says she should have pulled up “sooner” which makes it sound like she actually pulled up at some point. That vlog did nothing to change my opinion of the situation.

[Rallycairn]

@lep

She says she should have pulled up “sooner” which makes it sound like she actually pulled up at some point. That vlog did nothing to change my opinion of the situation.

True, Also, she said “Knowing what she knows now” she would have pulled up – honestly sounded more like knowing the consequences to her she would have pulled up – rather than owning that she made a big mistake by not recognizing that he was so fatigued that she needed to pull up.

She also stated she was letting him coast – yes, the pair slowed to a crawl, but I don’t call her use of the whip during the last part of the course letting him coast, or angling those gate fences letting him coast, or not recognizing how he was so labored his stride was falling apart, etc. And she will use the euphemism “yellow card” rather than stating what it specifically was for – horse abuse. It may seem minor, but use of language means a lot – just referring to a “yellow card” allows mental and emotional distance from admitting it was a sanctioned instance of horse abuse.

However, I can understand her feelings as she described them at the end after she fell – and her team did run up to take care of Simply Priceless. I do think she was more upset with herself, certainly not mad at her horse or anything like that.

Also, though I do feel she’s not quite owning her lack of judgment in the situation, what really counts is what she will do in future. Hopefully her horses and she will gain from her experience. I do think she will take this experience into account and tune into her horses more, even in the heat of competition.

[TMares]

I’ve long admired EW’s work with the mustangs and I think being in front of the camera isn’t something that is natural for her. Her husband flatly owns that doing all of this videoing was his gig, his idea. So they built a brand around this thing. Time will tell how much she tarnished it. I didn’t like what I saw, but I also know that I myself have done some bizarre things in a hot moment that would’ve been confusing on camera. Now that it seems every second of every moment is filmed and subject to endless scrutiny, our capacity for empathy and patience has waned. I don’t think that’s a good thing.

[Doodlebug1]

In fact I got so flamed for saying that Badders prep ran through springtime mud rather than Florida and Aiken conditions and that (in some contexts) British mud was a good thing.

That 5 years later(!) I’ve tried to find that thread to ask whoever they were if they are now members of shiteventersunite and maybe now they understand what the average (or even not so average 5* eventer) contends with through winter and spring!

Perhaps (perhaps) they can now understand what I was trying to convey…

I hope they have signed up!

[Jealoushe]

Damn 5 years later you’re still flamed?