How much goes to the FEI do you gather?
Either way, it benefits many parties that he continues to enter events.
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£500 per horse inc VAT and stabling might be a bit more accurate
Organising dues, calendar fees that the organising committee pays the FEI etc. for 2023 can be found here
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I agree with this, wholeheartedly.
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Apologies, deleted above, wrong thread - pre-coffee! 
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Article 527 of the FEI Eventing Rulebook states that “an Eventing Recorded Warning will be systematically awarded for the following offence:
a) Athlete continues after clear 3 refusals, a fall, or any form of elimination.
b) Any other case of Dangerous Riding
c) Athlete not seeing a doctor after a fall
d) Athlete leaving the venue after having retired, been eliminated or stopped during the Cross Country Test without having their Horse checked by the Veterinary Delegate
e) All cases of minor Blood on Horse caused by the Athlete either in the mouth or on flanks from spurs as a minimum or by stronger sanction(s) (as provided for under Art. 526.2).
f) for pressing a tired horse together with 25 penalties.”
A Recorded Warning differs from a Yellow Card Warning Card, which will be “systematically awarded for the following offence:
a) All cases of excessive use of whip, as defined above, or by stronger sanction(s) (as provided for under Art. 526.2).
b) Any other cases of Abuse of Horse
c) Excessive pressing of a tired horse
d) Riding an Exhausted horse coupled in addition to Disqualification.”
Bolding mine.
I can’t grasp them choosing the “recording warning” B offense rather than the “yellow card” C offense. That horse was trashed and exhausted when he wallowed over that table.
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After watching OT’s treatment of Swallow Springs, I just couldn’t stay quiet any longer. I put together a letter to each of his sponsors and messaged them through Facebook. I have received responses to five so far. Of those, only one company made my eyeballs bulge out with their response and support of Oliver. The responses are as follows:
MacWet Gloves: “Thank you for your concern. We have had a discussion with Oliver’s team and are considering our options.”
Suregrow UK: “As you rightly said, yet again one of our ambassadors and long-term user of our Suregrow products has made some bad decisions on a very big public state. We as yet, have not decided who we will be sponsoring this year, but with your views, and undoubtedly others, we will certainly be taking that into account. Many thanks for your message, Nikki”
GAIN Equine Nutrition: “Thank you for your message. Animal welfare has always been and continues to be a top priority for GAIN. We are highly focused on this topic and would like to assure you that horse welfare is of the highest priority to us. We value our relationship with our partners and will be monitoring the feedback that we are receiving on the matter. Many Thanks, GAIN”
Equestrian Arenas LTD: “Hi, thanks for the information, we will be dropping Mr Townend as a sponsor due to the poor feedback from the public. It’s such a shame as we intended to include him to get our RDA projects flying higher than before. Our charity work means more to us than any top rider profile! We are a none money sponsor to Oliver, which means we only advertise as we also do so much for charity. We don’t give him money or such like. Due to the amount of email about his ways, we are dropping him and also our contributions to the riding for the disabled. Thank you for your message, Matt”
…and the one that made me raise my eyebrows…
Cyclo-ssage Equine Massage: “I appreciate your right to your point of view. I can however assure you that there are not and never have been any welfare issues with the horses in Oliver Townend’s stables.”
It sounds like the sponsors are listening and at least thinking about doing the right thing. If you are feeling like you want to do something, consider messaging them and adding your opinion.
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These discussions on the forum get a discussion in this recent podcast episode (The Jon and Rick Show), fwiw: forum discussions getting some attention/criticism from the show’s hosts, including a statement that this forum needs a moderator.
Sorry – don’t know why my attempt to link to YouTube failed. [Kentucky Winner Tamie Smith then its William Fox-Pitt discussing Badminton! S4 E9 - YouTube] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH8P5IyIjZ8](http://)
Not such a fan of the fourth one either, it sounded to me like he was going to stop supporting their charity toward disabled riders? Maybe I am reading it wrong?
