Did it go there first or to the press? I’m uncertain of the order of events.
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My horses like cardboard boxes. I fill them with hay, and sprinkle treats and oats inside of them. They enjoy rifling through the boxes, getting the oats, and one of my horses really enjoys flinging the boxes.
They also love playing with cones in the paddock. And one of my horses loves pulling the t-post caps on that are on one section of fence (I dutifully put them back on every day). He just loves popping them off and will go down the line and pop them all off then he leaves the fence alone. No idea.
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As far as I can guesstimate, FEI/British governing body first based on post 1 of this thread. CDJ made her announcement after finding out. That’s when the press made their appearance.
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If this had come out a year ago, it wouldn’t have gotten any news coverage outside of horse related publications.
It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any follow up coverage during the Olympics. Equestrian events aren’t Olympic headliners. I’m sure Steffen Peters will get some US mainstream media coverage revisiting his Snoop Dog “Rave Horse” fame. Will that include a discussion of horse abuse?
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The lawyer said the rider is not his client, isn’t that correct? His client was the one filming it (which may or may not be this Alicia Dickinson person).
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I understood that CD had questionable aggressive behavior in the warmups at shows and the TDs looked the other way, much the way they do for hyperflexion and blue tongues. If she had received a yellow card or something at a show, it might have started causing her to check her behavior. Same as many others. I don’t know how the TDs are protected for reporting–they should be insured by the FEI for official acts. There is a lot of effort put into keeping the status quo and so much money is wrapped up in it. I feel like Charlotte is just one of many examples of the broken system. What we really need to do is get beyond talking about Charlotte and coalescing on what we want to fix the broken system. Once it becomes fully exposed as to how these horses at the top are being manufactured, no one will want to watch it. Our organizations have a vested interest in course correcting.
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I think someone informed us on another thread that TDs are left entirely to their own devices and if they report a rider/trainer who is litigious/relatiatory, they have nothing to fall back on. Which seems insane. Maybe I’m misremembering though?
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As far as I understand. I’ve read too much on this after a tough week at work, but if memory serves, his client took the video, but I’m willing to be corrected after yesterdays brain frying tender closing. Isn’t Alicia Dickinson a bit older than 19?
Srsly? You realize she probably doesn’t see many, if any of her messages/posts and has a PR company running the whole SM show, right?
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Were I advising her, I’d tell her to not be on SM.
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So what? She can send her a nice message if she wants. CDJ can read it if she wants.
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You said ‘the 19 year olds lawyer got it to the FEI’ and I was just saying, I don’t think the 19 year old was involved in the complaint in any way. It was the spectator who was the whistleblower, not the teen rider.
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From the FEI rulebook: “If an Abuse is witnessed during or in direct connection with an Event, it should be reported as a Protest (Article 161) to an Official. If the Abuse is witnessed at any other time it should be reported as a Protest (Article 161) to the Secretary General who, following a review of the Protest, shall take a Decision as to whether or not to refer the matter to the FEI Tribunal… Protests concerning an abuse of Horse may be lodged by any person or body.”
So sounds like you can contact the secretary general’s office directly: https://inside.fei.org/fei/about-fei/structure/fei-headquarters/secretary-general. Every FEI employee’s email is on their website, you could also contact the manager of horse welfare and ask how to proceed/lodge a protest. Or you could contact general counsel or regulations at USEF / your NGB, tell them you’d like to submit a protest to the FEI and they should be able to help liase or point you in the right direction.
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The lawyer is the one who said the submitter of the video is 19 years old. Guess he could be lying though or a really bad translation, though most Dutch people I know speak pretty fluent english.
Oh, no, my mistake! I missed that entirely. I thought he said it was the spectator.
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I thought I read that the submitter wasn’t the rider but instead the sponsor of the clinic. Now I’m totally confused.
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USA Today just published an article about horse abuse in dressage training. It also cited the Andrea’s Helgstrand and Cesar Parra abuse videos. It’s a surprisingly good article. It explains the fine line between acceptable training methods and abuse.
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Because of this, I would just as soon horse sports disappear from the Olympics. This ‘horse dancing’. Just too complicated to explain. Maybe show jumping…that is not hard for the non-horse person to understand but dressage…no.
Susan
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Absolutely not. As is, the video was a 1 minute clip edited to loop twice. If there was more/worse, it would be out there.
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Again, let me be clear: I believe more the session was filmed like many of us do - film a session with a coach so we can watch it back later.
There was this minute of the abuse within that longer recording of the session. If there was other abuse in the session it would have been included in the complaint.
What is so hard to understand about this one minute of abuse being a clip from a much longer recording of the whole lesson?
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