Also, this mentality doesn’t sit well with me. I understand where it’s coming from, but it also makes it harder for someone who has seen abuse to report it and be trusted.
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I accidentally caught SW’s live on TikTok. She’s having a field day with this. She said she personally hadn’t seen the video but described what she apparently was told happened in the video. She also said only 4 people have the video so how she got any insider info on it is beyond me.
After reading so many articles her story of what happened does not line up IMO. I’m not even sure I should share what she said allegedly happened but if she is right (and I hope she isn’t) it’s kinda gave me Cesar Parra vibes. She also stated that she has other videos of Charlotte doing similar things. Unless she releases those I’m not sure I believe she has them.
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If someone is bothered by what they are being asked to do, I am not saying to confront the person. It is easy to just exit stage left. Instructors have a way of teaching. If their methods don’t connect with your way of learning…the objective is not to change the trainer…it is time to change trainers.
As far as changing the message, I beg to differ. Engineers make decisions that have life/death consequenses. Being able to stand by your decisions is part of the job. This is what I teach. To have confidence in your conclusions and to stand by your decisions. Tell me how that is a bad thing.
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“Abuse” is ill-defined currently, so I’m reserving judgement. I’m in an R+ dog training group that saw the Brendan Wise bridleless jumping round that was being forwarded everywhere, and the moderator then declared that no horses needed bits – or bridles – and don’t convince them otherwise!! We live in interesting times…
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Oh please, do you SERIOUSLY want to go toe to toe with me on this? I never mentioned any physical coercion by this clinician, because there WAS none – it was mere ego infliction and thus affected only ME, not my blessed horse. I nevertheless felt sufficiently rotten about it afterward that I still remember it vividly now, 20-some years later. That said, I am also self-aware enough to freely cop to having been a weenie about it. Satisfied?
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You write in English…the word are in the dictionary…but I have no clue what you are saying.
If you want to clarify, I am willing to go toe-to-toe on whatever you want to discuss.
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And there is never, ever a moment when taken out of context, where something that you did with a horse, animal, child, etc… that would look absolutely horrible? I don’t know that anyone can honestly say that it “never” would be them. We’ve all done things we regret later.
Again, I am not making excuses for anyone, just playing devil’s advocate that ALL we have to go on is a single incident that has been made public for which we only have her PR statement and a translated article that demonstrates that the lawyer either does not know horses, or was badly translated into English.
I would never say “Wouldn’t be me” for fear that there could be a brief video that looks differently - because yanno, context and all.
I still think the timing of this is very suspect and the conspiracy theorist in me wonders what else is going on that made her apparently immediately capitulate.
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I’m married to an engineer. Trust me when I say I get when he stands by his decision. Teaching dressage riders is not a life/death situation most of the time.
I’m thinking of my BNT trainer who taught a certain way and would not deviate. Many wasted lessons in my experiences because they couldn’t change their approach. But I realized that’s ok, if it works for a certain amount of students. In my opinion, they were not a great teacher. I have had incredible instructors who were not a BNT. But for this BNT, they created some great riders/trainers. But they did not succeed with other students.
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Then you understand the concept that decisions have consequencses.
And I hope you were wise enough to change trainers.
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Come on @pluvinel, I understand actions have consequences. I also have a better understanding of people when I relate to them and realize it’s not a+b=c. Not so straightforward. My husband would agree with me.
Eventually I changed trainers. But again, I was 19 years old. Working for an Olympian. That means something. It was when I spoke to an assistant trainer (who was amazing) of the BNT, when I realized the issue wasn’t completely me,
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Third Olympic athlete hopeful with a decent shot of getting a medal eliminated due to abuse allegations within a year. Weirdest part is that CD was not on my bingo list for athletes that are suspect and there were quite a few who may not be explicitly whipping their horses in front of others, but horses move with so much tension, I can only imagine what happens behind closed doors. I personally think 23 whacks on legs once in a blue moon is a lot kinder than 20kg rein tension in each hand (you prob know who I’m talking about here) and spurs to eyeballs every single ride but to each their own.
The sport either has a training culture problem or a definition of abuse problem. Not sure which, maybe both. But here is another reality I often think about. Reinforcement training, especially early in the process, can at times require sharp corrections to be effective and diminish the strength of aids used over time to get horses to perform on almost invisible cues. And it’s not always clear how sharp or how far you need to go in the moment particularly when you may be facing a dangerous situation (probably does not apply here).