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That is the first thing that came to my mind. I’m really hoping it was just poorly worded and they meant they will quit donating in OTs name to the charity. Their other sponsored rider is a para dressage rider, so I’m leaning towards the statement was worded wrong.
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That’s definitely what it says but hopefully not what was meant!
Watching now. Apparently Rick doesn’t like people saying bad things about his daughter (assuming this is Elisa) so thinks COTH needs to attempt to moderate what he feels is untrue or unfair by people who he thinks don’t actually know anything.
The whole problem with this is that people on the internet get to both have opinions and be anonymous, even if they truly don’t know jack sh*t. It’s just how life works in 2023. And if you moderate one opinion, you need to moderate all of them, otherwise the publication opens itself up to lawsuits. There are also different standards for defamation of people who are considered public figures, which I’d argue team and top level riders would be classified as. So there’s no argument to be had for moderating there, either.
I have no opinions on your daughter, Rick, but Ollie Townend’s treatment of his horses at public events is atrocious and has been for a very long time. Look at Tamie hopping off Rory last year and Jennie immediately doing the same for her girl this year. And then look at the clips of Ollie at Badminton, where he was lucky not to get himself or his horse killed and apparently would have happily carried on if allowed to.
Edited to add that the interview with WFP is fantastic. Really worth a watch.
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This podcast is worth a listen. Always love Tamie and WFP’s comments were really interesting. He told it like he sees it. I did find it odd that Rick called out forum contributors for saying anything negative about his daughter. She is in the “horse public’s” eye as a professional rider, so … yes people will discuss her as well as OT, Boyd, Tamie, etc. Good and bad. Moderating forums to weed out any criticism isn’t the answer.
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I loved WFPs bit! And of course Tamie, she’s simply amazing.
I was cackling when I heard the bit about CoTH 
I think the Eventing threads are probably some of the tamest threads on the board plus a lot of people here aren’t actually anonymous to each other.
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This is worth a listen;
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Coming to this thread late, after watching this -
BTW, I hate the whole idea of a best falls and refusals compilation.
But what the holy hell happened? Even allowing that it was a “best falls” reel, that was appalling and REALLY hard to watch. Not just the exhausted horses, though there were lots, but tired riders just not holding horses together or failing to count strides, horses just completely checked out and not wanting to do the job any more.
Was it really just the ground being holding dragging down the horses?
(Agree with a statement someone made above about the frangible into the water preventing a couple of rotational falls.)
What was up with the Mars Ms? Were they late on the course?
The ground was really holding which is why the course was shortened, fences removed and others modified but the time stayed the same. The UK weather has been extremely wet since Feb, which was really dry, and the Saturday before the xc had seen really heavy and continuous rain. Had the Coronation not been happening, it is unlikely the xc would have happened. Horses were getting tired on the course which is why so many riders pulled up and called it a day, others withdrew before xc, there were faults and even some falls all over the course. However of the 30 that finished, all passed the vet check the next day. Ros Canter won by the biggest margin and she lead from the start. The cream did rise to the top. There is a large contingent of Brits and others based in the UK now heading off to Luhmuhlen for that 5*.
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Although I don’t know what the FEI portion, or taste as the Mob might put it, is, I see from their annual not terribly illuminating accounting report that they hold more than 50 million Swiss francs ($55.5 million) worth of securities, its endowment, and operate on what they call sponsorship fees/dues of about a quarter to a third of that amount.
I suspect that being based in Switzerland helps hide money that under other countries’ not-for-profit rules would have to be declared. For instance, in the US, all not-for-profit salaries over $50,000 are usually listed on publicly available documents. Those over $100k must be listed.
Mars and the other chocolate processors’ recent-ish trip to court over the use of child slaves in Mali and other African cacao-growing countries has definitely cast a shadow over the upper levels of horse sport for me.
Edited to add report. D’oh!
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