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British Show Jumping Controversy

Smiling wasn’t mentioned in the post you replied to. I thought his comments were unpleasant myself. Reminds me of some hockey parents I’ve met.

Amanda Derbyshire; https://data.fei.org/Person/Performance.aspx?p=BAB317AA462B504618B15FAEECB7BD8A

Ronnie Masarella was chef d’equipe for the senior GB SJ Team for 36 years and a big part of the reason why women did not take part. (he didn’t want them) He was part of the Yorkshire old boys group, which included the Whitakers, and Harvey Smith.

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Apropos of nothing, sweet Jebus is that dude annoying!

Didn’t he have a daughter in high performance ranks or am I thinking of Drummond-Hay

I took this in the Hamilton sense, as in “talk less, smile more,” and while that probably wouldn’t correlate to his daughter’s performance on the world stage, it might make him a more sympathetic character…

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Err no - I think he had 4 boys. He is said to have put one woman on a team once. Her father owned the House of Fraser and he wanted to get his ice cream in all their shops. (His business was Mr Softee Ice Cream) He owned David Broome’s ride of the same name.

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:woman_facepalming:

Did he get his ice cream contract?

Yup.
I misremembered though. It was Hugh Fraser’s wife, not his daughter;

“He was also chef d’equipe of the British showjumping team from 1969-2000. One of his team during the 1970s was gifted showjumper Aileen Ross, second wife of retail magnate Sir Hugh Fraser, a connection that won Massarella a lucrative deal to have outlets in more than 50 branches of House of Fraser.”

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Thanks.

I’ll say it again. :woman_facepalming:

Different times. No women in Horse Racing, Soccer, Motor Racing, Cricket, Rugby etc
ALL different now though.

Still no WMLB, WNFL ?

I don’t know if Moffitt should have been named reserve over Charles in this case. I wouldn’t think the spread in rankings alone necessarily points to one over another, especially given the strange year. I’ve watched her but not him, so I don’t feel equipped to judge.

BUT unsympathetic dad aside, I do find it discouraging how blatantly political team selections often are. It’s not unusual to have one rider unofficially “run” a team, automatically ensuring their own students/associates are chosen over other riders with better performances. The Australians are having this discussion now following their debacle. Irish had it a couple years ago, and I’ve heard grumblings in Canada. I don’t know about the Brits but their failure to name any women in decades does point to some kind of old guard.

I don’t think purely numeric selections are the answer, but I also don’t think it’s wrong to ask for some defined criteria and some transparency. I can’t think of any other sport where that isn’t the case.

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The days of Ronnie Massarella are thankfully past - the lack of women caused comment all through his tenure and I think it harmed British Showjumping on the longer term.

Any team selection, in any sport, is political as people care, passionately.

Little Miss Moffitt at the Europeans;

It was a speed class. Was she just slow or lots of faults converted?

H&H report;
Yesterday.
The pair, who were shortlisted for the Tokyo Olympics last month, followed Georgia Tame’s solid opening round for Team GB. The Poden Farms-owned 12-year-old Winningmood gelding Winning Good, known at home as “Winnie”, looked full of beans and never quite settled into the job in hand. The gelding hit three fences in all, adding 12 points to the pair’s time to produce a score of 87.90. The pair currently sit in 32nd position individually."

Today.
“The 12-year-old Winningmood gelding was fighting for his head round Frank Rothenberger’s 1.60m track, but Emily did well to hold him together in the lovely turf arena at Ludger Beerbaum’s Riesenbeck base. Adding four penalties to yesterday’s individual score of 8.12 gave Emily a total after day two of 12.12.”

Not sure of the intricacies of Championship Jump scoring.

https://www.longinestiming.com/equestrian/2021/longines-fei-jumping-european-championship-2021-riesenbeck