Ben Maher punished his horse in the arena, reigning back so hard the horse fell over. Bad headlines again, UK public are disgusted with him:
Shame on you Mr. Maher. :no:
Wow some pretty harsh allegations made in that thread. Though nothing surprises me in this sport anymore. Shame, he’s a talented individual but clearly has some temper issues.
I hope that poor horse is okay. That being said, it gives me great Joy to see karma in action.
How sad. Hope the horse was okay. I’ll be interested to see what, if anything, comes out of this.
The man has neither compassion or ethics. I would hope that Jane Clark moves her horses.
that is pretty ugly and downright wrong.
That was awful. I hope that poor horse will be okay.
Funny how everyone reads the situation totally differently. My UK friend who was watching on tv and I assume had a good view (aka close up) view, saw it as a the horse having the temper tantrum. Horse is apparantely known for being “crazy” before Ben started riding it.
Though on the H&H page, there seems to be a debate on who the horse even is. Aritos or Winged something?
I won’t make a judgement on it since that video you really can’t see anything.
P.
I refuse to make judgements off a video and some accusations. You don’t have a clue if you don’t know the horse and you haven’t been in the barn.
[QUOTE=Polydor;7804403]
Funny how everyone reads the situation totally differently. My UK friend who was watching on tv and I assume had a good view (aka close up) view, saw it as a the horse having the temper tantrum. Horse is apparantely known for being “crazy” before Ben started riding it.
Though on the H&H page, there seems to be a debate on who the horse even is. Aritos or Winged something?
I won’t make a judgement on it since that video you really can’t see anything.
P.[/QUOTE]
From the video it didn’t look like the horse had the big tantrum. Even if it did, Ben Maher is experienced enough to know that yanking back on the reins is not a good idea, particularly after the horse has already started to rear.
I didn’t read the thread and not commenting one way or another on Ben Maher, but it is pretty hard to make an accurate judgment of the situation based on a tiny, pixelated video shot on a phone from the nosebleed section. You definitely see what appears to be a hard take back on the reins when the horse first stops, but I don’t think I can be convinced beyond a doubt he kept pulling and sat that horse down without a better video or having been there.
[QUOTE=SnicklefritzG;7804521]
From the video it didn’t look like the horse had the big tantrum. Even if it did, Ben Maher is experienced enough to know that yanking back on the reins is not a good idea, particularly after the horse has already started to rear.[/QUOTE]
Ben is not yanking as the horse starts to rear. Stop the video at :45. Ben has his arms forward, and this is before the horse rears.
[QUOTE=sixteenhands;7804601]
Ben is not yanking as the horse starts to rear. Stop the video at :45. Ben has his arms forward, and this is before the horse rears.[/QUOTE]
Although the video is poor quality, this is how I saw it as well. Ben pulled back initially but it was the horse that continued to back and then rear. Everyone is so quick to make accusations of cruelty but I don’t think an outsider can make a judgment based solely on this grainy video.
Add in the fact that what we can see from the ground is often very different from what the rider can feel happening and about to happen underneath them.
Its rarely clear cut, we all should know that
Looking at the video? I can’t see enough detail through the fuzz to tell what the heck Ben is doing. I know the horse stopped, started to surge forward and was checked sharply from the body angle change but its impossible to see what the rider is doing from the point that the horse starts running backward to the balance loss and fall.
[QUOTE=Polydor;7804403]
Funny how everyone reads the situation totally differently. My UK friend who was watching on tv and I assume had a good view (aka close up) view, saw it as a the horse having the temper tantrum. Horse is apparantely known for being “crazy” before Ben started riding it.
Though on the H&H page, there seems to be a debate on who the horse even is. Aritos or Winged something?
I won’t make a judgement on it since that video you really can’t see anything.
P.[/QUOTE]
Aristo Z is a chestnut. This is Wings Sublieme.
I think the horse overreacted to the refusal, was checked (and yes, checked hard) by Ben, overreacted to that, and ran backward. I don’t think Ben was being abusive.
But I wasn’t there, so I dunno. All I know is I’ve seen Ben ride a lot. In person. And he is usually one cool customer on the back of a horse with no signs of having a “temper.”
to add - you don’t know what the footing is like - if the footing is like some of the footing they use when they change these facilities from an ice rink to a basketball court to a horse show - the footing can sometimes be slick/slippery which may have been a factor in the horse going down?
There are some people posting on horse and hound that were there in person as well and to them it looked like an overreaction on BM part. Who knows though. This is a pretty big show in England isn’t it? There should be a clearer video somewhere. Surely there was a live stream going or something.
For what it’s worth, it looks like there was a person on the ground in front of the horse (once it turned away from the fence). Might explain why Ben pulled so hard.
I think it’s too hard to see to pass judgement.