I’m not saying this to justify anyone, particularly myself, but I will say that I have had rides where an hour after I’m done I felt like I crossed the line too far and others where I probably were too timid and worsened an existing problem as a result. It’s not always easy to tell in the moment because if it was we would all be doing it.
And because we don’t tolerate a whole lot of going too strong and don’t want to be those people, there is a whole industry that addresses to consequences of not being strong enough - cowboys that do 30-60 day tune ups, harsher bits and other gadgets, drugs, online courses for behavioural issues, completely dependent students whose coaches tune up the horses weekly etc.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is not a lot of space left for a “lapse of judgment” these days, which eventually leads to fear of exercising judgment altogether which is kind of what I’ve been witnessing in the recent years. Personally, I’d rather have a horse “come to Jesus” over a few harsh sessions than it being put down or sold into a bad situation to another unsuspecting owner because it’s been allowed, heck, implicitly even rewarded for being a jerk. And I’ve seen these situations more than once around me over the years and I’ve seen a local cowboy have the horses “come to jesus” so they don’t end up at the glue factory. I don’t have an answer for where the line is but I do think we need to be a bit more forgiving on people having a lapse of judgment as long as lack of judgment is not a consistent part of their training program.
Because right now let’s be honest, what’s gonna be the takeaway here of any rational athlete that grew up in the system, learnt “what it takes” and is an olympic hopeful? No clinics, no cameras, no more candid admissions of struggles, let alone visibly upset or dangerous horses and an ultra tight security protocol at the barns. Probably more “tune up rides” at 3am behind closed doors, unknown to owners of course, harsher equipment that only looks kind from the outside, security in front of the arena at certain times. None of this is my imagination btw but practices at barns you probably have heard of.
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Everyone who knows they themselves would not have the spine to stand up for their own horse in the face of peer pressure wants to make sure society never raises that to a baseline expectation.
Rather than raising the standard for everyone they want to make sure the standards don’t get too high, or at least that they’d only ever be applied to some OTHER category of people and not themselves.
Abuse should be stopped but if abuse somehow ends up being paid for by their checkbook while they are riding they want to make sure that THEY will be totally absolved.
Don’t you just hate it when you trip and fall and end up riding your horse in an international-incident level abusive situation and then while trying to get up from this banana peel you somehow innocently write a check on top??
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I agree. If the rider is a minor I really wouldn’t blame them at all. The blame falls on the adults in the situation. That said, adults participating in the sport at all levels have a responsibility to educate themselves on humane care and treatment of horses. Then the grown-ups ups teach the children to seek education on the topic. One cannot trust a trainer unquestionably and let critical thinking and self-education go by the wayside.
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Hmmm - I also teach at a university and my husband works as an engineer in industry. Both my experience, and from his discussions about work, have demonstrated to me that the best decisions come from working to build a consensus with a team and that no one person has all the right answers all the time.
I personally like working with people who listen and take into consideration other opinions.
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19 is not a minor.
Also apparently the mother was watching.
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Well, in fairness, in this case we also have the statement by CDJ herself and a temp suspension, so, not exactly nothing with which to inform one’s opinion.
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I don’t disagree in principle. But google the concept of “groupthink” …it is very real in group dynamics.
I suggest reading up on the decision-making that led to agreeing to lauch the Challenger shuttle at temperatures that everyone agreed were lower than were considered safe.
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No, I don’t hate it because I’ve never been in that position. I have seen other riders/owners who continued to follow their trainers and write the check. I have heard of a very well known trainer abuse a stallion and the owner (who became my boss afterwards) who is very wealthy and not 100% clued write a check. The owner believed in her trainer and thought she was god’s gift to horses because she trained with very BNT, XXXX.
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And people making excuses and finding ways to be understaaaaaaanding about exactly this is why it continues.
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Interesting how the Danish team lost two riders to abuse, the German team lost Ingrid’s horse to injury, now Team GB has lost Charlotte. Another German reserve rider failed the human doping app requirements.
Certainly gives the Dutch a bit more of a leg up.
Going to be a very interesting Special/Freestyle.
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